- Source: Murder of Escolastica Harrison
On September 5, 1998, at Brownsville, Texas, an 85-year-old elderly woman named Escolastica Cuellar Harrison (February 10, 1913 – September 5, 1998) was robbed and murdered by a group of three men, who stabbed her 13 times with two screwdrivers and stole her money, and Harrison died from her injuries. Through police investigations, all three robbers were arrested, but before the trial process, one of them, Pedro Gracia, absconded while out on bail and he remains on the run till today.
The remaining two murderers still held in custody, Ruben Gutierrez and Rene Garcia, were both tried for capital murder and convicted in 1999; Garcia was sentenced to life in prison while Gutierrez was sentenced to death. Throughout the subsequent years on death row, Gutierrez maintained his innocence and stated that he never killed Harrison in spite of his confession to the robbery, and he is currently appealing against the death sentence. Gutierrez was nearly executed several times before his execution was delayed by appeals in relation to his claims of innocence and other issues.
Background of victim
Escolastica Cuellar, later known in life as Escolastica Harrison after her marriage, was born in Texas on February 10, 1913. Harrison, a Hispanic-American, has worked as a schoolteacher and mainly taught third grade at Cromack Elementary, which was located in one of the poorest parts of Brownsville. Her husband Robert Harrison died in 1991.
According to sources, most of Harrison's students were children of migrant workers, and as a native Spanish speaker, Harrison often guided her students in learning the English language the right way as she prioritise on enunciation. Harrison was well respected for her care for the welfare of the students under her wing, as well as her drive to ensure they be successful in life.
According to people who knew her, Harrison was not only a good mentor figure to her students, but also a pillar of the community who often showed kindness and cared for people around her. Harrison and her husband were known to rent a trailer park for people to live in, most of whom were immigrants from Mexico, and she often helped her tenants by offering advice, repairs and occasionally bought diapers to needy families, and she earned the respect and love of the tenants. Alex Hernandez, her nephew and godson, described Harrison as a giver who often repaid the community and she also went out fishing with Hernandez and brought fun to him during summers.
Murder
Prior to her murder in 1998, Escolastica Harrison resided with her nephew Avel Cuellar in her house at Brownsville, and Cuellar often helped her around the house. It was during the same year she was murdered, when Harrison first met a Hispanic man named Ruben Gutierrez, a friend of Cuellar who would become one of the three murderers responsible for Harrison's death.
Gutierrez, a native of Florida and security guard of a South Padre Island resort, was then a 21-year-old married father of two children, and Gutierrez, who was 17 when he married his then pregnant wife, had went to Harrison's house to socialise and drink with Harrison and her nephew and other friends, and helped Harrison regularly with errands. A psychiatric report showed that Gutierrez grew up in a dysfunctional family background, with his brother and Gutierrez himself often being abused by their father, and Gutierrez, who was reportedly addicted to drugs at the age of 13, was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of childhood abuse.
According to sources, Gutierrez hatched a plan to rob Harrison after acquiring the knowledge of the elderly woman having a total of US$600,000 in cash in her possession, which was due to her mistrust of banks. The plan was eventually carried out on September 5, 1998, when Gutierrez and two more men – 21-year-old Rene Garcia and 33-year-old Pedro Gracia Garza, Jr. (better known as Pedro Gracia) – teamed up together to intrude Harrison's house and rob the woman of her money.
While Gracia waited outside the house in the trio's getaway vehicle, both Gutierrez and Garcia entered the home of Harrison, and upon entry, the two men attacked Harrison, who was present at home at the time, and assaulted the elderly woman. The duo also used screwdrivers to stab Harrison around 13 times, and 85-year-old Escolastica Cuellar Harrison died due to "massive blows to the left side of her face". Before leaving the house, both Garcia and Gutierrez left the house with about US$56,000 in cash.
Investigations
Late in the night of September 5, 1998, the body of Escolastica Harrison was discovered by her nephew Avel Cuellar, who returned home to find her lying face down in a pool of blood, and her bedroom being ransacked. An autopsy report found that the stab wounds were the cause of death, and the medical examiner confirmed that two different screwdrivers were being used in the stabbing, and the victim also sustained defensive wounds.
The police classified the case as murder, and they investigated the case to trace and collect information. The police received testimony from Harrison's nephew and two other drinking partners of Harrison and Gutierrez that they last seen Gutierrez at the trailer park on the date of the murder.
Gutierrez eventually turned up at a police station for questioning four days after Harrison's murder, and while he initially tried to deny that he was at the trailer park prior to the murder, Gutierrez eventually confessed that he had a part in the robbery and murder but denied killing Harrison, and stated it was Rene Garcia who stayed behind while he himself left the house while Harrison was still alive. The arrest of Gutierrez led to the arrests of his two accomplices, and together, all three accused were charged with murder.
One of the suspects, Pedro Gracia, was granted bail before his trial as he had cooperated with the police and had expressed his intention to testify against the other two perpetrators. However, in June 1999, Gracia had absconded while out on bail and did not turn up for a pre-trial court hearing, and hence he was placed on the police's wanted list. He remains on the run as of today. The disappearance of Gracia left both Rene Garcia and Ruben Gutierrez as the remaining suspects in custody for the murder of Escolastica Harrison.
Trial of Rene Garcia and Ruben Gutierrez
While Pedro Gracia remains at large for the murder of Escolastica Harrison, both his accomplices Ruben Gutierrez and Rene Garcia were separately tried in April and June 1999 respectively for the case. The charge preferred against both men was capital murder, an offence that warranted either the death penalty or a life sentence under Texas state law.
Gutierrez, who was the first out of the killers to stand trial, was found guilty of murdering Harrison in April 1999. A month after his conviction, on May 12, 1999, after two days of deliberation, a 12-member jury of a state Texas Court sentenced Gutierrez to death.
Rene Garcia, the second suspect to stand trial, reached a plea bargain with the prosecution, who agreed to take the death penalty off the table. Garcia was convicted of capital murder after pleading guilty, and sentenced to life imprisonment on June 1, 1999. Garcia, who was previously convicted of burglary in 1994 and served a seven-year jail term, was eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 40 years behind bars and his earliest parole eligibility date was September 12, 2038. He is currently serving his life sentence at W.J. Estelle Unit in Huntsville.
Gutierrez's appeals
After his sentencing in 1999, Gutierrez appealed against his death sentence and murder conviction. Throughout his appeal process, Gutierrez maintained his innocence and stated that he never killed Escolastica Harrison despite admitting to his part in the robbery.
Gutierrez's first appeal was dismissed in 2002 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Gutierrez's second appeal was rejected in 2008.
On 2010, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a third appeal from Gutierrez, whose lawyers sought to have a DNA testing to ascertain his involvement in the murder and prove whether he was present at the scene. A subsequent appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was rejected in 2011.
In 2014, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Gutierrez's appeal.
Execution attempts of Gutierrez
By 2018, Ruben Gutierrez has exhausted all avenues of appeal against the death sentence. His execution had been scheduled for at least six times but ultimately staved off due to legal reasons. He remains on death row as of 2024.
= 2018
=Gutierrez's death sentence was originally scheduled to be carried out on September 12, 2018, after a death warrant was approved in April 2018 in his case.
On August 30, 2018, a senior federal judge granted a stay of execution in light of Gutierrez's change of attorney and a pending legal motion.
= 2019
=On May 2, 2019, a second death warrant was released for Gutierrez, re-scheduling his execution to take place on July 31, 2019. However, it was delayed for presumed legal reasons.
Another death warrant was given later that same year, re-scheduling Gutierrez's execution date as October 30, 2019. However, on October 11, 2019, 19 days before the tentative execution date, a clerical error resulted in a stay of execution.
The stay order was eventually overturned in February 2020 after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected another appeal from Gutierrez for post-conviction DNA testing to prove his claims of innocence.
= 2020
=Shortly after his failed bid for a post-conviction DNA test in February 2020, Gutierrez's execution was once again scheduled to be carried out on June 16, 2020.
Gutierrez's appeal was heard on June 9, 2020, and a stay of execution was granted to Gutierrez after a federal judge found there was merit in Gutierrez's grounds of appeal when he sought time to undergo post-conviction DNA testing to prove his arguments of innocence. Gutierrez also earlier sought to postpone his execution due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, on June 13, 2020, three days after the order was released, it was vacated by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the scheduled execution of Gutierrez would move forward again.
Ultimately, on June 16, 2020, an hour before Gutierrez was supposed to be executed, his execution was put on hold due to an appeal that challenged a new policy of banning chaplains of any religion from accompanying the convict in an execution chamber.
A further review was ordered in January 2021 to assess Gutierrez's case; U.S. District Judge Hilda G. Tagle further ruled in favour of Gutierrez and stated he should be entitled to post-conviction DNA testing in March 2021.
= 2021
=In June 2021, Gutierrez's execution date was scheduled for the fifth time, and he was set to be executed on October 27, 2021.
On September 16, 2021, the execution was delayed once again, as Gutierrez appealed on the grounds that the state breached his right to religious freedom by not permitting his spiritual adviser to lay hands on him at the time of his execution.
= 2024
=Three years after the postponement of Gutierrez's execution, a fresh death warrant was issued for the sixth time for Gutierrez on April 16, 2024, scheduling his execution to take place on July 17, 2024. After this, Gutierrez appealed once more to seek a stay of execution, stating that he should be given a DNA testing to prove his innocence. His lawyers argued that the multiple specimens of evidence, including the nail scrapings extracted from Harrison, a loose hair wrapped around one of her fingers and various blood samples from the interior of her house, were untested and it might be crucial to ascertain whether he was innocent of the crime.
On July 17, 2024, about 20 minutes before the scheduled timing of Gutierrez's execution, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Gutierrez a stay of execution to allow him more time to argue about the validity of his conviction and his request for DNA testing to corroborate his arguments of innocence.
Legal experts noted that with reference to Gutierrez's case, it was an unusual outcome in view of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court rarely granted a stay of execution at the 11th hour before a death sentence was set to be carried out. In response to the stay of execution, the victim's nephew Alex Hernandez was devastated at the turn of events as he desperately wanted closure and the postponement of Gutierrez's execution prolonged his sadness and pain of losing his aunt to someone she befriended.
On October 4, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court had scheduled a hearing to review the case of Gutierrez. The prosecution had responded to the motion that Gutierrez's request for DNA tests was a tactical ploy to delay his execution and delay tactic and pointed out that there were other evidence to substantiate Gutierrez's conviction, including his admission to the planning of the robbery and his presence at the time of the murder.
See also
Capital punishment in Texas
List of death row inmates in Texas