The state of Texas executed Ivan Abner Cantu, a 50-year-old Dallas native who maintained his innocence and garnered support from celebrities asking for his life to be spared, on Wednesday evening.
“I can’t say for sure that he’s innocent; but I can’t say for sure that he’s guilty,” Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of the anti-capital punishment organization Death Penalty Action, said during an online vigil Wednesday for Cantu. “There’s just too much doubt.”
Cantu’s case drew the attention of celebrities Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen, as well as U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), all of whom supported Cantu.
Despite mounting doubts about his guilt, Cantu was executed at 6:47 Central time on Wednesday in Huntsville by lethal injection, in a small room known as the death chamber, with its seafoam-green walls and gurney with restraints.
The facts
- Cantu was found guilty of capital murder on Oct. 16, 2001, after the jury deliberated for more than nine hours, the Dallas Morning News reported at the time.
- Cantu’s execution was most recently stayed in April. At that time, two of the jurors who convicted Cantu had submitted declarations with doubts about the case.
- On Tuesday, both the Texas appeals court and a federal appeals court denied Cantu’s requests for a stay.
- On Wednesday, Cantu’s attorney, Gena Bunn, said she would not submit a final appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
What was Ivan Cantu convicted of?
Cantu was convicted in 2001 of shooting and killing his cousin, 27-year-old James Mosqueda, and Mosqueda’s fiancée, 22-year-old Amy Kitchen, at their North Dallas home on Nov. 4, 2000.
Prosecutors claim Cantu killed the pair while trying to steal drugs and cash from Mosqueda, who was a drug dealer, and Kitchen. Cantu has claimed that a rival drug dealer killed the two over money.
Why did Cantu’s attorneys say he shouldn’t be executed?
Amy Boettcher, Cantu’s girlfriend at the time, testified that he stole and later got rid of Mosqueda’s Rolex, but Cantu’s attorney said the watch was later found by Mosqueda’s family. (The watch was photographed by private investigator Matt Duff, who has since released a podcast about the case, “Cousins by Blood.”) Boettcher also told jurors that Cantu proposed to her the night of the killings with an engagement ring he stole from Kitchen, but Cantu’s attorney wrote in court filings that witnesses claim the couple had announced their engagement and showed off the ring a week before the killings.
Boettcher also testified that Cantu threw his bloodied clothes inside a trash can on the night of the killings. Yet, Cantu’s attorneys have long questioned that claim — saying in court records that a police officer who went to the apartment the next day had not seen the clothes, which were not discovered until several days later.
In 2009, testing on the clothing could not conclusively show that Cantu’s DNA was on them.
Jeff Boettcher, Amy’s brother, testified that Cantu had said he planned to kill Mosqueda. But Jeff Boettcher told a district attorney investigator in 2022 that he “lied” and, according to court documents, was not a credible witness because of his history of drug abuse.
Defense attorneys wrote that prosecutors “failed to disclose impeachment evidence that could have been used to impugn the credibility” of Amy Boettcher, who at the time attorneys said admitted to being a daily drug user. Attorneys also argue that her brother Jeff’s admission he lied on the stand means Cantu was denied due process.
What did the district attorney say?
Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis shared a photo of Mosqueda and Kitchen in a statement posted to X after the execution. In it were six bullet points that he said represented “clear and powerful evidence” that Cantu was guilty.
“After over two decades of multiple state and federal courts comprehensively reviewing his conviction, Ivan Cantu has finally met with justice tonight,” Willis wrote. “My hopeful prayer is for the victims’ families, friends, and loved ones to find a long-awaited sense of peace.”
What were activists and jurors saying?
Kardashian, who has taken to clemency work in recent years, pushed for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to issue a 30-day reprieve for Cantu.
“Urge him to use his power to allow time for new evidence in Ivan’s case to be evaluated, lest Texas execute a wrongfully convicted man,” she tweeted Wednesday to her 75 million followers.
Sheen and anti-capital-punishment activist Sister Helen Prejean appeared on CNN to make their case for saving Cantu.
Sheen said he was convinced of Cantu’s innocence from a YouTube video featuring Duff. “It’s critical that we get a stay for Ivan and that the truth come out. It can save his life and even exonerate him,” Sheen said.
Prejean said Cantu had a “miserable, abysmal defense” in 2001. She called on Abbott to issue a pause to look into Cantu’s case.
“He’s the safety valve in all this,” she said of Abbott.
Jeff Calhoun, foreman of the jury that convicted Cantu in 2001, told the Texas Tribune that the Boettchers’ testimony was the most impactful to the jury. So the fact that there is serious doubt being cast upon their testimony sparked him to call on Abbott to pause and investigate.
“By no means am I protesting the death penalty, by no means am I protesting our judicial system, and I’m certainly not protesting Gov. Abbott,” Calhoun told the Tribune. “I’m simply asking that this be looked at a little deeper before the unripened fruit is taken off the tree.”
Calhoun also wrote an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman in which he says the jury did not hear all the evidence and he felt like he “was fooled.”
By Wednesday, a petition asking for Cantu’s life to be spared had garnered more than 150,000 signatures as social media flooded with posts pleading with Abbott for clemency — including from the European Union’s ambassador to the United States.
“Justice is not achieved by executing a potentially innocent person,” Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė posted on X.
Abbott — Cantu’s last hope for reprieve — did not intervene on his behalf.
What were Cantu’s last words?
On Wednesday morning, Cantu was transported from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston to the Huntsville Unit — a 44-mile trek. Once there, he stayed in a holding cell until 6 p.m., when he was walked to the execution chamber. As witnesses looked through a window to see Cantu take his last breath, he 50-year-old maintained his innocence while he addressed the Kitchen and Mosqueda families.
“I want you to know that I never killed James and Amy,” Cantu said, according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson. “And if I did, if I knew who did, you would’ve been the first to know any information I would’ve had that would’ve helped to bring justice to James and Amy — I would’ve shared.”
“I want you all to know that I don’t think that this situation here will bring you closure,” Cantu continued. “If it does — if this is what it takes … then so be it. This is not going to help you guys and I want you to know from me that it never occurred.”
Cantu then thanked his mother, family, friends and supporters — especially Duff for “believing in me and digging deep and unraveling the case … to prove to the world that I do not belong on this gurney,” and Sister Prejean, who was by his side as the lethal injection began coursing through his veins.
The death penalty in the United States
Earlier on Wednesday, Idaho halted the execution of 73-year-old serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech after medical professionals attempted eight times to find a vein for lethal injection.
In January, Alabama put Kenneth Smith to death in the first-known execution with nitrogen gas.
There are six more executions scheduled for 2024, in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Ohio, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Kim Bellware and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
