Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts in Houston, Texas

June 19, 2007

Media Advisory: Gilberto Reyes scheduled for execution

AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott offers the following information about 33-year-old Gilberto Reyes, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. Thursday, June 21, 2007, for the 1998 kidnaping and murder of Yvette Barraz.

FACTS OF THE CRIME

On the morning of March 12, 1998, the parents of Yvette Barraz contacted authorities after their 19-year-old daughter failed to come home the night before from her waitress job at a restaurant in Muleshoe, Texas.

Police investigators found blood and loose change in the restaurant parking lot, but Barraz’s gray Mitsubishi was not there.

Meanwhile, border officers in Presidio, approximately 450 miles south of Muleshoe, documented Gilberto Reyes, Barraz’s former boyfriend, crossing a border check-point on foot heading toward Mexico. The next day, Presidio authorities received a teletype informing them that Reyes was connected to Barraz’s disappearance and that it was possible that he used a gray 1996 Mitsubishi to get to Presidio. Presidio authorities located Barraz’s car parked behind a store near the border. Barraz’s body was found in the hatchback area of the car under some articles of clothing. Her pants and underwear were pulled down to her knees. She had multiple head wounds and a laceration on her hand. Officials recovered a knife and a claw hammer from the car.

Authorities found bloodstains in and on the car. An autopsy determined that Barraz had been struck in the head six times by a claw hammer. The cause of death was strangulation and the blows to the head. Barraz had been sexually assaulted at or near the time of death.

Reyes was arrested in Portales, New Mexico, on June 7, 1998, in possession of keys matching Barraz’s car and residence. DNA testing revealed that the bloodstains in the restaurant parking lot, the vehicle, and on the claw hammer came from Barraz. Reyes’s DNA matched a semen stain on Barraz’s underwear. Reyes was subsequently convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the 287th Judicial District Court of Bailey County.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

January 2000 -- Reyes was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Bailey County, Texas.
September 2002 -- Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence.
October 2002 -- The Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reyes’s application for writ of habeas corpus.
April 2005 -- A U.S. district court denied federal habeas corpus petition.
August 2006 -- The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s denial of federal habeas corpus relief.
November 2006 -- The U.S. Supreme Court denied Reyes’s petition for writ of certiorari.

CRIMINAL HISTORY

In addition to his capital murder conviction, Reyes was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in July 1992 for driving a truck into a group of men, injuring one of them. Reyes received deferred adjudication, which was revoked in 1995 after he was convicted of an October 1994 DWI offense. Reyes served about six months in state prison. Then, on February 9, 1998—about one month before the capital murder—Reyes chased Yvette Barraz, her ten-year-old sister, and her infant daughter with a rifle from a Muleshoe convenience store to Barraz’s house. Reyes was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, DWI, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. After posting bail, Reyes abducted and killed Barraz the following month.

 

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