The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX

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May 19, 2010

Man executed for slaying of cell mate

By Mary Rainwater Staff Reporter

HUNTSVILLE — Texas prisoner Rogelio Cannady was executed Wednesday for the 1993 slaying of his cell mate while already serving two life sentences for a previous double murder.

Cannady, 37, from Harlingen, didn’t deny fatally beating 55-year-old Leovigildo Bonal with a belt and padlock in October 1993, but he insisted the attack at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice McConnell Unit in Beeville was self defense from Bonal’s sexual advances

Smiling from the death chamber gurney, Cannady’s final words were addressed to his own loved ones — his brother Victor Villapando, niece Adela Martinez, and three friends, Norma Baeza, Juana Bello and Gary Ojeda.

“I was in there right now thinking how we grew up. You know how we grew up in the same house,” Cannady said. “We need to take care of each other like we used to.

“I am going to be OK. I know where I’ll be,” he said. “I love you... May God have mercy on my soul.”

At 6:19 p.m., just eight minutes after the lethal injection began, Cannady was pronounced dead, making his the 10th execution to take place in Texas this year.

Cannady walked to the death chamber about 30 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal that his confession in the 1990 murders of two teenage runaways in the Rio Grande Valley was coerced, meaning Cannady should have never been imprisoned in the first place.

It was the second appeal rejected by the high court this week in his case. State attorneys said the late appeals were without merit and that questions about Cannady’s confession already had been resolved.

Cannady was sentenced to two life sentences after pleading guilty to the 1990 murders of 16-year-old Ricardo Garcia of Freer and 13-year-old Ana Robles of Brownsville — both runaways from a youth home. Garcia was stabbed 13 times. Robles was raped and strangled.

Two of Garcia’s brothers witnessed the inmate’s execution. Cannady did not address them and the brothers declined to speak with reporters afterward.

Describing the October 1993 confrontation that led to Bonal’s death, Cannady told The Associated Press, “one thing led to another,” and insisted he merely resisted a sexual pass from Bonal, who had been serving 15 years for murder in Tarrant County.

Corrections officers found the badly beaten Bonal unconscious on the cell floor. His hands were tied behind his back with a belt. A piece of the combination lock used to beat him was hidden inside a boot. Another piece was in the toilet. Cannady was covered in blood but had no injuries.

Cannady had a long juvenile record beginning with thefts and burglaries at age 10, and had been arrested for drug dealing, assault, theft, probation violation, felony criminal mischief, truancy, public intoxication and resisting arrest. He was disciplined twice last month for assault.

John Alba, 54, faces lethal injection in Huntsville on Tuesday for gunning down his 28-year-old estranged wife Wendy in Allen in Collin County in 1991.



The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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