Bio

Manuel Fernando Garza Jr. was born on August 8, 1980, in Bexar County, Texas, and worked as a laborer. By age 20, he already had an extensive juvenile and adult criminal history, presented in detail by prosecutors at his later trial, a February 1995 attempted apartment burglary, an April 1995 motor vehicle theft that led to a police chase, an October 1997 arrest on a youth commission warrant, during which he was found on school property carrying three knives and a screwdriver, a subsequent search of his bedroom at his aunt and uncle's home that turned up a large quantity of stolen property along with a Glock pistol and two loaded magazines, an escape from a juvenile halfway house on December 24, 1997, and a motor vehicle theft and burglary five days later. His defense attorneys later argued this pattern stemmed from an abusive and neglected childhood.

Murder Story

On February 2, 2001, San Antonio Police Officer John "Rocky" Riojas, 37, a member of a specialized unit targeting property crimes at apartment complexes, stepped out of his marked patrol car and approached Garza on a street in San Antonio, asking for his name. Garza was aware that he had several outstanding arrest warrants. When Riojas asked him to place his hands on the patrol car, Garza sprinted away instead, later explaining, "As I started running the cop was telling me to stop. I just wanted to get away. I knew I was gonna go to jail and I didn't want that." Riojas gave chase and eventually caught up to him, and the two became engaged in a physical struggle. During the altercation, Riojas drew his own service weapon, which Garza managed to wrest away from him. Garza fired a single shot, striking Riojas in the head and killing him. Witnesses reported that Garza then tucked the officer's gun into his pants, cursed at Riojas as he lay on the ground, and fled the scene.

Garza was arrested two days later at his sister's apartment, after an informant told detectives that someone had attempted to sell them the missing semi-automatic service weapon taken from Riojas. In a statement to investigators, Garza attempted to shift blame for the shooting onto the officer himself: "I truly think this was the cop's fault. I don't see why he wanted to pull out his gun."

A Bexar County grand jury indicted Garza on April 11, 2001, for the murder of a peace officer acting in the lawful discharge of his duties. A jury convicted him of capital murder, and following the jury's recommendation, the court sentenced him to death, with judgment entered on November 1, 2002.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Garza's conviction and sentence on direct appeal on February 16, 2005. His state application for a writ of habeas corpus was denied by the same court on December 17, 2008. Garza then filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the Western District of Texas, which was stayed to allow him to pursue a second state habeas petition. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request for a certificate of appealability on December 20, 2013, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 30, 2014, and again in November 2014 in a final appeal. No last-day appeals were filed as his execution approached.

Manuel Garza Jr. was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, on April 15, 2015, becoming the sixth person executed in Texas that year. He was notably the first inmate executed using a newly obtained supply of pentobarbital by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, during a period when the state, like others, faced a documented shortage of drugs suitable for lethal injection.