The Murders of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena

What happened...

Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena were 14 and 16 years old, respectively. They were friends who attended the same high school in Houston, Texas, Waltrip High School. On June 24, 1993, the girls spent the day together....and then died together.

They were last seen by friends about 11:15 at night, when they left a friend's apartment to head home, to beat summer curfew at 11:30. They knew they would be late if they took the normal path home, down W. 34th Street to T.C. Jester, both busy streets. They also knew they would have to pass a sexually-oriented business on that route and so decided to take a well-known shortcut down a railroad track and through a city park to Elizabeth's neighborhood.

The next morning, the girls parents began to frantically look for them, paging them on their pagers, calling their friends to see if they knew where they were, to no avail. The families filed missing persons reports with the Houston Police Department and continued to look for the girls on their own. The Ertmans and Penas gathered friends and neighbors to help them pass out a huge stack of fliers with the girls' pictures all over the Houston area, even giving them to newspaper vendors on the roadside.

Four days after the girls disappeared, a person identifying himself as 'Gonzalez' called the Crimestoppers Tips number. He told the call taker that the missing girls' bodies could be found near T.C. Jester Park at White Oak bayou. The police were sent to the scene and searched the park without finding anything. The police helicopter was flying over the park and this apparently prompted Mr. 'Gonzalez' to make a 911 call, directing the search to move to the other side of the bayou. When the police followed this suggestion, they found the badly decaying bodies of Jenny and Elizabeth.

Jennifer Ertman's dad, Randy Ertman, was about to give an interview regarding the missing girls to a local television reporter when the call came over a cameraman's police scanner that two bodies had been found. Randy commandeered the news van and went to the scene that was now bustling with police activity. Randy Ertman appeared on the local news that evening, screaming at the police officers who were struggling to hold him back, "Does she have blond hair? Does she have blond hair?!!?" Fortunately, they did manage to keep Randy from entering the woods and seeing his daughter's brutalized body and that of her friend Elizabeth, but they were unable to escape that fate themselves. I saw hardened, lifelong cops get tears in their eyes when talking about the scene more than a year later. The bodies were very badly decomposed, even for four days in Houston's brutal summer heat and humidity, particularly in the head, neck and genital areas. The medical examiner later testified that this is how she could be sure as to the horrible brutality of the rapes, beatings and murders.

The break in solving the case came from, of course, the 911 call. It was traced to the home of the brother of one of the men later sentenced to death for these murders. When the police questioned 'Gonzalez', he said that he had made the original call at his 16 year-old wife's urging. She felt sorry for the families and wanted them to be able to put their daughters' bodies to rest. 'Gonzalez' said that his brother was one of the six people involved in killing the girls, and gave police the names of all but one, the new recruit, whom he did not know.

His knowledge of the crimes came from the killers themselves, most of whom came to his home after the murders, bragging and swapping the jewelry they had stolen from the girls.

While Jenny and Elizabeth were living the last few hours of their lives, Peter Cantu, Efrain Perez, Derrick Sean O'Brien, Joe Medellin and Joe's 14 year old brother were initiating a new member, Raul Villareal, into their gang, known as the Black and Whites. Raul was an acquaintance of Efrain and was not known to the other gang members. They had spent the evening drinking beer and then "jumping in" Raul. This means that the new member was required to fight every member of the gang until he passed out and then he would be accepted as a member. Testimony showed that Raul lasted through three of the members before briefly losing consciousness.

The gang continued drinking and 'shooting the breeze' for some time and then decided to leave. Two brothers who had been with them but testified that they were not in the gang left first and passed Jenny and Elizabeth, who were unknowingly walking towards their deaths. When Peter Cantu saw Jenny and Elizabeth, he thought it was a man and a woman and told the other gang members that he wanted to jump him and beat him up. He was frustrated that he had been the one who was unable to fight Raul.

The gang members ran and grabbed Elizabeth and pulled her down the incline, off of the tracks. Testimony showed that Jenny had gotten free and could have run away but returned to Elizabeth when she cried out for Jenny to help her.

For the next hour or so, these beautiful, innocent young girls were subjected to the most brutal gang rapes that most of the investigating officers had ever encountered. The confessions of the gang members that were used at trial indicated that there was never less than 2 men on each of the girls at any one time and that the girls were repeatedly raped orally, anally and vaginally for the entire hour. One of the gang members later said during the brag session that by the time he got to one of the girls, "she was loose and sloppy." One of the boys boasted of having 'virgin blood' on him.

The 14-year-old juvenile later testified that he had gone back and forth between his brother and Peter Cantu since they were the only ones there that he really knew and kept urging them to leave. He said he was told repeatedly by Peter Cantu to "get some". He raped Jennifer and was later sentenced to 40 years for aggravated sexual assault, which was the maximum sentence for a juvenile.

When the rapes finally ended, the horror was not over. The gang members took Jenny and Elizabeth from the clearing into a wooded area, leaving the juvenile behind, saying he was "too little to watch". Jenny was strangled with the belt of Sean O'Brien, with two murderers pulling, one on each side, until the belt broke. Part of the belt was left at the murder scene, the rest was found in O'Brien's home. After the belt broke, the killers used her own shoelaces to finish their job. Medellin later complained that "the bitch wouldn't die" and that it would have been "easier with a gun". Elizabeth was also strangled with her shoelaces, after crying and begging the gang members not to kill them; bargaining, offering to give them her phone number so they could get together again.

The medical examiner testified that Elizabeth's two front teeth were knocked out of her brutalized mouth before she died and that two of Jennifer's ribs were broken after she had died. Testimony showed that the girls' bodies were kicked and their necks were stomped on after the strangulations in order to "make sure that they were really dead."

The juvenile pled guilty to his charge and his sentence will be reviewed when he turns 18, at which time he could be released. The other five were tried for capital murder in Harris County, Texas, convicted and sentenced to death. I attended all five trials with the Ertmans and know too well the awful things that they and the Penas had to hear and see in the course of seeing Justice served for their girls.

Two VERY important things in the criminal justice system have changed as a result of these murders. After the trial of Peter Cantu, Judge Bill Harmon allowed the family members to address the convicted. This had not previously been done in Texas courts and now is done as a matter of routine.

The other change came from the Texas Department of Corrections which instituted a new policy allowing victims' families the choice and right to view the execution of their perpetrators.

I had an ever-swaying opinion on the death penalty before this happened to people I know, before I watched the justice system at work firsthand. I have now come to believe that there are some crimes so heinous, so unconscionable that there can be no other appropriate punishment than the death penalty.

Charlene Hall


Update - 1996

Vinnie Medellin was sentenced at age 14 to forty years in the Texas Department of Corrections for the crime of aggravated sexual assault upon Jennifer Ertman, to which he pled guilty. As a juvenile, he was remanded to the custody of the Texas Youth Commission where he would remain until age eighteen. He testified at all of the other trials except for that of his brother, Jose Medellin. He refused to answer any questions at his brother's trial and was held in contempt of court and sentenced to six months in county jail, to be served at the end of his current sentence.

On September 26, 1996, after three years in the custody of the TYC, a hearing was held to determine the future of the juvenile. Three outcomes were possible; he could have been released on parole, a possibility which was never even discussed; he could have been returned to TYC custody until he reached the age of 21 at which time another hearing would have been held; or he could have been sent to TDC to serve the remainder of his sentence as an adult.

The recommendation of TYC was that he continue treatment at TYC until age 21. He was said to be an excellent inmate and did not have behavior problems and participated in all required therapies. On the other hand, his counselors reported that he still seemed to show no remorse for his part in the crimes and also did not take responsibility for his part.

The courtroom was filled with supporters of the girls' families, most of whom did not know them before the murders and who have become friends through Justice For All or Parents of Murdered Children. There was testimony about the details of the crime from a detective who was present at the murder scene and participated in the investigation and arrests. A therapist from TYC testified as to Vinnie's stay at TYC and the reports of various counselors and therapists. Vinnie's father testified as to his good behavior before this incident.

Randy Ertman took the witness stand to tell the court about his daughter, Jennifer. When asked what Jenny's hobbies were, he elicited bittersweet smiles in the courtroom when he responded, "Shopping!" Randy told the judge that he was living through the worst possible thing that could happen to a family and implored the judge to send Vinnie to TDC and to not make the families repeat this process in three years.

Vinnie took the stand and was asked about his past behavior, his grades at school and how he happened to be with his brother on this night. He read a letter that he had written, telling the parents of the victims that he was sorry for their losses and warning other teenagers away from gangs, saying that he had gone with this gang for one hour and had ruined his life forever.

Judge Pat Shelton did not take a recess to ponder his decision. He said that he agreed with Mr. Ertman, that this is the nightmare of nightmares for a parent. He said that he also agreed with Vinnie Medellin that gangs were destructive but that "you have to mean what you say when you are walking out the front door of your house, not just when you are walking in the door of the courtroom."

He also said "I'm not sure that your future parole officer has even been BORN yet and I'm not sure that you deserve for him to have even been born yet." He rejected the report from the TYC as "psycho-babble" and transferred custody of Venancio Medellin to the Texas Department of Corrections.

Charlene Hall

Update

I just wanted to let visitors know what is going on with the killers' appeals.

Two of the murderers had an execution date set for June 2004, on and the day after the 11th anniversary of the murders. The two were Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal. They both received a stay because of an appeal that was to be heard before the US Supreme Court regarding a case from Missouri that challenged the execution of any murderer who was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. Both of these killers were not yet 18 when they brutally attacked and killed the girls. Villarreal turned 18 in three months, and Perez turned 18 five months after the murders.

The arguments in this case were heard in the fall of 2004 and the decision was handed down a few months later; no more death penalties for "juvenile" murderers. This will result in these two killers, plus dozens more across the country, being removed from death row and given life sentences instead. In this case, it is life without the possibility of parole for 35 years because that was the alternative to a death sentence in a capital case at the time of the murders. They will certainly never be released from prison, but they should have been executed.

The only consolation is that they will no longer have the protection they now have on death row - they will be in the general population of the prison system and most regular prisoners do not like people who rape and murder children. They might have gotten a reprieve but it may be much worse in the end, a true case of be careful what you wish for...

Additionally, a third killer out of the five who were put on death row for this crime had an appeal pending before the US Supreme Court. In this instance, Joe Medellin claims that he should get a new trial because he is a Mexican national and should have been allowed to contact the Mexican consulate for legal assistance. However, he had lived in the US since he was six years old and had gone to elementary, middle and high school here. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in spring of 2005. In the meantime, US President George Bush instructed, via a "determination," that Texas courts comply with the 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and hold a hearing for Medellin. Texas refused to comply, saying that the federal government and the international ruling have no bearing on state criminal justice statutes. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear Medellin's case again, and sided with Texas against the President, saying that President Bush did not have the authority to order such a review. Medellin has an execution date of August 5, 2008.

Sean O'Brien was executed on July 11, 2006. His final statement was, "I'm sorry. I have always been sorry. It's the worst mistake that I ever made in my whole life. Not because I am here but because of what I did and I hurt a lot of people, you and my family."