On Wednesday evening, a Texas man was executed after admitting to kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and fatally shooting an 18-year-old woman in 2001, The Associated Press reports. The execution was the second this year in Texas and the eighth in the U.S. At 6:50 p.m., Ramiro Gonzales, 41, was pronounced dead following a chemical injection at the state prison in Huntsville for the January 2001 killing of Bridget Townsend. Gonzales was repeatedly apologetic to the victim’s relatives in his last statement from the execution chamber. “I can’t put into words the pain I have caused y’all, the hurt, what I took away that I cannot give back. I hope this apology is enough,” he said. “I never stopped praying that you would forgive me and that one day I would have this opportunity to apologize. I owe all of you my life and I hope one day you will forgive me."
Townsend was kidnapped and sexually assaulted in 2001, and her body remained undiscovered until October 2002. Following his sentencing to two life terms for the kidnapping and rape of another woman, Gonzales led authorities to Townsend's remains. The U.S. Supreme Court declined a defense plea to intervene about 1 and 1/2 hours before the execution’s scheduled start time, rejecting arguments by Gonzales’ lawyers that he had taken responsibility for what he did and that an expert for the prosecution in his case now believed that -- contrary to trial testimony -- that expert Gonzales would not be a future danger to society, a legal finding needed to impose a death sentence. Because Gonzalez was helping other death-row inmates through a faith-based program, a group of 11 evangelical leaders from Texas and around the country had also, unsuccessfully, asked the parole board and Gov. Greg Abbott to halt the execution and grant clemency.