Ruben Cantu

Ruben Montoya Cantu (December 5, 1966 – August 24, 1993) was an American murderer who was executed for a murder committed when he was 17 years old.

During the years following the conviction, the surviving victim, the co-defendant, the district attorney, and the jury forewoman have made public statements that cast doubt on Cantu's guilty verdict.

Ruben Cantu grew up with his mother and father until the age of 14, when the couple split up, with Ruben's mother moving 20 miles (32 km) away and Ruben and his father continuing to live in a trailer in a crime-ridden south San Antonio Barrio.

The neighborhood was home to a loose band of tough kids called the Grey Eagles, of which Cantu became a leader despite being rather small and in special-ed classes at school.

By age 15, he was stealing cars for an organized auto theft ring, often spending days at a time driving stolen cars to Mexico for cash.

When the San Antonio Police Department was embroiled in scandal, with vigilantes and drug-dealing officers well known to the community, Cantu was stealing cars and dodging the police.

His older brothers had been arrested on drug and theft charges, but despite several run-ins with the police, Ruben never was convicted of anything before the November 1984 crime that led to his execution.

The prosecution's case at the trial that convicted Ruben Cantu is summarized as follows: On the night of November 8, 1984, at approximately 11:30 p.m., Ruben Cantu (age 17 at the time) and his friend David Garza (15), broke into a vacant San Antonio house under construction at 605 Briggs Street and robbed two Hispanic males at gunpoint.

The two victims, Pedro Gomez (25 or 35) and Juan Moreno (19) had been workmen sleeping on floor mattresses at a construction site, guarding against burglary, as a water heater had been recently stolen from the work site.

The two victims were sleeping in their work clothes, with their pockets full of their cash earnings at the time of the robbery.

Cantu and Garza were carrying a rifle, which they used to rob the two men of their wristwatches.

As they tried to take their cash, they were interrupted by Gomez's attempt to retrieve a pistol hidden under his mattress.

Gomez was shot at least nine times by the boys' rifle, dying instantly, and Moreno was also shot as many as nine times by the same rifle.

Thinking they had killed both men, the two teens fled the scene.

Juan Moreno survived the attack and was able to leave the house and call for help shortly after the event, though he lost one lung, one kidney, and part of his stomach.

Short on leads other than Moreno's description of two Latinos aged roughly 14 and 19, a neighborhood beat officer passed along a rumor from the halls of South San Antonio High School, where Cantu was in ninth grade.

A shop teacher reported that three kids had been involved in the robbery and murder and that students were saying Cantu had done the killing.

Questioned just before his arrest, Garza identified Cantu, saying he "saw Ruben come running out of the house" according to a detective's notes.

The key trial witness, however, was Juan Moreno, the shooting survivor, who repeatedly identified Ruben Cantu in court.

A decade after Cantu was executed, Moreno recanted his story as did Garza.

According to Juan Moreno, consistent with police records, he was visited by police in the hospital the day after the shooting.

But, due to the severity of his wounds, he was unable to speak and could barely move.

Five days later, in a second interview, Moreno was shown several photos.

Cantu's photo was not included, and Moreno did not identify any of the people shown in the photos.

On December 16, detectives visited Moreno a third time and showed him another array of five photos, including one of Ruben Cantu, who lived across the street from Moreno's job site where the crime occurred.

He did not identify Ruben or anyone else from the photos shown to him during that police interview.

The case went cold, and no suspect was arrested.

About four months after the robbery-murder, Cantu shot Joe De La Luz, an off-duty, plainclothes police officer, at the Scabaroo Lounge, a bar near Cantu's home.

According to Cantu, the officer threatened him, revealing his concealed weapon, provoking Cantu (who was also armed) to fire at De La Luz whom he did not know was a police officer.

According to De La Luz, he was shot four times by Cantu despite no provocation.

The case against Cantu for the barroom shooting had to be dropped as police had illegally searched Cantu's home, rendering the case unprosecutable.

Officer De La Luz survived the shooting, and a friend of his who worked homicide, Sgt. Bill Ewell, decided to reopen the murder investigation against Ruben Cantu immediately.

On the following day, Sgt. Ewell sent an investigator to Juan Moreno a fourth time, showing Cantu's photo and four others.

Again, Juan Moreno did not identify Cantu as one of his attackers.

But he did provide Cantu's name.

One day later, a third homicide detective picked up Moreno (an undocumented immigrant from Mexico at the time), drove him to the police station, sat him down, and showed him the same group of photos that included Cantu.

On that third attempt, Moreno positively identified the photo of Cantu as being one of his attackers.

Years later, Moreno said that the person who shot him had very curly hair and that he was never shown a photo of the real shooter.

David Garza, Cantu's codefendant, has since admitted involvement in the burglary, assault and murder.

He says he went inside the house with another boy, participated in the robbery, and saw the murder occur, but that his accomplice was not Ruben Cantu.