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By Scott Tibbs, August 20, 2010
We see so much bad news these days that I was thrilled to see some good news. Peter Anthony Cantu, a gang leader who orchestrated the horrifically brutal gang rape and torture-slayings of Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman, was put to death by the state of Texas. While I am angry that it took so long for Cantu to finally reach his eternal destination in Hell, I am nonetheless thankful that there is one state in the nation that takes justice seriously.
One of the other perpetrators, Jose Medellin, was put to death two years ago.
This is what Peter Cantu did to merit the death penalty.
| For the next hour or so, these beautiful, innocent young girls were subjected to the most brutal gang rapes that most of the investigating officers had ever encountered. The confessions of the gang members that were used at trial indicated that there was never less than 2 men on each of the girls at any one time and that the girls were repeatedly raped orally, anally and vaginally for the entire hour. One of the gang members later said during the brag session that by the time he got to one of the girls, "she was loose and sloppy." One of the boys boasted of having ‘virgin blood’ on him. |
It gets worse.
When the rapes finally ended, the horror was not over. The gang members took Jenny and Elizabeth from the clearing into a wooded area, leaving the juvenile behind, saying he was "too little to watch". Jenny was strangled with the belt of Sean O’Brien, with two murderers pulling, one on each side, until the belt broke. Part of the belt was left at the murder scene, the rest was found in O’Brien’s home. After the belt broke, the killers used her own shoelaces to finish their job. Medellin later complained that "the bitch wouldn’t die" and that it would have been "easier with a gun". Elizabeth was also strangled with her shoelaces, after crying and begging the gang members not to kill them; bargaining, offering to give them her phone number so they could get together again.
The medical examiner testified that Elizabeth’s two front teeth were knocked out of her brutalized mouth before she died and that two of Jennifer’s ribs were broken after she had died. Testimony showed that the girls’ bodies were kicked and their necks were stomped on after the strangulations in order to "make sure that they were really dead." |
Peter Cantu is a monster, and he richly deserved the death penalty. The state of Texas was infinitely more kind and humane to Cantu than he was to Jennifer and Elizabeth. While those girls were tortured to death, Cantu was put to death with very little pain in a sterile environment. The gentle manner in which he died stands in stark contrast to the brutality he inflicted on two teenage girls for his own perverted amusement.
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