Robert Perez was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder
According to court documents Robert Perez was a high member of the Mexican Mafia and would murder two men, Robert Rivas and Jose Travieso, who were supporters of a rival gang member who stood in the way of Perez climbing to the top of the Mexican Mafia organization
Robert Perez would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Perez would be executed by lethal injection on March 6 2007
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When Was Robert Perez Executed
Robert Perez was executed on March 7 2007
Robert Perez Case
Robert “Beaver” Perez, a notorious leader of the prison-based Mexican Mafia gang who prosecutors linked to more than 15 San Antonio murders, was executed Tuesday night as his family looked on. In the moments before Perez, a general in the Mexican Mafia, was executed for the slayings of two men, his wife offered him up one last prayer for peace. “God Bless you,” murmured Mary Perez, as two of her husband’s sons, Chrisand Vicente, wept and embraced her, and his brother Ernest stood by. His wife continued, “You’re still my hero. You’ll always be my hero.”
Perez, who in the course of his 1999 capital murder trial was linked to 15 other gang-related murders in San Antonio, only told his family members that he loved them, never to forget and to stay strong. “Take care of them,” Perez directed Mary, referring to his children and family. “I love you too.” Then he told the warden he was ready.
“I got my boots on,” Perez said, as the administration of the dose began. “Like a cowboy.” Perez was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. He was 48 years old. No victims or relatives of any of Perez’s victims attended the execution. This was Perez’s first execution setting. Last week, he lost a civil rights suit challenging his lethal injection.
Perez was sentenced to death in 1999 for the murders of Jose Travieso, wheelchair-bound from a previous shooting; and James Robert Rivasat the Mirasol Homes public housing project on the West Side. Perez wounded another man, Travieso’s nephew, in the 1994attack. During the trial, prosecutors linked Perez to 15 gang-related shootings in San Antonio, including the murders of five people at an apartment on West French Place in 1997. Those slayings were the focus of a federal trial held earlier in 1999 in which Perez was a co-defendant, along with several other alleged Mexican Mafia members.
Always at issue was whether Perez had ordered his soldiers to raid the apartment for drugs and money and if he told them to leave no witnesses behind. At least one Mexican Mafia member testified that one of the gang’s lieutenants had orchestrated the burglary because he had a grudge against someone in the house. That lieutenant was found fatally shot two months after the West French Place massacre, reportedly for talking about the murders.
Perez and his co-defendants each were convicted of racketeering and conspiracy to racketeer; and Perez was sentenced to life in federal prison. The sweeping verdicts were considered a significant blow to the Mexican Mafia, an organization that has its roots within the prison system as a means of funneling money to inmates and offering them protection. Eventually, the gang’s influence spilled into the streets, culminating in a period of intense bloodshed in San Antonio in the mid-1990s.
A laborer by trade with only a ninth-grade education, Perez ascended to power within the organization using his charisma and ruthlessness, prosecutors said. When Perez was arrested at his home for the Mirasol killings three years after they occurred, officers recovered $30,000 in cash, a magazine clip with ammunition and large amounts of jewelry.
Yet in a letter to his common law wife at the time, Perez wrote of one day hoping to own a home. Whether he ever got that home was unclear Tuesday. But his wife Mary hoped he’d find some rest in wherever he was going. “He’s at peace,” she said quietly.
