Man who killed child set to be executed
Posted on 01/15/2003 2:09:44 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
Man who killed child set to be executed
01/15/2003
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Arturo Marines remembers going to bed after eating pizza and drinking milk with his 5-year-old daughter, Adriana, who remained curled up on the family's couch with her cousin to watch a fairy tale: "Sleeping Beauty."
Shortly after falling asleep, the father awoke to the sound of the front door of his Corpus Christi home being kicked in, then gunshots. He held his daughter's lifeless body. It was a nightmare, Arturo Marines says.
But he hopes to close one chapter on Wednesday night when he witnesses the scheduled execution of John Baltazar, the man convicted in 1998 of killing his daughter.
AP John Baltazar |
"My first reaction was to bring Adriana to the light and that's when we noticed she had been shot in the head," Marines remembered Tuesday night of the 1997 shootings by Baltazar, who says he was drunk and on a mission to find his mother's boyfriend, who had reportedly beat her.
"I didn't intentionally nor knowingly kill this child," Baltazar said last week from death row. "It was accidental."
Baltazar's scheduled execution would be the second of 2003, during a month in which five other people are set to die after Tuesday night's lethal injection of 31-year-old Samuel Gallamore. He was condemned for the beating and stabbing deaths of a partially paralyzed woman, her husband and daughter in Kerr County in 1992.
Baltazar, 30, says he remembers shooting Arturo Marines, but had no idea he shot the two girls. Adriana Marines died from two bullet wounds to her head. Her 10-year-old cousin, Vanessa Marines, survived a gunshot to her chest, but the bullet remains lodged near her spine more than five years later.
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"That was no accident. An accident is when you step on somebody's foot," Arturo Marines said. "I don't believe shooting innocent children, or for that matter, anybody, is an accident."
Baltazar was looking for Arturo Marines' brother-in-law, Narciso "Ted" Cuellar, who had moved out of the family's home a week earlier. Cuellar had previously been sleeping on the couch where his two young nieces nestled on the night of Sept. 27, 1997 to watch the movie.
"He kicked the door in and just started shooting," Arturo Marines said of Baltazar. "He was executioner. He was judge and jury for my daughter all in one evening."
Until that night, Arturo Marines said he didn't believe in the death penalty. Now, he says he feels compelled to witness Baltazar's scheduled execution.
"He turned my whole life inside out," Arturo Marines said. "I feel as a parent I need to be there."
Baltazar, who was paroled from prison just two months before the shootings, said he feels bad about killing Adriana Marines and wounding her cousin, but doesn't regret shooting Arturo Marines.
"He jumped up and he was in my face," Baltazar said. "That's why he got shot."
Arturo Marines says he was in shock and didn't even realize a bullet had hit him in the jaw and another in his neck.
"I knew I had blood all over my chest. I just didn't know where it was coming from," he said. "You never expect these kinds of things to happen, especially with your doors locked."
Baltazar, however, maintains he did what he had to do.
"I've been locked up most of my life," he said. "There ain't too much I can say about it."
Before the shootings, Baltazar had pleaded guilty in 1994 to a felony burglary charge and a felony unauthorized use of a motor vehicle charge. In 1992, he also had served time for to two earlier burglary charges.
Between 1989 and 1993, Baltazar pleaded either guilty or no contest to 10 misdemeanor charges, including four charges of marijuana possession, three charges of evading detention and a theft charge.
"I already knew that if I was found guilty that I was going to death row, simply because of my prior convictions," Baltazar said of the jury's guilty verdict and the death sentence it later handed down on March 11, 1998. "You can't find someone not to be a continuing threat to society with the record that I have."
Last year, Texas executed 33 people. Gallamore was the 290th person executed since Texas reinstated the death penalty in 1982.
Baltazar said he isn't afraid to die but thinks his crime isn't one he should be paying for with his life.
"I'm not one to sidestep or shy away from my actions," he said. "Every thing I have ever been down for, if I'm guilty, I admit to my guilt. But I don't think being put to death for an accidental killing is right."
Arturo Marines, meanwhile, says he hopes the carrying out of Baltazar's punishment will finally help his family to heal.
"I'm just glad it is going to be over," he said. "Hopefully after this, everyone can go on with their lives.
"This is the end of the book."
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Texas Department of Criminal Justice |
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Name |
TDCJ Number |
Date of Birth |
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Baltazar, John Richard |
999257 |
5/9/72 |
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Date Received |
Age (when Received) |
Education Level (Highest Grade Completed) |
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3/13/98 |
25 |
9 years |
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Date of Offense |
Age (at the time of Offense) |
County |
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9/27/97 |
25 |
Nueces |
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Race |
Gender |
Hair Color |
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Hispanic |
Male |
Black |
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Height |
Weight |
Eye Color |
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5-11 |
155 |
Brown |
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Native County |
Native State |
Prior Occupation |
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Nueces |
Texas |
Laborer |
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Prior Prison Record |
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Received 10/1/92 at Nueces County Jail for 5 years on one count of burglary of a habitation and burglary of a building, released 4/14/93 under parole in absentia. TDCJ #682815, received 9/9/94 out of Nueces County, on an 8 year sentence for burglary of a building and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, released on mandatory supervision to Nueces County on 7/22/97. |
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Summary of incident |
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On 09/27/1997, Baltazar and one co-defendant kicked in the front door of a Corpus Christi home and began shooting. A five year old Hispanic female was struck by two bullets, causing her death. Another female and a male in the residence were struck by bullets, but survived the wounds. |
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Co-defendants |
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Johnny Gonzales |
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Race and Gender of Victim |
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Hispanic female |
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Photograph of Offender |
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Last Updated: August 30, 2001
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Yeah, I accidentally shot that baby in the head -- twice.
Fry him.
"He jumped up and he was in my face," Baltazar said. "That's why he got shot."
They can't put this m**********r down painfully or slowly enough to satisfy me.
"He jumped up and he was in my face," Baltazar said. "That's why he got shot."
In England, they'd agree with him.
I'd pull the switch myself.
Additionally, this guy knows Mexicans and Presidente Fox would have asked for his pardon if he had been bribed. Where is the fairness?
I do miss the electric chair, however. Then you could know that another killer had gone to hell by the dimming of the lights. Now, the only sound is that of the anti-death penalty protesters pissing on the graves of the victims. Buh-bye Johnny, say "hello" to FDR, Wellstone and the other dems.
Christmas Time In Hell
Performed By Satan, The Dark Prince
Satan: Well I tell you what,
Maybe we'll have ourselves a little Christmas, right here.
C'mon everyone, gather `round!
String up the lights and light up the tree
We're going to make some revelry
Spirits are high, so I can tell
It's Christmas time in hell!
Demons are nicer as you pass them by
There's lots of demon toys to buy
The snow is falling and all is well
It's Christmas time in hell!
There goes Jeffery Dahmer,
With a festive Christmas ham
After he has sex with it,
He'll eat up all he can.
Buh-bye Johnny, say "hello" to FDR, Wellstone and the other dems.
I wish more states would follow this example.
Actually, I always thought that the gas chamber was more efficient, though the gas used should have been nitrogen rather than a poisonous gas. Should particular torment be deserved, as in this case, there'd not even be a need for any gas at all to be used, or carbon dioxide could be pumped in to displace all oxygen, with the usual symptoms of suffocation rather than the simple sleepy unconsciousness delivered by nitrogen.
Of course, cruel and unusual punishments are constitutionally prohibited, so either we'd have to just utilize the more humane nitrogen sleep, or exercise the equipment often enough so that there'd be nothing particularly unusual about it.
Alternately, I sort of favor placing those like Baltazar in a cement mixer along with a few bowling balls and cement blocks. And after a while, the thing can be flushed with a load of cement, just to be certain. But I suppose that's too much to ask.
-archy-/-
Before the shootings, Baltazar had pleaded guilty in 1994 to a felony burglary charge and a felony unauthorized use of a motor vehicle charge. In 1992, he also had served time for to two earlier burglary charges.
Between 1989 and 1993, Baltazar pleaded either guilty or no contest to 10 misdemeanor charges, including four charges of marijuana possession, three charges of evading detention and a theft charge.
Baltazar is just another worthless piece of scum that nobody is going to miss, except maybe his mommy.
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