From: davidc@wa-wd.com   
      
   Ivan Abner Cantu, 50, was executed by lethal injection on 28 February   
   2024 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of his cousin and   
   his cousin's fiance in their home.   
      
   James Mosqueda was a mortgage banker in Dallas. Sometime in 1998 or   
   1999, he hired his cousin, Cantu, to work for him. Mosqueda terminated   
   Cantu's employment in mid-2000. Mosqueda also dealt cocaine and   
   marijuana. He lived in north Dallas with his girlfriend, Amy Kitchen.   
      
   On 15 October 2000, Cantu, his girlfriend, Amy Boettcher, and her   
   brother, Jeff Boettcher, moved into an apartment about a mile from   
   Mosqueda's residence. Later that month, Cantu told Jeff Boettcher that   
   he intended to kill Mosqueda in order to steal his money and drugs.   
      
   On Friday, 3 November 2000, Cantu, then 27, phoned Mosqueda and asked   
   if he could come over to talk. After hanging up the phone, Cantu told   
   Amy Boettcher that he was going to kill Mosqueda and Kitchen. He drove   
   away in his Honda automobile. He returned about an hour later driving   
   Kitchen's Mercedes. Boettcher observed that his face was swollen and   
   his clothes were bloody. He told her, "It wasn't pretty." He removed   
   his blue jeans and instructed Boettcher to put them in a bag. Instead,   
   she put them in the kitchen garbage can.   
      
   As Amy Boettcher testified at Cantu's trial, after Cantu cleaned   
   himself up on the night of the murders, he made her go with him to   
   Mosqueda's house to see what he had done. They drove Kitchen's   
   Mercedes and parked it in the garage. Boettcher testified that she saw   
   the victims' bodies through the doorway to the master bedroom. Cantu   
   searched the house for drugs and money. They drove away in Mosqueda's   
   Corvette and went to Arkansas for a planned visit with her stepfather.   
   Boettcher testified that Cantu gave her a diamond engagement ring he   
   had stolen from Kitchen and began telling people that he and Boettcher   
   were engaged.   
      
   On Saturday, the Dallas Fire Department forcibly entered the Mosqueda   
   residence at the request of Amy Kitchen's mother. They found both   
   Mosqueda, 27, and Kitchen, 22, dead of multiple gunshot wounds in   
   their bedroom. Mosqueda was in bed, lying face up, and Kitchen was   
   lying face down on the floor. There was no sign of forced entry other   
   than the fire department's. In the course of autopsies, one bullet was   
   retrieved from Mosqueda's body, and four bullets were retrieved from   
   Kitchen's.   
      
   On 5 November at about 3:00 a.m., Dallas police found Mosqueda's   
   Chevrolet Corvette parked near Cantu's front door.   
      
   On 7 November, police searched Cantu's apartment pursuant to a   
   warrant. They found a set of keys. One opened a door to Mosqueda's   
   house. Another operated Kitchen's Mercedes. The police also found   
   bloody jeans and socks in the kitchen garbage can. DNA testing matched   
   the blood on the jeans to Mosqueda and the blood on the socks to   
   Kitchen.   
      
   On 9 November, police recovered a .380 caliber semiautomatic pistol   
   from the home of Tawny Svihovec, Cantu's former girlfriend.   
   Fingerprints on the weapon were matched to Cantu. Blood on the barrel   
   was matched to Mosqueda. Ballistics testing matched the weapon to the   
   bullets recovered from the victims' bodies.   
      
   Boettcher further testified that the night before the murders, she and   
   Cantu had argued. In his anger, Cantu shot a pistol at her head. When   
   she tried to leave, he slammed the door on her hand, held the gun to   
   her head, and told her he was "serious."   
      
   Cantu's first wife, Michelle Traister, testified that during their   
   marriage, Cantu threw her to the floor, beat her head against concrete   
   and tile surfaces, choked her, and threatened to kill her.   
      
   The defense theorized that Mosqueda and Kitchen were murdered by rival   
   drug dealers, who framed Cantu as the killer. The defense disputed the   
   credibility of the state's principal witness, Amy Boettcher, who was a   
   "doper."   
      
   A jury found Cantu guilty of capital murder in October 2001 and   
   sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed   
   the conviction and sentence in 2004.   
      
   Cantu maintained his innocence in his appeals. In 2011, the U.S.   
   Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution based on his claim of   
   ineffective assistance of counsel. The lower courts reconsidered his   
   case and then upheld his conviction and death sentence.   
      
   Following  Amy Boettcher's death in 2021, Cantu's lawyers raised new   
   appeals challenging her credibility and seeking additional DNA   
   testing. He received another stay of execution in 2023. The courts   
   subsequently rejected his claims on the merits and allowed his   
   execution to be rescheduled.   
      
   Cantu's case was recently publicized in a podcast called "Cousins By   
   Blood." Celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen joined   
   activists advocating for another stay of execution based on what they   
   called "new evidence."   
      
   In a last-ditch round of appeals this week, Cantu's lawyers re-raised   
   the same claims as in 2023. This time, they were rejected outright. In   
   a concurring opinion issued the day before Cantu's execution, Judge   
   Edith Jones of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decried the   
   "gamesmanship" of Cantu and his attorneys.   
      
   "A reasonable person must conclude that the primary reason for raising   
   these claims at the eleventh hour is to beleaguer the courts and cause   
   some jurist somewhere to blink and grant a stay of execution," Jones   
   wrote.   
      
   "I want you to know that I never killed James and Amy," Cantu said   
   from the death chamber to Kitchen's friends and relatives who came to   
   witness his execution. "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."   
      
   Cantu announced that his execution was not going to bring closure to   
   the victims' loved ones. "This is not going to help you guys and I   
   want you to know from me that it never occurred. No. I want all of you   
   to know that I did not kill James and Amy."   
      
   Next, Cantu thanked his attorney, his mother, and Sister Helen   
   Prejean, his spiritual advisor, who was at his side during his   
   execution. He finished his last statement at 6:23 p.m. and told the   
   warden he was ready. The lethal injection was then started. He stopped   
   breathing at 6:29 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m.   
      
   David Carson   
   (Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents,   
   Associated Press, Huntsville Item.)   
   --   
   Texas Execution Information   
   www.txexecutions.org   
      
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