Posted on 10/09/2007 7:44:26 AM PDT by beaversmom
What happened...
Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena were 14 and 16 years old, respectively. They were friends who attended the same high school in Houston, Texas, Waltrip High School. On June 24, 1993, the girls spent the day together....and then died together.
They were last seen by friends about 11:15 at night, when they left a friend's apartment to head home, to beat summer curfew at 11:30. They knew they would be late if they took the normal path home, down W. 34th Street to T.C. Jester, both busy streets. They also knew they would have to pass a sexually-oriented business on that route and so decided to take a well-known shortcut down a railroad track and through a city park to Elizabeth's neighborhood.
The next morning, the girls parents began to frantically look for them, paging them on their pagers, calling their friends to see if they knew where they were, to no avail. The families filed missing persons reports with the Houston Police Department and continued to look for the girls on their own. The Ertmans and Penas gathered friends and neighbors to help them pass out a huge stack of fliers with the girls' pictures all over the Houston area, even giving them to newspaper vendors on the roadside.
Four days after the girls disappeared, a person identifying himself as 'Gonzalez' called the Crimestoppers Tips number. He told the call taker that the missing girls' bodies could be found near T.C. Jester Park at White Oak bayou. The police were sent to the scene and searched the park without finding anything. The police helicopter was flying over the park and this apparently prompted Mr. 'Gonzalez' to make a 911 call, directing the search to move to the other side of the bayou. When the police followed this suggestion, they found the badly decaying bodies of Jenny and Elizabeth.
Jennifer Ertman's dad, Randy Ertman, was about to give an interview regarding the missing girls to a local television reporter when the call came over a cameraman's police scanner that two bodies had been found. Randy commandeered the news van and went to the scene that was now bustling with police activity. My first knowledge of the death of Jennifer was seeing Randy, on the news that evening, screaming at the police officers who were struggling to hold him back, "Does she have blond hair?? DOES SHE HAVE BLOND HAIR?!!?"
Fortunately, they did manage to keep Randy from entering the woods and seeing his daughter's brutalized body and that of her friend Elizabeth, but they were unable to escape that fate themselves. I saw hardened, lifelong cops get tears in their eyes when talking about the scene more than a year later. The bodies were very badly decomposed, even for four days in Houston's brutal summer heat and humidity, particularly in the head, neck and genital areas. The medical examiner later testified that this is how she could be sure as to the horrible brutality of the rapes, beatings and murders.
The break in solving the case came from, of course, the 911 call. It was traced to the home of the brother of one of the men later sentenced to death for these murders. When the police questioned 'Gonzalez', he said that he had made the original call at his 16 year-old wife's urging. She felt sorry for the families and wanted them to be able to put their daughters' bodies to rest. 'Gonzalez' said that his brother was one of the six people involved in killing the girls, and gave police the names of all but one, the new recruit, whom he did not know.
His knowledge of the crimes came from the killers themselves, most of whom came to his home after the murders, bragging and swapping the jewelry they had stolen from the girls.
While Jenny and Elizabeth were living the last few hours of their lives, Peter Cantu, Efrain Perez, Derrick Sean O'Brien, Joe Medellin and Joe's 14 year old brother were initiating a new member, Raul Villareal, into their gang, known as the Black and Whites. Raul was an acquaintance of Efrain and was not known to the other gang members. They had spent the evening drinking beer and then "jumping in" Raul. This means that the new member was required to fight every member of the gang until he passed out and then he would be accepted as a member. Testimony showed that Raul lasted through three of the members before briefly losing consciousness.
The gang continued drinking and 'shooting the breeze' for some time and then decided to leave. Two brothers who had been with them but testified that they were not in the gang left first and passed Jenny and Elizabeth, who were unknowingly walking towards their deaths. When Peter Cantu saw Jenny and Elizabeth, he thought it was a man and a woman and told the other gang members that he wanted to jump him and beat him up. He was frustrated that he had been the one who was unable to fight Raul.
The gang members ran and grabbed Elizabeth and pulled her down the incline, off of the tracks. Testimony showed that Jenny had gotten free and could have run away but returned to Elizabeth when she cried out for Jenny to help her.
For the next hour or so, these beautiful, innocent young girls were subjected to the most brutal gang rapes that most of the investigating officers had ever encountered. The confessions of the gang members that were used at trial indicated that there was never less than 2 men on each of the girls at any one time and that the girls were repeatedly raped orally, anally and vaginally for the entire hour. One of the gang members later said during the brag session that by the time he got to one of the girls, "she was loose and sloppy." One of the boys boasted of having 'virgin blood' on him.
The 14-year-old juvenile later testified that he had gone back and forth between his brother and Peter Cantu since they were the only ones there that he really knew and kept urging them to leave. He said he was told repeatedly by Peter Cantu to "get some". He raped Jennifer and was later sentenced to 40 years for aggravated sexual assault, which was the maximum sentence for a juvenile.
When the rapes finally ended, the horror was not over. The gang members took Jenny and Elizabeth from the clearing into a wooded area, leaving the juvenile behind, saying he was "too little to watch". Jenny was strangled with the belt of Sean O'Brien, with two murderers pulling, one on each side, until the belt broke. Part of the belt was left at the murder scene, the rest was found in O'Brien's home. After the belt broke, the killers used her own shoelaces to finish their job. Medellin later complained that "the bitch wouldn't die" and that it would have been "easier with a gun". Elizabeth was also strangled with her shoelaces, after crying and begging the gang members not to kill them; bargaining, offering to give them her phone number so they could get together again.
The medical examiner testified that Elizabeth's two front teeth were knocked out of her brutalized mouth before she died and that two of Jennifer's ribs were broken after she had died. Testimony showed that the girls' bodies were kicked and their necks were stomped on after the strangulations in order to "make sure that they were really dead."
The juvenile pled guilty to his charge and his sentence will be reviewed when he turns 18, at which time he could be released. The other five were tried for capital murder in Harris County, Texas, convicted and sentenced to death. I attended all five trials with the Ertmans and know too well the awful things that they and the Penas had to hear and see in the course of seeing Justice served for their girls.
Two VERY important things in the criminal justice system have changed as a result of these murders. After the trial of Peter Cantu, Judge Bill Harmon allowed the family members to address the convicted. This had not previously been done in Texas courts and now is done as a matter of routine.
The other change came from the Texas Department of Corrections which instituted a new policy allowing victims' families the choice and right to view the execution of their perpetrators.
There is a mountain bike trail near there called "The Swamp": I have been on quest to find it. It involves cruising the area on my bike looking for the trail entrance off the street.
On the map it seems like a decent area, but friends warned me to be careful. Sure enough, the place is crawling with scumbags, bums, and druggies. I would not ever go there alone, and I am a grown man. One druggie even made a piss poor attempt to rob me of my bike, while I was on it.
ping
This is why we need to KNOW who is coming into this country. President Bush - Enforce the BORDER NOW! If the Republican Party won’t step up and do it we will find someone who will!
So, according to Bush, foreigners have special rights that we Americans do not have in that the States cannot prosecute a foreigner without first notifying the foreign government and foreigners can have their death sentences appealed on those grounds.
Just how the Hell does a foreign government get privilege in a State case?? When a person violates State law they are held to that law and no foreign government has the right to interfere or even present representation to the accused. The accused gets representation they can afford or be appointed just like any American citizen.
Bush thinks differently.
I just sent an email to Ken Salazar Senator from Colorado,shalom b'shem Yah'shua
asking him if Jose Ernesto Medellin was the kind of Mexican
that he, Ken, wanted to make a citizen ?I added the link and asked him to read and consider.
Then seek the face of G-d and consider Ken's final destination.
These are violent killers. I don’t care how old they are or where they originated from. They should suffer the consequences of their actions and that is the death penalty.
Why in the world would we want keep these scum alive. Those girls never had a chance. These vermin never gave them a chance.
Be dammed with politics. These scum should be put to death.
I'd rather he face 5 minutes alone with the father (Mr. Ertman).
There are no words,,,,,well,,,,,actually there are words, but those words are better left unsaid lest I get banned for life, THANKS JORGE.
Thanks for the PING
I listened to Laura this morning...
I’m appalled at President Bush not considering the sovreignty of our country and our laws....
The local guy (Peter Boyles, 630 AM, Denver, CO. 5am-9am) was all over this. I will be sending an email to Jorge el Segundo. I hope to remain calm enuff that I do not receive a visit from the feds.
I’ve been waiting for the public to administer justice in a lot of similar cases, but it hasn’t happenned yet. As my tagline, lifted from Tuco’s near-fatal hanging scene in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly goes................
Then again, I live in Massachusetts................
Yes I was first listening to Boyles then switched to Ingraham this morning. I hope more radio hosts will talk about.
I was thinking the same thing—President Bush has two daughters—even if he was childless though. They not only murdered these girls they tortured them! Why don’t they give the international court the middle finger? Why don’t they stand up for the United States. Shouldn’t we come first? I was crying for these girls this morning when I read the details. You are right—God please help us!
Then tell us again how many murdered Americans is too many for you. Obviously these two young girls aren't enough.
Why the president is siding with the World Court to intervene in the execution of this monster murderer, against a Texas court decision ,of an American teenager is beyond me. He is deliberately subjugating our court system, undermining our own jurisdiction, which is inexcusable.
The last two paragraphs of President George Washington warn of what is happening in America today;
For collusion of powers, he warned, “The habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”
On usurpation, he warned, “If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.”
May the Judicial stay in the courts, the Congress stay on the Hill, and the President stay in the White House. Separation of powers was and is a good idea.
omg this is horrible. I have a 14 year old daughter. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
“Well what a wonderful example of diversity!”
If there was a TV movie about this heinous crime, the network would make the gang racially mixed to be politically correct.
They're just for the poor benighted illegals that are here.
Those that contrinute to their personal bottom line, that is.
Of course they'll try to distance themselves from the pain and suffering their greed has helped heap upon their countrymen by telling you they only support the 'honest law abiding' illegals, but we all know it is their kind that must share responsibility for each and every one of the crimes committed by these illegals.
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On target.
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