Death Row Inmate to be Executed Tonight for Cocaine-Fueled Robbery-Homicides

A man convicted of capital murder in Bexar County is scheduled to be executed this evening after 6 p.m. for his role in the brutal murders of three San Antonio residents in 1993.

Arnold Prieto, 41, pled guilty to murdering Rodolfo Rodriguez, Virginia Rodriguez, and Paula Moran in the same criminal transaction. Below is a summary of the evidence presented at trial.

Facts of the Case

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarized the evidence of guilt in its opinion on direct appeal:

Arnold Prieto was friends with brothers Lupe and Jesse Hernandez, who supplied Prieto with free cocaine. The brothers, particularly Lupe, would often mention a rich uncle in San Antonio, Rodolfo Rodriguez, who was married to the brothers’ aunt, Virginia Rodriguez. They told [Prieto] their uncle was a loan shark who kept a closet full of money.

Early one day in September 1993, Lupe and Prieto began taking cocaine and Lupe repeatedly stated he wanted to go to San Antonio to get his uncle’s money.

In a later confession, Prieto claimed that Lupe had “pressured” him into going to San Antonio, and he and the two Hernandez brother’s set off from Carollton in Prieto’s car for Rodriguez’s home, fueling the ride with the use of cocaine.

At the time of the confession, Prieto said that he was too scared and preoccupied with trying to think of a way to get back to Carrollton to remember the details of what was discussed on the road to San Antonio. He did, however, remember Lupe telling him and Jesse to take off their socks and put them on their hands when they killed the victims so as not to leave any fingerprints.

Jesse, he said, had tested the theory against the car windows. He maintained that the crime had not been his idea.

The three men arrived at the victims’ home at a very dark hour early in the morning.

Prieto claimed that when they arrived, he considered staying in the car, but Lupe had told him to “get the f*** out of the car!” and he had complied.

Lupe then knocked on the door of the house, and Virginia Rodriguez answered, asking who was there. “Soy yo tia,” Lupe answered.

After learning who it was, Virginia opened the door and let the three men in. She was, as Prieto recalled, “very nice”.

Virginia prepared breakfast for the men and poured Prieto a glass of orange juice as he ate, and at this point, he later said, he thought nothing was going to happen.

After placing his dirty dishes in the sink, Jesse called him into a bedroom adjoining the kitchen, where his uncle Rodolfo sat on the bed. Prieto took a seat at his side.

Suddenly, Virginia screamed from the kitchen. Prieto looked toward the kitchen and saw Lupe stabbing his aunt with what looked like a long screwdriver. Rodolfo attempted to help her, but Prieto pushed him back down on the bed and held him down as Jesse handed him a screwdriver. He then grabbed the screwdriver and stabbed Rodolfo “a lot of times.” He remembered stabbing Rodolfo once through the back of the head.

Prieto was frozen with shock at what he had done, he claimed in his confession, but was roused by Lupe yelling at him to “move.” He said he felt faint when he saw Virginia’s body on the kitchen floor, and then he heard a loud pop in the living room. Then he saw 92-year-old Paula Moran on the living room floor, her head “sort of propped up” against the wall.

After the murders, Prieto said, he stood in the doorway while Jesse pried open a closet door and ransacked the contents, emptying several large envelopes.

“Let’s go!” he then yelled, running past Paula Moran. At that point, he noticed she was moving, and Jesse stooped over her and stabbed her repeatedly.

Lupe had taken a purse from the bedroom where Prieto had stabbed Rodolfo, and was designated as the driver.

As Lupe drove, Prieto sat in the passenger seat and claimed he began to throw up and shake. He then resumed ingesting cocaine, which continued all the way back to Carrollton.

When the trio arrived back at Prieto’s apartment in Carrollton, Lupe and Jesse split up the stolen goods and gave Prieto “a man’s gold nugget ring with a coin mounted on top.”

According to Prieto, “we split some cash Lupe had found in the purse. We each got about $100. I also picked out a gold chain, small like for a child with a crucifix pendant .... A couple of days after...I asked Lupe that I needed some money .... He gave me a couple of earrings and a couple of necklaces which I pawned at “U.S.A. Pawn”... I got $140 for all the jewelry.”

Prieto later told his wife, “I killed somebody so did Lupe and Jesse.”

Procedural History

On Jan. 26, 1995, a Bexar County grand jury indicted Prieto for murdering Rodolfo Rodriguez, Virginia Rodriguez, and Paula Moran in the same criminal transaction, or for murdering Rodolfo Rodriguez while in the course of committing the felony offense of robbery.

On March 27, 1995, a Bexar County jury convicted Prieto of capital murder. After a separate punishment proceeding, the same jury sentenced Prieto to death on March 30, 1995.

On Dec. 16, 1998, Prieto’s conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on direct appeal. Prieto did not appeal the state court’s decision to the United States Supreme Court.

On Oct. 8, 1999, Prieto filed an application for state habeas corpus relief, which was denied by the Court of Criminal Appeals on Nov. 28, 2001.

On Aug. 2, 2002, Prieto filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division. The federal court denied Prieto’s petition as time-barred on July 7, 2005.

On Dec. 5, 2005, Prieto appealed the district court’s decision to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and also requested a certificate of appealability (COA) for permission to appeal on other grounds. 

On July 14, 2006, the Fifth Circuit denied Prieto’s request for additional COA in an unpublished opinion. However, on July 18, 2006, the Court reversed the district court’s decision to dismiss Prieto’s federal habeas petition as untimely, and also reversed the district court’s decision to sua sponte dismiss a jury-misconduct allegation as procedurally barred. The Court remanded to the district court with instructions to address the procedural bar issue after giving both parties the opportunity to argue their respective positions.

On Dec. 18, 2006, after receiving briefing from both parties, the district court issued a supplemental opinion again finding that Prieto procedurally defaulted on his jury-misconduct claim, and alternatively finding that the claim does not warrant federal habeas relief on the merits.

On Sept. 15, 2008, the Fifth Circuit rejected Prieto’s appeal and affirmed the district court’s denial of habeas corpus relief.

Prieto filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court on Jan. 21, 2009. The high court denied review on April 27, 2009.

On May 7, 2014, the 175th state district court issued an order setting Prieto’s execution date for Jan. 21, 2015.

Prior Criminal History

Under Texas law, the rules of evidence prevent certain prior criminal acts from being presented to a jury during the guilt-innocence phase of the trial. However, once a defendant is found guilty, jurors are presented information about the defendant’s prior criminal conduct during the second phase of the trial – which is when they determine the defendant’s punishment.

During the penalty phase of Prieto’s trial, jurors learned that Prieto was federally indicted in January 1994 for engaging in organized criminal activity and stealing 163 laptop computers – worth approximately $676,000 – from his Dallas-area employer. Prieto was associated with an organized-crime ring involved in the theft and resale of various products: tires, chemicals, furniture, and computers. The jury also heard evidence that, while incarcerated awaiting trial, Prieto was disciplined for multiple instances of disobeying orders, violating security rules, possession of contraband, yelling, and changing television channels without permission. Finally, jurors learned that Prieto was arrested and confessed to the 1990 burglaries of a Lincoln, two trucks, and two vans.