Convicted killer with U.S.-British citizenship set to die
Posted on 02/03/2003 3:42:06 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
Convicted killer with U.S.-British citizenship set to die
02/03/2003
LIVINGSTON, Texas - John Elliott already was a convicted murderer and burglar but was out of prison on early release and on probation when he was arrested for participating in a gang rape and then using a chain to fatally beat an 18-year-old Austin woman.
"If that happened today, what kind of firestorm would there have been in the media?" Juan Gonzales, an Austin homicide sergeant in 1986 who investigated the slaying of Joyce Munguia, said Monday. "He had no business being out in society again, at least not so soon."
Elliott was scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday, but any firestorm over his impending death, which would be the seventh lethal injection in Texas this year, was coming from Great Britain where Elliott was born in 1960 and where his father was stationed at an American air base.
AP John Elliott |
Elliott's birth in England gave him dual citizenship and death penalty opponents in Britain, where capital punishment was outlawed in 1965, were rallying to the inmate's defense.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked Gov. Rick Perry on behalf of Elliott and 134 ministers of Parliament signed a House of Commons motion demanding clemency for Elliott, 42. Streams of British reporters have been to Texas death row to see Elliott, who declined to speak with reporters from news organizations based in the United States, where his case has attracted little notice in the nation's busiest execution state.
"I've gotten more support from people in Britain that I ever got here," Elliott, whose family returned to the United States when he was 6 months old, told BBC Radio.
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"It was something I was always proud of," he said of his British citizenship. "I guess because it made me different."
At least two other British citizens condemned for murder have been executed in the United States in recent years, both in Georgia.
An appeal seeking review of Elliott's case was before the U.S. Supreme Court, which almost nine years ago denied a similar request. Other motions to delay the execution were before a state judge in Austin and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles was considering the request for clemency. Its recommendation would be made to Perry.
Elliott said while he was at the rape, he was not responsible for the woman's death and claimed he was set up.
Evidence at his trial showed Munguia, mother of an infant, was waiting at a bus stop and was engaged in conversation with a group of men at a nearby house, then went with them. She and the men, including Elliott, over the next few hours drank beer and liquor and took cocaine. She subsequently had sex with one of the men.
According to a witness, she later began crying, was disoriented and asked for help to walk home. Witnesses said Elliott followed her, then carried her under a railroad bridge where he and two other men raped her. When she announced she was going to the police, Elliott beat her with his belt made from a chrome-plated chain, hitting her 16 times on the head and eight in the face, according to testimony.
Police found blood on his clothing matched Munguia's blood. His shoe prints were at the murder scene. The two other men, who insisted they did not take part in the slaying, pleaded guilty to rape charges. One received a 10-year prison term, the other 15 years. Elliott got death.
"He was the main one, the ringleader," said Gonzalez, now a patrol commander in the Austin police department, who added that Eliott never raised the issue of his British birth.
Elliott told the BBC he was the victim of zealous prosecutors who would "take certain facts and stretch them. ... The life I led made it easy for them to do that. I should have led a different life but it's hard for me to go back."
In 1982, he went to prison for killing a man in a bar brawl. He was convicted again in 1984 of attempted burglary. But in an era when Texas prisons were overcrowded because of a space shortage, he was released under mandatory supervision after only 41/2 months of his eight-year sentence for murder, then received probation for the burglary.
"He was cool, collected and had no remorse," Gonzalez said, recalling the arrest. "It didn't bother him. He knew what his rights were. He didn't even say anything. ... He wasn't going to say much at all. He'd been down the road before. He knew what to say and what not to say.
"He didn't say: 'On no, I didn't do it.' He was just too cool."
Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice
Heads up, folks...
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my United Kingdom ping list!. . .don't be shy. 
Regards, Ivan
This deserved pointing out.
This deserved pointing out.
They weren't overcrowded. They just didn't meet the standards for a five star hotel that a Democrat appointee federal judge required.
Regards, Ivan
Is that a common Hispanic name in Texas?
Different, huh? A bit unusual. Another murderer that Texas will send up for judgment...
I know - offer to trade him for Tony Martin!
You'll be gratified to know the Gov doesn't have the power to grant clemency - only one 30 day stay.
This predator will not kill again.
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