Peter Anthony Cantu to Be Executed for Ertman-Peña Murders

by Jordan Yerman | August 17, 2010 at 11:44 am

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Peter Anthony Cantu to Be Executed for Murders of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña

After 17 years on death row, Peter Anthony Cantu will be the third and final person executed for the 1993 murders of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña. Derrick Sean O'Brien and Jose Medellin have already been executed by lethal injection. Having been denied clemency, Cantu will follow in their footsteps at 6pm local time on August 17.

Peter Anthony Cantu was the leader of the Black and White Gang, which was conducting an initiation ceremony in Houston's T.C. Jester Park. Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña (14 and 16 years old) came across the event as they were walking home from a pool party; the gang members detained the girls and repeatedly raped them. According to testimony from the other gang members, Peter Cantu ordered the girls to be killed so that they wouldn't tell anyone what happened. The girls were then strangled to death.

Cantu's brother tipped the police off about the crimes; the girls' bodies were found three days after they were killed.

Following a written and taped confession from José Medellin, he, along with Peter Cantu, Derrick Sean O'Brien, Efrain Perez, and Raul Villareal, received the death penalty; Perez and Villareal's sentences were converted to life in prison due to their age at the time of the crime. Venancio Medellin, who was 14 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to 40 years.

It will be the last of the executions related to the murders of 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena in 1993. Despite being the leader of the murderous gang, Cantu has lasted longer on death row than his co-defendants.

Ertman rejected an invitation from Cantu's lawyer to come to his office and read a letter of apology from Cantu.

"It's a little late," Ertman said. "I told him to stick it. Hell, no."