Texas carried out the execution of Moises Sandoval Mendoza on Thursday evening in Huntsville, nearly 20 years after he brutally murdered 20-year-old Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson, a young mother.
Mendoza, who was 44 at the time of his execution, was convicted in 2004 for kidnapping Tolleson from her home before sexually assaulting Tolleson, strangling her, and then stabbing the woman to death. After committing the crime, Mendoza attempted to conceal the evidence by burning Tolleson’s body and dumping it in a nearby creek. Authorities later recovered her remains after an extensive search and investigation, an investigation that involved days of questioning before Mendoza offered any information on where to locate Tolleson’s body.
Throughout nearly two decades of legal appeals in the case, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office defended the death sentence against multiple challenges by the killer’s defense team, ultimately pushing for Mendoza’s death sentence to be confirmed and carried. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request to delay the execution and declined to review his case any further.
“Tonight, the State of Texas upheld its duty and obligation to enforce justice and ensure that criminals receive the appropriate punishment,” Paxton said in a recent press release.
“Twenty years after Mendoza violently murdered Rachelle Tolleson, robbing her five-month-old daughter of her mother, Texas has executed him. I will always do everything in my power to defend the law and hold criminals accountable,” The Attorney General added.
Mendoza’s execution took place at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Huntsville Unit, commonly known as the Walls Unit. He was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection.
Tolleson’s murder case garnered viral attention in Texas due to the vicious nature of the crime, as well as the activism from Tolleson’s family and her fellow community members. Mendonza’s execution will never solve the loss of a young mother. However, it may offer a momentary reprieve for a mourning family seeking any form of justice.
Mendoza was the third person executed by Texas in 2025.
As of Monday, there is only one other upcoming execution currently scheduled in Texas. Matthew Johnson is scheduled to be executed on May 20 for his conviction in a brutal murder and robbery case committed back in 2023.