Jury recommends death

Fifteen years to the day after one judge charged him with the murder of his neighbors, another judge sentenced Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzales to die for the crime.

It took a jury of seven men and five women two hours and 25 minutes to determine that Gonzales, 35, should die for killing Manuel Aguirre, 73, and Merced "Bita" Aguirre, 65, in April 1994 at their home at 220 W. Schell St.

After Aguirre family members read victim-impact statements, Judge Bill McCoy told Gonzales he would die by lethal injection at a date to be determined.

"You are the last face my grandparents saw when they took their last breath, but I promise you this," teary-eyed Riki Aguirre told a stone-faced Gonzales as she read her statement from the witness stand. "When you take your last breath, my face will be one of the faces that you see."

Everyone in the courtroom seemed to be holding their breath hours earlier, when Gonzales instructed McCoy that he would like to testify on his own behalf. But he kept his comments brief.

"Y'all can (expletive) kill me. Makes me no (expletive) difference. Pass the witness," he told the jury.

With that, the defense called off any further testimony and closed its case.

The prosecution had no questions for Gonzales.

But defense attorney Woody Leverett referred to the remarks in his closing statement, suggesting that the statements were Gonzales' way of trying to "woo" the jury into the death sentence.

"He wants it," Leverett said. "What does that tell you about prison? What does that tell you about what that place is like? If you want punishment, if you want him to suffer, that's the way to make him suffer."

Prosecutor Wesley Mau attacked defense assertions that it wasn't a major offense when Gonzales was caught with a cell phone while in the Ector County Detention Center last year. He pointed out threats Gonzales made to wife Martha Reyes while she testified for the prosecution Monday. This led to more threats from Gonzales against his wife in an outburst during Mau's closing arguments.

"You tell me that a cell phone in jail is nothing you should be worried about," Mau said.

After the sentence was announced, Manuel Aguirre Jr., who testified in the resentencing trial about finding his parents' bloodied bodies on April 22, 1994, said both this trial and Gonzales' first one in December 1995 were nerve-racking but that Gonzales' many outbursts made this one even tougher to handle.

"It was very stressful," he said. "We didn't know what to expect from him sitting there."

Still, Aguirre Jr. knows Gonzales will get more appeals before his execution.

"We'll face that as it comes," he said. "We're ready for them."

His wife, Connie Aguirre, said it has been a "hard road."

"This is such a relief," she said. "We're just going to go home and be together as a family and wait for that final appeal."

Aguirre Jr. said his parents would be pleased by the result.

"They should be proud of us," he said. "We followed though with our obligation to them."

Some on the Gonzales side had trouble controlling their emotions after the death sentence.

"Not everything was revealed," said Ruth Williams, Gonzales' aunt. "There's one big man upstairs that's going to serve justice for everybody."

Gonzales will now head back to death row in Livingston, where he was housed before returning to Odessa to await his resentencing in 2007. His death sentence was "set aside" after racially biased testimony by expert witness and prison psychologist Walter Quijano was given in another case.

Leverett and co-defense counsel Jason Leach declined comment after the trail. Mau, an assistant attorney general who took over prosecution after Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland recused himself, referred comment to the state Attorney General's Office.

"Today's sentence yet again brings justice for Manuel and Merced Aguirre and their families," spokesman Tom Kelley said in a statement. "The office of the Attorney General was pleased to represent the state of Texas in this matter and appreciates and respects the jury's decision."

"Spider" timeline

1994

>> April 22: The bodies of Manuel Aguirre, 73, and Merced "Bita" Aguirre are discovered at their home at 220 W. Schell St. Investigators say each suffered multiple stab wounds that could have been fatal the previous night.

>> May 7: Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzales, then 20, a next-door neighbor of the Aguirres, is arrested and charged with capital murder. Because of the severity of the crime, Ector County Justice of the Peace Dennis Bright declined to set bond.

1995

>> Dec. 7: A jury convicts Gonzales of capital murder after deliberating for 55 minutes.

>> Dec. 8: Gonzales becomes the first person sentenced to death in Ector County since 1983.

2000

>> Then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn announces six convicted killers, including Gonzales, would likely have sentences overturned because of racially biased testimony by expert witness Walter Quijano, the state prison system's former chief psychologist, in another case.

2006

>> July 31: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the 1995 guilty verdict on appeal, but "sets aside" Gonzales' death sentence and determines the punishment phase of Gonzales' trial must be held again.

2007

>> June 13: Gonzales returns to the Ector County Detention Center to await trial.

2008

>> Dec. 15: It's announced that the state Attorney General's office will prosecute the case after the Ector County District Attorney's office recuses itself due to a possible conflict because First Assistant District Attorney Linda Deaderick and former Odessa Police Sgt. Snow Robertson, the lead investigator in the case, used to be married.

2009

>> Thursday: A jury sentences Gonzales to death after two hours and 25 minutes of deliberation.