HOUSTON -- On Tuesday, a third person will be executed in one of the most notorious murder cases in Houston history.
Peter Cantu was convicted in the 1993 rapes and murders of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman.
A total of six men have been convicted, and two of them have already been executed. But Cantu has remained alive on death row longer than his victims lived on this earth.
The girls were raped and murdered by the gang members, in a field near T.C. Jester Park in northwest Houston.
Jennifer Ertman would have turned 32 this week.
"I’d like to have heard, the last 17 years, someone say ‘I love you, dad’. I ain’t ever gonna hear that again, that hurts," said Randy Ertman, the victim’s father.
Outside the girls’ school, Waltrip High, death penalty opponents were calling for a halt to all executions in Texas.
"Life without parole is a better alternative, both for society and better from the viewpoint of punishing the individuals," said Scott Cobb of the Texas Moratorium Network.
Randy Ertman, however, doesn’t agree with that viewpoint.
"We’re looking forward to Peter Cantu being executed so he can never murder or hurt anybody again," he said.
The victims’ families are expected to be in Huntsville Tuesday night to witness Cantu’s execution.
