WEST LIVINGSTON, TEXAS.
― Ivan Cantu is aware that he is running out of time.
He clings to the black receiver in his prison and fights to make himself heard before a world that 24 years ago sentenced him to death for two murders that, he claims, he did not commit.
“From the first day [...] everything was there to investigate the case and prove my innocence.
But when I explained it, they didn't believe me," Cantu laments to Noticias Telemundo on death row at the Allan B. Polunsky prison, in West Livingston, on the shores of a lake and 80 miles north of Houston. The prison houses to 2,937 prisoners, at least 180 of them, like him, awaiting execution.
Cantu, a Hispanic born in Dallas 50 years ago to a Mexican father and who does not speak Spanish, only English, was sentenced to death in October 2001 and, after two postponements (in 2012 and 2023), his execution is planned for this October 28. February if your last minute legal appeal does not prevent it.
"I often think about that because I don't want to die," he says, "it's just days before they want to put me on a stretcher [to receive the lethal injection] for a crime I didn't commit.
"We're doing our best to present the information to the courts, but it's like they don't care," she adds.
"I am against the death penalty"
Cantu, with a thin build, haggard and with a spectral paleness, was the only inmate who was on February 14, Valentine's Day, in the 40 cabins of the prison's visiting area, which accentuated his desolate air.
Sitting in a tiny white booth, a thick glass separated him from the journalists.
Behind him, a metal fence with a padlock.
If he opened his arms, he would trip over the partitions on either side.
Two guards and two prison communications officers were watching him;
There were two more guards at the door of the room.
"I am against the death penalty, it is not fair," he says.
"Each and every situation is different. From a human point of view, how do you prove that killing is wrong? By killing people? That's what they do. If you keep people away from violence or drugs or whatever crazy thing is going on in their lives and you take that away from them, people can be decent and be fine," he concludes.
Cantu was found guilty by a jury of the murder of his cousin, James Mosqueda, 27;
and Amy Kitchen, Mosqueda's 22-year-old fiancée.
Cantu was 28 years old at the time.
Both were shot to death in the bedroom of his home in north Dallas on Nov. 3, 2000, the sentencing determined.
"It's a sinking feeling because they ask you to get up," he says about the moment he heard his sentence.
"And that's when they tell you that those people on the jury voted and reached an agreement to want to execute you. My heart skipped a beat, I was literally in shock," he adds, "there were so many things they needed to know that they didn't know."
"If you look at the evidence you will clearly know that I did not commit the crime," he says firmly as he looks at the walls with murals painted with colorful characters like Sonic or Cookie Monster, and at some noisy vending machines with soda and candy on the side of the journalists, away from its reach.
Ivan Cantu, during the interview at the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, Texas, on February 14, 2024.Juventino Mata / Noticias Telemundo
"I'm on the other side of this window because the District Attorney's Office did not fully investigate my case. And when the Dallas Police Department presented them with the documents and the false witness statements and the false narrative, they took it at face value, "They didn't investigate it. They presented the information to a jury and asked them to convict me. And they did," Cantu asserts desperately.
Dressed in standard prisoner attire, white with orange cuffs and collar, Cantu speaks quickly into the cockpit's black headset.
Aware that he has no time to waste (the jail granted a one-hour interview deadline), he converses with precision about details and events that occurred decades ago as if he had gone over them in his head over and over again.
"I must do everything I can to keep my head busy and functioning, whether it's writing letters, reading books or staying on top of my case to keep my mind from deteriorating and help my team unravel my wrongful conviction and get me home." ", says.
Conclusive evidence against Cantu
The jury ruled unanimously in 2001 that the accusation against him was irrefutable and sentenced him to die by lethal injection.
His cousin, James Mosqueda's, car, a Chevrolet Corvette, was found parked in Dallas outside the apartment of Cantu and his fiancée, Amy Boettcher, just over a mile from the crime scene.
Jeans and socks with drops of blood from the victims were found in the kitchen trash can of the apartment.
Boettcher told police that Cantu had committed the murders, that she had even taken her to the crime scene, and that she had shown him the bodies.
Ivan Cantu with Amy Boettcher.Podcast "Cousins by Blood"
"Amy lied," Cantu says in the interview, "she even went so far as to say that I took her to the crime scene to see the bodies. And that is not true. Furthermore, the moment of death was not investigated. They said that it happened on on November 3. But the forensic doctors in the reports we have today show that the death occurred on the 4th in the morning, that shows that he could not have been at the crime scene," adds Cantu, emphasizing that at that time he was in Arkansas.
The reports he refers to were prepared by forensic experts hired by his attorneys after the trial and conviction, and were submitted in his clemency petition to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on February 6.
Before the trial, almost a quarter of a century ago, Cantu's lawyers then, ex officio (assigned by the state to those who cannot or do not want to pay for their defense), did not ask for an investigator to be appointed to the case, so it depended of them to examine the witnesses and the evidence presented by the Prosecutor's Office.
Nor did they ask for the help of an expert in DNA, ballistics, fingerprint examination, blood spatter or forensic medicine, as the Prosecutor's Office did.
They also did not call any witnesses, nor did they question the medical examiner.
After the Prosecutor's Office ended the judicial process, the defense did so as well.
In his closing argument, Cantu's attorney, J. Matthew Goeller (assisted by Don High), admitted his client's guilt against his wishes;
Cantu interrupted the trial and then asked the judge if he could represent himself, legal documents show, but his request was denied.
"They said I wasn't worthy of a life sentence and decided to schedule me for execution," he laments, "but today the jury foreman, along with a couple of other jurors, have come forward and made sworn statements for my appeal saying that, with what they know today and the information that has come to light and with the lies that we have been able to prove from witnesses or even the Police Department, they would not have convicted me. And they certainly would not have sentenced me to death.
[A Texas judge freezes the execution of Ivan Cantu after new evidence is presented]
In the years since his conviction, Cantu's attorney, Gena Bunn (who has represented him pro bono for 15 years), private investigators and an independent podcast producer, Matt Duff, say they have found new evidence that they believe discredits Cantu. the main witness for the Prosecutor's Office – Amy Boettcher, Cantu's ex-fiancée – and cast, they say, doubts on his guilt.
"Today we have something tangible to prove that the Prosecutor's Office lied to the jury," Cantu says, "and that is a very, very good feeling."
However, no court has so far agreed to analyze this new information.
In April 2023, a last-minute appeal citing testimony questioned by the defense led Collin County District Judge Benjamin Smith to pause the execution with just seven days left to kill him.
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals four months later rejected a request for an evidentiary hearing and a new execution date was set: Cantú will die on February 28 unless the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles accepts his request or the governor, Republican Greg Abbott, decides at the last minute to halt the execution.
What elements does the defense question?
The bodies of James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen were found on November 4 with multiple gunshot wounds, but police did not find a weapon in their home.
Mosqueda was a drug trafficker, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
Kitchen was studying nursing.
They had gotten engaged a few months before.
Police said items were missing from the home, including Mosqueda's Rolex watch and her engagement ring.
Shortly after the bodies were found, Cantu's mother asked the police to check on her son's health, according to court documents.
That same afternoon she went with agents to her son's house, where they saw a bullet hole in the wall.
Cantu was then traveling with his fiancee;
He had left on the morning of November 4 to visit her parents in Arkansas.
Hours later, investigators found Mosqueda's car in the parking lot of the Cantu housing complex.
In a police search on November 7, they found bloody clothes in the trash can, as well as a box of bullets and the keys to Amy Kitchen's car, a Mercedes Benz.
Cantu was still in Arkansas, but he talked to friends and family about the murders, and even told them the supposed origin of the bullet hole in his house: On November 2, he said, a man dressed as a pizza delivery man came to his house to intimidate him by claiming that Mosqueda owed him a lot of money but could not find it;
He fired a warning shot into the wall.
Cantu returned to Dallas with his fiancée, Amy Boettcher, on Nov. 7, according to court documents, and was scheduled to speak with police the next day.
She went with Boettcher to the home of Cantu's ex-girlfriend, Tawny Svihovec, to spend the night.
The next day, Cantu and Svihovec left the house and Boettcher stayed there, according to the documents.
At noon Cantu called her and told her that he had been arrested.
Boettcher flew to Arkansas with her parents and told them and the police that Cantu had committed her murders and that she even took her to the crime scene that same night.
Cantu says Boettcher lied, and his legal team claims to have found evidence that casts doubt on his guilt.
An agent who went with Cantu's mother to carry out a preliminary check of her home stated that the bloody clothes were not in the trash can.
Furthermore, according to Boettcher, the pants were Cantu's, but they were size 34/32 and Cantu claims that his size was 30/30.
Boettcher also claimed that on the night of the murders he saw Cantu wearing Mosqueda's Rolex, but in 2019 Cantu's father, Abner Cantu, said he discovered that the brother of Mosqueda's fiancée took that watch from the crime scene and He handed it over to the police, who returned it to Mosqueda's mother.
Boettcher further testified that, on the night of the crime, Cantu asked her to marry him and gave her a diamond ring that she later learned was the one Mosqueda gave to his fiancée.
According to her, Ella Cantu took the ring from her when she returned to Dallas and allegedly got rid of it.
But witnesses found by Cantu's lawyer say that Boettcher already had a ring a week before the crime.
Additionally, Jeff Boettcher, brother of Cantu's fiancee, testified at trial that Cantu had told him he planned to kill Mosqueda and had tried to recruit him to "clean up" after the murder.
In 2022 he recanted, claiming that when he testified he was under the influence of drugs, and that the conversation "never happened."
Boettcher passed away in 2021 at the age of 44.
Cantu with his mother, Sylvia Cantu, on one of his birthdays. Podcast "Cousins by Blood"
20 hours a day in his cell in the corridor
On death row, prisoners spend between 20 and 22 hours a day locked in their cell.
Recreation days “are limited,” explains Cantu, who appreciates when he can go out “to a living room or even to take some fresh air.”
Of food, what he likes the most are pancakes.
Communication with his family or his lawyer “was very limited for years,” he says, despite being “key and necessary.”
The security rules are extreme.
"Because I'm on death row, everywhere I go I'm handcuffed. Unless I'm in my cell or a smaller cage like this," she said.
Taking a shower, receiving visitors or even going to the doctor is a respite because it allows him to walk and thus stretch his legs a little, he says.
In January 2023, a group of prisoners filed a lawsuit in federal court in Houston, still unresolved, alleging that isolation deprives them of their right to access medical and legal care, causes them serious physical and psychological harm, and violates the Eighth. Amendment to the Constitution (vetoing cruel and unusual punishment).
Most of the 180 sentenced to death (all of them for murder, the only crime that deserves this punishment in Texas) have been on death row for years;
about 75, like Cantu, has been around for more than two decades.
"Describing this place where I have been for the last 23 years is not easy. I live in a small cell away from my friends and family, and my recreation is limited. Contact with people is limited. But I take it day by day and it makes "One year we were lucky enough to have access to tablets to help with calls or even access messages. But we've only had that for a year," he says.
At least eight death row inmates have committed suicide in the last 20 years, according to prison records consulted by the Texas Tribune.
The most recent occurred on January 21, when Terence Andrus, 34, was found hanged in his cell.
"The tide is changing, little by little. Two weeks ago a pilot plan began in which they have allowed death row inmates to enjoy group recreation," says Cantu, "I think the demand was necessary to get it started and I think the administration is happy that the plan is going to work and be successful."
"Ivan did not have a fair trial"
Matt Duff launched his podcast Cousins by bloo
d
in 2020
about the Cantu case.
"Most of the accusations came from his girlfriend at the time, Amy Boettcher," Duff told Noticias Telemundo.
"Her version of hers was taken as fact by the court. But her story seemed ridiculous to me. Over time, we have been able to prove that the state's star witness gave fraudulent testimony," he asserts.
But he does not put his hands in the fire for Cantu's innocence because, he affirms, his investigations do not prove that, only that, in his opinion, there were irregularities in the trial for which he was convicted.
"I would only like to reflect on his innocence or guilt, but we can show that Ivan did not have a fair trial," he asserts.
The Board of Pardons and Paroles, which historically is not usually receptive to petitions from convicted persons, does not inspire much hope in Cantu, who asks: "I am calling on the Collin County prosecutor; the governor, [Greg] Abbott; and to the whole world: I'm not asking for anything special, just what I'm entitled to by law. I want to be given a fair day in court, with a lawyer who knows what he's doing and how to present the case. So we can prove my innocence and unravel my unjust conviction."
Cantu in a booth in the prison visiting room in West Livingston, Texas, on February 14, 2024. Juventino Mata / Noticias Telemundo
Noticias Telemundo contacted the Collin County Prosecutor's Office about the case and a spokesperson responded, via email, that its policy is "not to comment on any criminal case pending in court."
The Dallas Police Department also had no comment.
The families of James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen declined to comment on the case at the request of Noticias Telemundo, but on a page on the social network Facebook Kitchen's family wrote on February 2: "Let's hope that there is finally justice for Amy and James and for the execution to take place."
"They are also my family, everything is very sad"
Cantu said that, as his execution date approaches, he also thinks about the pain and anguish of the victims' relatives: "They are also my family, all of this is very sad. I think about them because James was my cousin, we grew up together. "There are so many memories, our lives were cut short. The whole family needs to know the truth. They assumed the prosecution and the police were being honest and sincere, but they weren't. We all need justice."
His case has attracted public attention and thousands of people have signed an online petition for his release.
Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Martin Sheen and Jane Fonda, and organizations such as Amnesty International have advocated for her sentence to be reviewed.
"There are doubts about his legal representation at trial, the testimony of the state's main witness, and the evidence. We have seen that several people on the jury have come out saying that they also have doubts about whether he is really guilty or not in the case," says Mary Kapron, Amnesty International researcher in the United States.
Texas is the state with the most executions, 586 since 1976. In 2023, eight inmates were executed.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973 at least 196 people accused and sentenced to death have been exonerated in the United States, 16 of them in Texas.
This is the case of Clemente Aguirre, a Honduran who spent more than 10 years on death row in Florida for the death of a woman and her daughter.
He was released in 2018 thanks to DNA testing.
"I am not saying that this man is innocent, I am not saying that he did not do it. What I am saying is that there are many things wrong in his case, what is the fear of giving him a new trial?" Aguirre expressed about Cantu.
A few days after his execution, Cantu laments: "I just want to hug my mother, spend time with her and my brother, travel with them somewhere. Family is the most important thing and I have been away for more than 20 years, without being able to touch anyone. That is the worst sentence."
"I have a wonderful mother," he adds, "but this situation has broken her heart. Furthermore, financially and spiritually it has broken us. I feel desperate, helpless for them. But I know that it is only a matter of time," he concludes, "if "They give me a new trial, we can prove my innocence and they will take me home."
But if his lawyer's appeals are rejected, she will die in prison on February 28.