Ivan Cantu is executed by lethal injection in Texas despite suspicion of his guilt.

Hispanic Ivan Cantu was executed by lethal injection this Wednesday in Huntsville, Texas, after all efforts by his defense to halt the process and allow him to prove his innocence with new evidence that was not presented at his initial trial.

The execution began at 6:26 pm (local time) and he died at 6:47 pm, according to prison authorities.

“After more than two decades of state and federal courts thoroughly reviewing his convictions, Evan Cantu finally received justice tonight,” District Attorney Greg Willis wrote in a statement.

Cantu was convicted in 2001 in a trial in which no witnesses were presented in his defense, the state did not question him and he was not allowed to take the stand to tell his side of the story. That trial ended with a death sentence, supported primarily by the testimony of two state witnesses: Cantu’s girlfriend at the time, Amy Boettcher, and her brother Jeff.

In his final words, Cantu reiterated his innocence, which he had claimed for more than two decades.

“I want you to know that I didn’t kill James and Amy,” he said.

Over the past year, his mother, Sylvia Cantu, has given interviews almost everywhere, pleading with courts and the justice system in Texas to allow her son’s new defense a window to present new evidence collected by a private investigator over four years. .

But this week the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, the state Court of Criminal Appeals and the Fifth Circuit denied Cantu’s clemency petition.

In this interview with Univision Notices, on February 23, her birthday, she told us that she was not called to the stand as a witness, even though she had information that could contradict the version of the state’s initial witnesses:

Matt Duff is a private investigator who has gathered the strongest evidence in recent years to prove Cantu’s innocence.

He asserts that key evidence in the case incriminating the Hispanic man, such as jeans and socks found in the trash can of his home after a police search with a search warrant, was planted. Duff has an affidavit from a Dallas police officer who checked the apartment with Cantu’s mother three days earlier and said the clothes were not in the trash.

Here we bring you the Univision Notices interview with Duff so you can learn more about the evidence:

As this evidence became known, some members of the jury who had voted for the death penalty for Cantu said the evidence might have changed their decision to indict the Hispanic. One of them is Jeff Calhoun. This Tuesday he wrote an opinion piece in the local newspaper Austin American-Statesman In which he explains. He captioned it ‘I helped put Ivan Cantu to death and now I feel cheated’.