A convicted double murderer died by lethal injection on Wednesday after running out of options for appeal.
Ivan Cantu, 50, spent 22 years on death row fighting a Collin County jury’s conviction for the murder of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his cousin’s fiancée, Amy Kitchen, in Far North Dallas on November 4, 2000, in what is now Council Member Cara Mendelsohn’s District 12.
Despite forensic evidence and witness statements pointing to Cantu, he maintained till the very end that the couple had been killed by one of Mosqueda’s rival drug dealers.
“I want you all to know that I don’t think that this situation here will bring you closure,” said Cantu, according to The Dallas Morning News. “If this is what it takes … then so be it. This is not going to help you guys, and I want you to know from me that it never occurred.”
As covered by The Dallas Express, Cantu had been slated for execution last April, but a Texas district court judge issued a stay after Cantu’s attorney filed a clemency petition claiming he had been wrongfully convicted due to false testimony and more during his trial in 2001. It had been his second stay of execution, with the first arising in 2011 after Cantu requested DNA testing.
One of the witnesses for the prosecution was Cantu’s girlfriend at the time, Amy Boettcher. While Cantu maintained that they had left on a trip to Arkansas prior to the murder, Boettcher claimed that Cantu had arrived at her home covered in blood and taken her to the crime scene.
Cantu’s attorney, Gena Bunn, has since argued that Boettcher’s testimony contained several discrepancies that his trial counsel never contested.
“Mr. Cantu objected at trial that counsel not only failed to defend him … but also conceded that he was ‘not innocent,’” she wrote in court filings, per DMN.
However, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis issued a statement on X after Cantu’s execution reaffirming the 2021 guilty verdict, claiming it was based on “clear and powerful evidence.”
“After over two decades of multiple state and federal courts comprehensively reviewing his conviction, Ivan Cantu has finally met with justice tonight. My hopeful prayer is for the victims’ families, friends, and loved ones to find a long-awaited sense of peace,” he wrote.
In Dallas, the number of murders rose from 214 in 2022 to 246 in 2023 for a 15% increase, according to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard. Murder victims were overwhelmingly black and Hispanic males. In fact, as recently covered by The Dallas Express, over 80% of “crimes against persons” — a total of 3,864 reported as of February 28 — have involved black and Hispanic victims in 2024.
The Dallas Police Department’s campaign against violent crime has been hampered by a longstanding officer shortage. Just 3,000 officers are within its ranks despite a City report calling for 4,000 to ensure public safety. City leaders also allocated just $654 million this year for DPD, budgeting considerably less taxpayer money for police operations than other high-crime jurisdictions, like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.
Meanwhile, comparative studies show that Downtown Dallas consistently puts up higher levels of crime, especially assaults, drug crimes, and motor vehicle thefts, than Fort Worth’s downtown area, which is patrolled by a dedicated neighborhood police unit and private security officers.
