TEXAS----execution(s)

Man convicted of stalking, killing ex-girlfriend executed

A West Texas man who stalked his ex-girlfriend after their breakup was
executed Thursday evening for raping, strangling and using a claw hammer
to fatally beat the woman.

"I love y'all and I'm going to miss y'all," Gilberto Reyes said with a big
grin on his face in his brief final statement.

Reyes, 33, had no witnesses on his side of the death chamber. He never
looked at the parents or other relatives of his victim, who watched
through a window.

He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.

When the parents of 19-year-old Yvette Barraz reported her missing after
she failed to return home from work, police wanted to ask Reyes, her
ex-boyfriend, about her disappearance.

Reyes already was known to authorities in Muleshoe in Bailey County along
the Texas-New Mexico border about 70 miles northwest of Lubbock. A month
earlier, Reyes had chased Barraz around town and took a shot at her with a
rifle.

"We certainly wanted to find him and visit with him," recalled Don Carter,
the former Muleshoe police chief. "I don't think you have to be in law
enforcement to figure that deal out. And the fact was we never could find
him, which just made him even more so a suspect."

Two days after she was last seen, Barraz's battered body was found stuffed
under clothing in the hatchback area of her car some 450 miles to the
south in Presidio, along the Rio Grande across from Mexico. She'd been
beaten with a claw hammer, strangled and raped.

It would take another nearly 3 months before police arrested Reyes in
Portales, N.M., about 40 miles west of Muleshoe. When picked up, he was
carrying keys to Barraz's car and home.

Lawyers for Reyes filed suit in federal court challenging the Texas lethal
injection procedures as unconstitutionally cruel. The suit was dismissed
by a judge in Houston.

Blood evidence found outside the restaurant where Barraz worked led police
to believe she was attacked there as she left work the evening of March
12, 1998. Then before dawn the next morning, border police questioned a
man identified as Reyes as he was walking toward Mexico across the
International Bridge at Presidio. He was carrying as much as $100 in coins
but authorities had no reason to detain him and allowed him to continue
into Mexico after a background check showed no warrants were out for him.
They later speculated the coins were Barraz's tip money.

"The sad part about it was he crossed over by the time she was determined
to be a missing person," said Carter, now a captain with the Lubbock
County Sheriff's Department. "So we were just behind him, and since he got
across the border, it delayed apprehension."

At some point, Reyes returned to the United States. Acting on a tip,
authorities arrested him June 7, 1998, in Portales.

At his trial, witnesses told of Reyes and Barraz having a stormy
relationship. A police officer testified Barraz had complained about Reyes
stalking her 2 weeks before she disappeared. DNA evidence from Reyes was
found on the victim's clothing.

A Bailey County jury deliberated about two hours before convicting him of
capital murder. They took another 2 hours before deciding on the death
penalty.

"She was a beautiful, vivacious, respectful young lady," Victor Leal, who
ran the Muleshoe restaurant where Barraz had been working about three
months, said this week. "I regret the fact apparently he'd been stalking
her and she did not tell me that.

"I've always looked back and thought if I had taken time, sat down and
known her a little better, maybe she would have shared that with me and I
would have done something like make sure she was getting walked out to her
car."

Leal, a former mayor of Muleshoe, said the slaying was a jolt to his
community.

"When you have an employee abducted and attacked and eventually killed in
your own parking lot, it takes away what you perceived was some safety in
a small town," he said.

Wednesday evening, Rodriguez, 36, apologized profusely and sought
forgiveness from his victim's family before he was executed.

"You have every right to hate me," he told them. "None of this should have
happened."