Bio

Jesse Joe Hernandez was born on June 8, 1964, in Dallas County, Texas. Texas Department of Criminal Justice records list him as Hispanic, 5 feet 3 inches tall, and 145 pounds. His listed education level was 10 years, and his prior occupation was laborer. Before the killing of Karlos Borja, Hernandez had a prior prison record in Dallas County. TDCJ records show that he had received a three-year sentence for one count of indecency with a child and one count of possession of cocaine. He was later returned from mandatory supervision and then discharged from mandatory supervision on December 11, 1998.

By April 2001, Hernandez and his wife, Mary Rojas, were living in a Dallas house with Misty Leverett, her two children, Hernandez’s young son, and another adult male. Court records described the house as having no running water. Leverett worked as a waitress, and Hernandez and Rojas were expected to watch her children while she was at work.

The two children in the home were Karlos, an infant reported as 10 months old in court and Reuters records and 11 months old in TDCJ records, and his four-year-old sister, Melodi. Both children were left in the care of Hernandez and Rojas on April 11, 2001. The later criminal case focused on what happened while Leverett was away from the house and while Rojas was briefly gone from the home.

Murder Story

On April 11, 2001, Misty Leverett left for work and left Karlos and Melodi in the care of Jesse Joe Hernandez and his wife, Mary Rojas. According to the factual background later recited by the courts, Rojas was initially home with the children while Hernandez and another man left to run errands. Hernandez returned about two hours later, and Rojas then left for her sister-in-law’s house for roughly 30 to 45 minutes.

When Rojas returned, she heard Hernandez screaming at his own young son. She asked where Karlos and Melodi were, and Hernandez told her the children were sleeping in another room. Later, when Rojas heard Hernandez preparing a bottle and said she would check on the children, Hernandez told her not to enter the room because he did not want her to wake them. Rojas later testified that she had seen bloodstains on Hernandez’s shirt but did not check on the children until Leverett returned from work.

When Leverett came home, she found Melodi in a dark room complaining that her head hurt. Rojas and Leverett took the girl into the kitchen and saw swelling and red marks on her head. Leverett took Melodi to the hospital. After Leverett left, Rojas checked on Karlos and noticed that his lips were swollen. She then took Karlos and another child to a nearby relative’s home and called for an ambulance.

Karlos was taken to the hospital with a skull fracture and multiple bruises. Reuters reported that the child had bruises on his forehead, temple, abdomen, and genitalia, citing autopsy records described at trial. His sister survived injuries to her face and head. Karlos died approximately one week after the assault.

Police began investigating while Karlos was still alive. Officers went to the home and discovered that Hernandez had outstanding warrants. He was arrested and taken to the police station. At first, Hernandez denied knowing what had happened to the children. After investigators spoke with Karlos’s doctor and with Melodi, Hernandez became a suspect in the assaults.

During questioning, Hernandez repeatedly admitted and denied striking the children. Detective Warren Breedlove asked him about a flashlight found at the scene, and Hernandez said he may have hit Karlos with it. In a later written statement, Hernandez admitted hitting Karlos and Melodi, saying the children were crying and that he “just exploded,” but that written statement did not include the flashlight detail. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later held that testimony about the oral flashlight statement was admissible.

Physical evidence also linked Hernandez to the assault. Reuters reported that Hernandez’s DNA was found in Karlos’s blood on a pillowcase and on the child’s clothing. Melodi also helped detectives by drawing stick figures to describe the attack, and reports stated that she identified “Jesse” as the person who hit her and her brother with a flashlight.

Hernandez was charged with capital murder because the victim was a child under six years old. A Dallas County jury convicted him of capital murder on July 22, 2002. After the punishment phase, he was sentenced to death. TDCJ records list his date received on death row as August 8, 2002.

Hernandez appealed his conviction and sentence. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment in 2004. In 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied his request for a certificate of appealability in a federal habeas case. The Fifth Circuit rejected his claim involving a prosecutor’s comment during closing argument and found no basis to disturb the lower court’s ruling.

On March 28, 2012, Jesse Joe Hernandez was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Reuters reported that he was the fourth person executed in Texas that year and the twelfth person executed in the United States in 2012 at that point.