A man accused in the 1998 brutal death of an 85-year-old Brownsville widow by stabbing her multiple times in the neck and face is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 27.
Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz announced on his Facebook page on Friday that after waiting “almost 22 years, 5 months, and 15 days since the jury’s verdict, justice will be finally served.”
The man, 44-year-old Ruben Gutierrez, has been on death row after he was found guilty in the stabbing death of Escolastica Harrison at her Brownsville trailer home. He attempted to steal $600,000 that she had hidden inside her home.
Although his execution date had been scheduled for June 15, 2020, — Saenz was waiting inside the Wall Unit in Huntsville on that date — Gutierrez’s execution was delayed at the last minute because the U.S. Supreme Court had issued him a stay of execution in order to review claims that his pastor or spiritual advisor was not going to be allowed inside the execution chamber with him.
“The Supreme Court expressed concerns about these pastoral claims and wanted additional time to consider any constitutional implications,” Saenz stated in his posting.
Saenz said the State of Texas has agreed to allow a pastor or spiritual advisor to be in the chamber with Gutierrez at his new execution date scheduled for Oct. 27.
“I do not ask for this outcome lightly. It has been a long road to get to where we are at. The convicted murderer (I am not saying his name because he does not deserve recognition) has wronged our community in a horrid way and deserves no celebrity for his crimes. Mrs. Escolastica Harrison, the victim of his crime, was an 85-year-old, five-foot-four-inch, 105 pound widow. She was kind, generous, and lived a good life. And in late 1998 she was taken from this world because her murderer wanted to steal from her. In the process of robbing her, he ended her life by stabbing her thirteen (13) in her face and neck.”
A summary of incident statement on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s website pertaining to Gutierrez’s case reads, “On September 5, 1998, in Brownsville, Texas, Gutierrez and two co-defendants entered the home office of an 85-year-old Hispanic female with the intent to rob her of the money she kept in a safe. The victim was struck repeatedly and stabbed multiple times in the head, causing her death. The subject and co-defendants fled the residence with a minimum of $56,000.”
Rene Garcia and Pedro Garza are listed as co-defendants in the case. Garcia, 44, received a life sentence. No information on Garza is available.
Prosecutors argued Gutierrez and two accomplices planned to rob Harrison of her savings, killing the woman when the theft didn’t go according to plan. Gutierrez has maintained his innocence, pursuing multiple appeals at the state and federal level seeking to have crime scene evidence tested for DNA. All of his appeals were denied.
“I had hoped that justice for Mrs. Harrison would have happened sooner. Her last surviving sister, Estella Cuellar Perez, had been holding on hope to see the sentence carried out. But, alas, it was not the case, and she passed very recently,” Saenz stated.
