Jesus Aguilar was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a double murder
According to court documents Jesus Aguilar and Chris Quiroz would head to a trailer where they would murder Leonardo Chavez Sr. and Annette Esparza Chavez. The murders were expecting to find Annette brother over a drug debt
Jesus Aguilar would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jesus Aguilar would be executed by lethal injection on May 24 2006
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When Was Jesus Aguilar Executed
Jesus Aguilar was executed on May 24 2006
Jesus Aguilar Case
Not only did Jesus Aguilar not show remorse before his death Wednesday night, he mocked his victim’s families and gave a “shout-out” to his fellow gang members. Aguilar, along with his nephew, Christopher Quiroz, were convicted in separate trials for the June 10, 1995, execution-style shooting deaths of Leonardo Chavez Sr., 33, and his wife, Annette, 31. Aguilar was sentenced to death while Quiroz got life in prison.
While Jesus Aguilar, 42, had admitted he smuggled marijuana from South Texas to Mississippi, he denied murdering his ex-partner’s sister and her husband because of a drug dispute. “I had nothing to do with this. I was at home” at the time of the killings, he said in a recent interview on death row. “These people, they railroaded me left and right.” But Aguilar was unaware that the 9-year-old son of the victims watched from underneath a kitchen table as his parents were shot. Leonardo Chavez Jr. testified at the trials of both Aguilar and Quiroz that he saw the men kill his parents. His 22-month-old brother was asleep in another room. Neither child was harmed during the killings.
Aguilar gave a statement just before the lethal dose began to flow alternating between English and Spanish. “I would like to say to my family, I am all right,” he said, looking at his spiritual advisor, and only witness. He then turned to the victims’ families and tried to find Leonardo Chavez Jr., who witnessed the crimes 11 years ago. Leo Jr. did not witness the execution. “Where are you Leo,” Aguilar asked. “Are you there, Leo? Don’t lie man.” He then asked the victims’ families if they were happy he was dying. Once the lethal dose began to flow, Aguilar was cut off mid-sentence, stopping his confrontational outburst.
Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said it’s not often inmates have outbursts. “It is more rare that the process begins in the midst of an inmate’s last statements, but when they become verbally abusive or confrontational with the victim’s family, the warden may exercise the option to begin the lethal dose,” she said. “That’s an option that appeared to have been exercised this evening.” Aguilar was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m., 14 minutes after the lethal dose began.
After witnessing the execution, the families of Leonardo and Annette Chavez said they were glad justice had been served, though they did have some issues. “We did not get to say what we needed to say,” Monica Medrano, Annette’s niece, said. “He got to sit there and say what he needed to say. The way the system works is wrong.” Sulerna Esparza Medrano, Monica’s mother and sister to Annette, worked on a statement with Monica, which Monica read after the execution. “When you committed this brutal crime, you took away a loving mommy and daddy from two precious children whose lives have been shattered forever,” Monica read through clenched teeth. “So now, we are here today as the tables have turned and it’s your turn to die.” Explaining how loving and loved Annette was to her family, Monica began to break down, saying, “If she didn’t know you and you were starving on the streets, her and Leo would open the doors to their hearts and help you the best way they knew how.”
Once Monica finished reading the Esparza family statement, Leonardo’s brother, Nicolas Chavez, gave a statement. “We are all going to have to live with that tremendous tragedy, my brother’s and favorite sister-in-law’s untimely death,” he said. “I am here to see final justice even though to some of us, it may never be enough, since we lost a couple of very dear and loved family members. “The gravy train has come to the end of the road for Jesus Ledesma Aguilar,” Chavez said, “but not before he and his nephew Christopher Aguilar Quiroz committed their heinous crime 11 years ago and completely destroyed the lives of my nephews and our family’s as well.”
Once the statements were read, both families began to talk about Aguilar’s outburst. “I’ve never seen such an evil look,” Chavez said. “When he started to talk all that smack, he showed his true colors.” Monica agreed, saying, “When he turned, you could literally see the spawn of evil in his eyes.”
According to court records, Aguilar and Annette Chavez’s brother, Rick Esparza, were friends who started smuggling marijuana in November 1994 from their homes in South Texas to Mississippi. After Esparza began smuggling drugs for another supplier, Aguilar threatened to kill him if he didn’t stop. While Esparza and his wife delivered a load of drugs to Mississippi in June 1995, his sister and her family agreed to stay and watch his Harlingen-area mobile home. Aguilar and his nephew spent most of the afternoon and evening of June 9, 1995, drinking. They then went to Esparza’s mobile home early the next morning and killed the Chavezes, prosecutors said.
Authorities said Aguilar was a member of the prison gang the Texas Syndicate, and had a violent history, including wounding a Lubbock County police officer during a 1983 shooting and assaulting guards and other inmates while in the state prison system.
At the trials, the Chavezes son, now 20, told jurors he was awakened at 5 a.m. by a loud noise. He went into the kitchen and saw his parents on the floor. His father was holding a napkin to his bleeding nose. He then watched as his parents were shot in the head. “I know it affects him still,” said Nicolas Chavez Jr., brother of the victim. “He tries to see life in a positive way and tries to keep going.” Aguilar, however, said Leonardo Chavez Jr. was “coached” to say he saw the condemned inmate and his nephew kill the Chavez couple. “They’re killing me for something they know they lied about,” he said.
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