The last words of a detainee from the death of Texas before his execution were apologies to the victim's family.
The rapist and killer convicted months Sandoval Mendoza, 40, was executed Wednesday by lethal injection after spending five years in the death corridor. He was declared dead at 6:40 p.m. Third detainee executed in Texas this year and the 13th in the country.
Mendoza was sentenced to death for the murder of Rachelle O'Neil Tolleson, 20, March 18, 2004, in Farmersville. Tolleson lived in the small town, about 40 miles north-east of Dallas, with his 6-month-old daughter, Avery.
Here is what we know about Mendoza's last moments.
“I want you to know that I am sincere. I apologize
Mendoza used his last words to apologize to Tolleson's family, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“I'm sorry to have stolen your life from Rachelle,” he said. “In Avery … I stole a mother for you. I am sorry for that. I know that I could never say or do to no longer compensate. I want you to know that I am sincere. I apologize.”
He also addressed family members by telling them that he loves them and is with them.
“I'm fine and in peace. You know I'm doing well and everything is love.”
The Death of the Death of Texas, Moises Mendoza, 40, is expected to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. In 2005, Mendoza was found guilty of the Capital Capital of Rachelle O'Neil Tolleson, 20, in Farmersville, Texas.
Mendoza's case has won a kind of notoriety in the years that followed the murder. In 2006, it was presented in the 10th season of “forming lines” ,,,, And in 2008, the series of survey on discovery “Resolved” has highlighted the case.
More of the death corridor: Austin Man remains in the death corridor after the US Supreme Court refused the second petition
“ I turned into a devil '': the detainee of the death corridor says that he had no reason to attack, killing a young mother
In the early hours of March 18, 2004, Rachelle O'Neil Tolleson was at home with her little daughter Avery. Tolleson and Avery lived alone, because Tolleson was in the middle of a divorce.
Mendoza told the police that he left in Tolleson's house through a rear door that evening, by court documents. The two left to obtain a pack of cigarettes, leaving the baby Avery at home.
Mendoza led a little time before starting to stifle Tolleson in his vehicle “for no reason,” he said, according to court documents. He then led the two to a field near his house, where he raped it before stifling it again, according to court documents.
Mendoza then pulled Tolleson out of his truck and stifled her again until he thinks she was dead, Mendoza told the police. To make sure, he “pushed his throat” with a knife. Mendoza left his body on the ground, where he stayed for a few days before being questioned by the police concerning the disappearance of Tolleson, according to the judicial archives.
Mendoza wrapped Tolleson's body in a tarpaulin and moved it on the land of his cousin in a more remote region, a few kilometers east of Farmersville. He then threw the body into a “pigge pit Courier Gazette reports.
A few days later, a man looking for arrow tips found Tolleson's charred body, According to the mail-Gazette.
Mendoza was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
David Leonard Wood, known as “Desert Killer”, which is imprisoned in the Allan B. Polunssy unit in Livingston, Texas, is expected to be executed on Thursday March 13, 2025 in Huntsville prison of Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, Texas.
Before his conviction and his conviction, Mendoza wrote to his parents, telling them that he had no reason for what he did. “I don't know what happened to me at that time. I turned into a devil and after doing something I thought I was in a dream,” wrote Mendoza, Courier-Gazette reports.
On April 2, Mendoza's lawyers asked for the possibility of contesting Mendoza's conviction before the Federal Court.
The victim's little girl was “her life”
At the time of his death, Tolleson was a new mother of his daughter Avery. Tolleson appreciated activities such as scrapbooking and shopping, but his mother Pam O'Neil said it was Avery who was “His oxygen.”
“Avery was her life and I was so proud of her when she became a mother. Everything came so naturally for her,” said O'Neil La Courrier-Gazette About a year after Tolleson's death. “I hate that Avery has no memories of her.”
O'Neil said that she and Avery frequently watch videos at Tolleson's house, including the first and only Christmas in Avery with her mother, and watched through albums that Tolleson and O'Neil have done together.
“She wanted more than anything in life to look at her baby to take her first steps, say her first word, and she will never hear her daughter calling her mother,” said O'Neil little time after Tolleson's death.
“I don't think we will never heal. I don't think a mother really heals the loss of a child,” she said to the mail-Gazette In 2005. “I cannot believe that my Petit-Bébé will grow up without a mother.”
Pam O'Neil and Tolleson's father, Mark O'Neil, did not immediately respond to USA Today's requests to talk about their end of daughter, but Mark recognized Tolleson in several Facebook publications over the years.
In 2021, Mark shared a photo of Tolleson from his wedding day on Facebook.
“Happy birthday to my beautiful girl in paradise,” he wrote. “I love you and you miss you every day, little girl.”
Moises Mendoza 'One of the most violent and sadistic men that I have never pursued' ', says the lawyer
The neighbors described Mendoza as “working hard” but said that he had changed as he aged, telling a “violent argument” when he pinned his mother and his sister in their courtyard before, as indicated above by La Courrier-Gazette.
Mendoza graduated from the school, where he did “fairly well”, according to court documents. He received some secondary school scholarships and followed around nine months of heating and air conditioning training when obtaining the diploma.
In 2003, Mendoza was arrested for his involvement in two aggravated flights on the Dallas College Richland campus, According to the mail-Gazette. It was while he was on bail for one of these flights that Tolleson disappeared, explains the episode of “Filensic Files” of 2006.
For a large part of their education in northern Texas, Mendoza and Tolleson were in fact in the same primary school lessons, Tolleson's mother, Pam O'Neil, explained in 2006 Episode “Medico-Legal Files” This describes the case of Mendoza. And Friday before the murder of Tolleson, Mendoza was at Tolleson for a party of about fifteen people, according to court documents.
Clinical psychologist Mark Vigen described Mendoza during his trial as “immature” and “psychologically underdeveloped”, saying that Mendoza liked to run away with “being sneaky” and got angry when others criticized him, as indicated in court documents.
During the condemnation of Mendoza, the former assistant prosecutor of the County District of Collin, Greg Davis, described Mendoza as “one of the most violent and sadistic men” which he has ever pursued.
– Greta Cross of USA Today contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Moises Mendoza executed Wednesday: the last words of the detainee of the Texas corridor
