Jurors deliberated for 6˝ hours before deciding
that capital punishment was appropriate punishment for Noah
Espada, who was found guilty last week of killing Luke Scott and
Sandra Ramos.
Scott was Espada's former boss at Polly
Esther's, a River Walk night club. Prosecutors contend that Espada
shot and killed Scott out of revenge after Scott fired him.
Ramos, a neighbor of Scott's, was bound and
suffocated after Espada mistakenly broke into her apartment,
thinking it was Scott's.
Espada sat motionless when the judge read the
jury's decision, but the defendant broke down in tears when he
addressed the court.
"No matter what happens, I'll never forget what
I did," Espada said. "As a matter of fact, I hate myself the same
way that you all hate me."
The families of both victims said that although
Espada deserved the death penalty, the punishment does little to
ease their pain.
"We're here because of the decisions that you
made," Alisha Scott-Aboud, Scott's mother, said to Espada during a
victim's impact statement. "And the decisions that you made for my
son's life, and for Sandra's life."
"My daughter is gone and will never come back,"
Julio Ramos, the father of Sandra Ramos, said to reporters after
the sentencing. "Perhaps, I may see her again."
The families of the two victims joined together
to grieve following the sentencing.
Testimony begins in 2 slayings at apartment
complex
San Antonio Express-News
August 16, 2005
Moments before he was ambushed and gunned down in his own
apartment, Luke Scott called out for his cat.
What happened next, according to prosecutors, and described in a
policec onfession, was a slaying that some say is as cold-blooded
as they come.
Noah Espada, 21, is on trial,
charged with capital murder and facing a possible death sentence
in 2 separate slayings in late February and early March of 2004.
Luther Scott, who went by the nickname Luke, was 30 and flying
high as the general manager of Polly Esther's Dance Plex one
of the River Walk's trendiest nightclubs.
Sandra
Ramos, 29, had recently quit her job as a bartender at a North
Side saloon and was about to move to Missouri for another career
opportunity.
The only connection between the 2 -
before Espada's arrest in their slayings - was that they lived in
the Altamonte Apartments, north of San Antonio International
Airport.
"Luke is dead because he fired a guy
from a $2.50-an-hour job. Sandra Ramos is dead because she was
collateral damage," lead prosecutor Kevin O'Connell concluded in
his opening statement to jurors in 379th District Court.
Prosecutors contend Espada plotted to kill Scott and that Ramos
was slain after the defendant mistakenly broke into her apartment
thinking it was Scott's.
3 days later, he
returned to finish what he started, they allege.
Defense attorneys Jeff Scott and Richard Langlois chose not to
give an opening statement.
Jeff Scott said last
week the case is not about Espada's guilt or innocence, but
whether he deserves the death penalty.
The trial, before Judge Bert Richardson, got
under way Wednesday after a rocky start. One of the original 12
jurors was excused Monday because of a death in the family, and
prosecutors and defense attorneys had to take an extra day Tuesday
to choose a replacement juror.
Detective Liz
Greiner, lead investigator on the case for the San Antonio Police
Department, took the witness stand and recounted to jurors how the
leads were developed that ultimately led to Espada's arrest on
March 18, 2004, at his girlfriend's apartment near the South Texas
Medical Center.
She testified that the case was
broken wide open after a tip led to the discovery of Luke Scott's
flashy black sports car, which was stolen after he was shot to
death around 4:25 a.m. March 2 in Altamonte's Unit 807. The car
was discovered in a garage at the home of one of the defendant's
ex-girlfriends.
Although the slayings appeared
unrelated at first, Greiner described her suspicions that Espada
also was responsible for the suffocation death of Ramos, 3 days
earlier, in apartment No. 1216.
She said Espada
ultimately admitted to another detective he committed that murder.
Then Greiner was asked to read the 5-page confession she took from
Espada.
In the confession, Espada described how
Luke Scott unfairly treated him and disciplined him at the
nightclub, where he worked as a bartender's helper. He told of
plotting Scott's death after being fired Feb. 13. He related how
he broke into Scott's 2nd-floor apartment through the balcony door
and lay in wait in the bedroom with Scott's cat. Scott's relatives
said the cat was named Kiki.
Then Greiner's
voice started shaking as she got to the part where Espada
described what happened when Scott entered his apartment after a
long night at the club.
"Luke came in and called
his cat," Espada stated in the confession. "My heart was pounding.
I could not back out, now.
"As soon as Luke was
in front of me, I fired 1 shot. ... Luke ran into the hallway and
I fired again and he fell to the floor. Luke sat up facing the
door. I was standing behind him then and I fired once into his
head."
Espada went on to say he took Scott's car
keys, a watch and his gym bag before fleeing the scene in the
victim's car.
