Texas executes man convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder of young woman in 2001

The southern state of Texas this week executed Ramiro Gonzales, a man sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and shooting to death an 18-year-old woman in 2001.

The 41-year-old inmate was declared dead at 6:50 p.m. local time last Wednesday after receiving a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

Before the lethal injection, Gonzales used his final words to apologize to the family of the victim, Bridget Townsend, whose remains were not found until more than a year after she was reported missing from her home in Bandera County in January 2001.

"I can’t put into words the pain I have caused y’all, the hurt, what I took away that I cannot give back," Gonzales said just before his final breaths, according to a transcript created by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice

“I never stopped praying for all of you. I never stopped praying that you would forgive me and that one day I would have this opportunity to apologize. I owe all of you my life and I hope one day you will forgive me,” Gonzales said. “To all your family, I’m sorry.”

He then informed correctional authorities he was prepared to go through with the execution.

"God bless you all. Warden, I’m ready.”

Gonzales kidnapped Townsend from a rural home in Bandera County, northwest of San Antonio.

He later took her to his family's ranch in neighboring Medina County, west of the city, where he sexually assaulted her before killing her.

While serving time for an unrelated assault in 2002, Gonzales confessed to the rape and murder of Townsend and led police to her remains.

The man made a final request for clemency before the execution which was denied.

In that petition he stated that, since arriving on death row in 2006, he had dedicated his life to Christianity and had served as a spiritual leader for other death row inmates.

The victim’s mother, Patricia Townsend, told USA TODAY that she would be among the witnesses to watch the execution and referred to it as a “joyful occasion” for her family: “He doesn't deserve mercy,” she stressed about her daughter’s assailant.

Earlier this month, a group of 11 evangelical leaders from across the country asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to halt the execution and grant Gonzales a pardon.

In a statement Monday, Gonzales' attorneys Thea Posel and Raoul Schonemann called their client “a man who today is, in almost every way, a different person than he was when he killed Bridget Townsend in 2001.”

Gonzales' execution was the second this year in Texas and the eighth in the United States.

This Thursday the execution of Richard Rojem for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl in 1984 was also recorded in Oklahoma.

Since the Supreme Court reintroduced the death penalty in 1976, a reported 1,589 people have been executed in the United States, 587 of them in Texas