Vincent Gutierrez was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Jose Cabo
According to court documents Vincent Gutierrez and accomplices would carjack Jose Cabo. As they were driving away Jose Cabo attempted to escape however he was fatally shot
Vincent Gutierrez would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Vincent Gutierrez would be executed by lethal injection on March 28 2007
Vincent Gutierrez Photos
Vincent Gutierrez FAQ
When Was Vincent Gutierrez Executed
Vincent Gutierrez was executed on March 28 2007
Vincent Gutierrez Case
A San Antonio man convicted of killing an Air Force officer during a carjacking 10 years ago was executed this evening.
In a brief final statement, Vincent Gutierrez said, I'd like to tell everybody I'm sorry the situation happened. My bad - everybody is here because of what happened.'' It was unclear from his statement whether he was apologizing for the fatal shooting. He thanked a number of relatives and friends and expressed love to them.Where’s a stunt double when you need one?” he said, laughing.
Gutierrez, 28, never looked at relatives and a friend of the victim as they stood a few feet away looking through a window. But he had two big smiles and laughter for his parents and other relatives when they walked into the death chamber. He said a brief prayer and was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m., seven minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow. Gutierrez was the 10th prisoner to die by injection this year in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. Another execution is set for Thursday.
He was one of two carjackers condemned for the March 1997 shooting death of Capt. Jose Cobo, whose body was shoved from his car and dumped on the shoulder of Interstate 410 during a morning rush hour in the Alamo city.
A Bexar County jury also decided Gutierrez’ companion, Randy Arroyo, should receive lethal injection, but his death sentence was commuted to life after the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago ruled people could not be executed for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18. Arroyo was 17 when Cobo was killed. Gutierrez was 18.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late week turned down an appeal to halt Gutierrez’s execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles refused this week to commute his sentence to life. No late efforts to spare Gutierrez were planned. “At this point, it’s basically over,” Gutierrez’s lawyer, Alex Calhoun, said.
Just two weeks before the shooting, Gutierrez had been released from a two-month stint at a prison boot camp for a burglary conviction. It was the latest in a string of burglaries and thefts by the acknowledged street gang member. If I wouldn't have gotten locked up, I would have probably really been dead by now,'' he recently told the San Antonio Current, a weekly newspaper, from death row.So, I’ve made the best of it while I was here. I think I did.” And he warned if he got out, “I’d create havoc in Texas.”
He acknowledged the Cobo shooting – and expressed no remorse – saying he fired at the military officer because he didn’t want to go back to jail for another robbery.
The Colombia-born Cobo, 39, was a 13-year Air Force veteran who was chief of maintenance training at the Inter-American Air Forces Academy at Lackland Air Force Base. It's such a sad case,'' said Bert Richardson, who was among the Bexar County assistant district attorneys prosecuting Cobo's accused killers.He put himself through school. He had the American dream. He became an Air Force officer.”
Cobo was abducted at gunpoint outside his apartment and was forced to the passenger side of his car. When he tried to bolt from the vehicle in slow rush-hour traffic, he was shot by Gutierrez, who was in the back seat of the Mazda sports car as Arroyo drove. Authorities said Arroyo and Gutierrez chose Cobo’s car because Gutierrez had the same model and needed some parts. Gutierrez’s roommate, Christopher Suaste, had dropped them off at dawn March 11, 1997, outside Cobo’s apartment, where they hid until he left for work. Suaste surrendered to police after his two companions were arrested. He’s now serving a 35-year prison sentence for aggravated robbery.
He and Arroyo gave statements implicating Gutierrez as the shooter. The murder weapon, a .357-caliber Magnum pistol, plus another gun Gutierrez was carrying, were recovered from the San Antonio River. Cobo’s car was recovered. It had been abandoned but not stripped.
On Thursday evening, a former Houston air conditioning contractor, Roy Lee Pippin, 51, is set to die for the slayings of two men shot 13 years ago in a Houston warehouse during a drug dispute.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/4669851.html
