David Renteria Execution: Man Who Strangled and Burned Girl, 5, Faces Death

A Texas inmate convicted in the slaying of a 5-year-old girl abducted from a store more than 20 years ago is set to be executed on Thursday.

David Renteria, 53, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the November 2001 death of Alexandra Flores, a crime that shocked the El Paso community.

According to prosecutors, Flores was Christmas shopping with her parents at a Walmart store on November 18, 2001, when she was abducted by Renteria.

Her body was found in an alley miles from the store the following day, naked and partially burned, the El Paso Timesreported. An autopsy found she was strangled before being set on fire. There were no signs of sexual assault, investigators said.

Renteria was arrested two weeks later. He was a convicted sex offender on probation at the time of Flores' killing, prosecutors said.

Flores' brother Ignacio Frausto, who was 14 when the girl was killed, told ABC-7 recently that he is not sure how he will feel after Renteria is put to death.

"He gets to die peacefully. From what we learned on the case, my little sister suffered. And I'm not saying make him suffer. Because I'm not the type of man. But he has it easy. He's had it easy," said Frausto, who has worked in the El Paso District Attorney's Office for almost 20 years.

Asked if he had a message for Renteria, he repeated what he said in his victim impact statement during Renteria's trial. "I remember telling him I will not forgive him. Only God will forgive them," he said. "I still stand with the same words that I said to him."

Prosecutors said he patrolled the store for about 40 minutes before honing in on Flores, the youngest of eight children in her family. Grainy surveillance footage from the store showed her following Renteria out of the store.

Prosecutors said that blood found in Renteria's van matched Flores' DNA and Renteria's palm print was found on a plastic bag that was put over her head before her body was set on fire.

Renteria has long said that members of the Barrio Azteca gang had forced him to take Flores by making threats to his family and that gang members had killed her, but authorities said he did not raise this defense at his trial and evidence in the case shows that he committed the abduction and killing alone, The Associated Press reported.

Those claims are based on witness statements in which a woman told investigators that her former husband, a gang member, was involved in the death of a girl who went missing from a Walmart. The AP reported that a federal judge in 2018 said the woman's statement was "fraught with inaccuracies" and "insufficient to show Renteria's innocence."

But Renteria's lawyers have argued that they have been denied access to the prosecution's file on Renteria, and unable to properly investigate their client's claims. A state district judge in El Paso ordered prosecutors to turn over the files in August, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned the order.

Renteria's attorneys have filed unsuccessful appeals to halt the execution.

Tivon Schardl, one of Renteria's attorneys, told Newsweek that Renteria has a habeas corpus case pending in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Texas Attorney General's Office has been contacted for comment via email.

Renteria was found guilty of capital murder in 2003 and sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2006 threw out Renteria's death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful. He was again sentenced to death during a new resentencing trial in 2008.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday voted 7-0 against commuting Renteria's death sentence to a lesser penalty.

If Renteria's execution goes ahead, he would be the eighth inmate in Texas to be put to death this year.

His execution is one of two set to be carried out on Thursday. In Alabama, Casey McWhorter is set to receive a lethal injection for the fatal shooting of a man during a robbery. Both going ahead would bring the total number of executions in the U.S. this year to 23.

Update 11/16/23, 9:00 a.m. ET: This article was updated with information provided by one of Renteria's attorneys.