Mexican Immigrant Executed 26 Years After Slaying Family

HIDALGO CTY, TX-- Mexican immigrant Robert Moreno Ramos was finally put to death Wednesday night, 26 years after Ramos murdered his wife and two children, according to the Houston Chronicle.

In February 1992, Ramos beat his wife, son, and daughter with a hammer until they died. He then buried the family underneath the bathroom floor. Ramos then fled to Arkansas to discard of the murder weapon.

Ramos's wife, Letecia Ramos' sister reported them missing. Ramos first told his family members that his family had passed away in a car accident, but could not say where.

He claimed to have came home to find his family dead after job searching all day. When he came home to see the deaths, he promptly buried them under the bathroom so his other son didn't see them.

His defense attorney then claimed that it had been an unknown drug dealer who came in and slayed the family.

Ramos was brought into the station for a warrant on a traffic ticket. Police interrogated him until he ended up giving them a map of the house that would lead them to the victims. Ramos' 7-year-old daughter was found with her hands taped behind her back and her mouth gagged prior to her death.

Ramos also admitted to marrying another women and her moving into the house where the murders happened only three days after the massacre. 

Ramos claimed that he had mental illness after growing up with an abusive father who would whip him with chains and hang him upside down.

A lot of controversy was spread concerning this case, because Ramos was an immigrant from Mexico. As a foreign national, Ramos should have been told of his right to notify his country's consulate of his arrest long before trial, as dictated by the Vienna Conventions on Consular Relations. But Mexican officials only found out through news reports nearly a year after the fact, according to court records.

"Any death sentence carried out in contravention of a government's international obligations amounts to an arbitrary execution," U.N. officials wrote. "We call for his death sentence to be annulled and for Mr. Ramos Moreno to be re-tried in compliance with due process and international fair trial standards." This came just hours before Ramos was executed, but it made no difference.

Ramos gave a final statement before being pronounced dead at 9:36 p.m.

"I am very thankful for all the hard work the Mexican consulate put in a fight over my death sentence if there was a reason or not. I am thankful for the humane treatment that I was given here at the two prisons that I was at. I am getting my gold watch that it took the Governor 30 years to forge. Thank you God, Lord send me a chariot. I'm ready."