Texas man set to be executed for the 2004 strangling and stabbing death
of a young mother
[April 23, 2025]
By JUAN A. LOZANO
HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man is facing execution Wednesday for the
strangling and stabbing death of a young North Texas mother more than 20
years ago.
Moises Sandoval Mendoza was condemned for the March 2004 killing of
20-year-old Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson. Prosecutors say Mendoza took
Tolleson from her home in Farmersville, leaving her 6-month-old daughter
alone. The infant was found cold and wet but safe the next day by
Tolleson’s mother. Tolleson’s body was found six days later near a
creek.
Mendoza, 41, was scheduled to receive a lethal injection Wednesday
evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
Evidence in Mendoza’s case showed he also burned Tolleson’s body to hide
his fingerprints. Dental records were used to identify her, according to
investigators.
Mendoza’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the
scheduled execution after lower courts previously rejected his petitions
for a stay. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied
Mendoza’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty.
In their petition before the Supreme Court, Mendoza’s attorneys said he
was prevented by lower courts from arguing that he had been denied
effective assistance of counsel earlier in the appeals process.
Mendoza’s lawyers allege that a previous appeals attorney, as well as
his trial lawyer, had failed to challenge critical testimony by a
detention officer, Robert Hinton. That testimony was used by prosecutors
to persuade jurors that Mendoza would be a future danger to society — a
legal finding needed to secure a death sentence in Texas.
Mendoza’s lawyers allege the officer, who worked in the county jail
where the inmate was being held after his arrest, gave false testimony
that Mendoza had started a fight with another inmate. Mendoza’s lawyers
say the other inmate now claims in an affidavit that he believed
detention officers wanted him to start the fight, and he was later
rewarded for it.
“There is no doubt the jury was listening. During its deliberations, the
jury specifically asked about Mendoza’s ‘criminal acts while in jail,’
including the ‘assault on other inmate,’” Mendoza’s lawyers said in
their petition to the Supreme Court. “As evidenced by the jury’s notes,
there is a reasonable probability that trial counsel’s error in failing
to investigate Hinton’s testimony affected the result.”
[to top of second column]
|
This image provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Texas death row inmate Moises Sandoval Mendoza. (Texas Department of
Criminal Justice via AP)
But the Texas Attorney General’s Office told the Supreme Court that
Mendoza’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel has already
been found by a lower federal court to be “meritless and
insubstantial.”
Even if the detention officer’s testimony were eliminated, the jury
heard substantial evidence regarding Mendoza’s future dangerousness
and his long history of violence, especially against women,
including physically attacking his mother and sister and sexually
assaulting a 14-year-old girl, according to the attorney general’s
office.
“Finally, given the extreme delay in this two-decade-old case, the
public interest weighs heavily against a stay. The State and crime
victims have a ’powerful and legitimate interest in punishing the
guilty,’” the attorney general’s office said in its petition.
Authorities said that in the days before the killing, Mendoza had
attended a party at Tolleson’s home in Farmersville, about 45 miles
(72 kilometers) northeast of Dallas. On the day her body was found,
Mendoza told a friend about the killing. The friend called police
and Mendoza was arrested.
Mendoza confessed to police but couldn’t give detectives a reason
for his actions, authorities said. He told investigators he
repeatedly choked Tolleson, sexually assaulted her and dragged her
body to a field, where he choked her again and then stabbed her in
the throat. He later moved her body to a more remote location and
burned it.
If the execution is carried out, Mendoza would be the third inmate
put to death this year in Texas, historically the nation’s busiest
capital punishment state, and the 13th in the U.S.
On Thursday, Alabama planned to execute James Osgood for the 2010
rape and murder of a woman.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
