Original subtitles

[tense music plays]

KELLY SIEGLER: Thirty years ago, two teenage girls,

Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña,

were going home late one night

because it was curfew time when they were assaulted.

The horrible, horrible way they died,

it's something that you can't really forget.

- Sir, you can't go down-- - I can.

It's my daughter, goddammit.

[indistinct]

KELLY: I think it impacted me and a lot of us

because we realized you can just be living your life

and you run into that.

And it's easy for you to think

you can be careful yourself, but wait till you have kids

and you have to let them go out on their own.

You can't ever anticipate all the evil

that there is out there.

And that's what's so scary.

I don't know how you ever forget all the details

of what happened to each of those girls.

The parents, what they went through

with five trials and burying their babies.

ADOLPH: That's your son, buddy. Not mine.

[indistinct shouting]

KELLY: What's important in this case is

the level of pain

that Jennifer and Elizabeth's parents went through.

And they didn't just bury their babies and deal with that grief,

they helped fix the criminal justice system.

And I think people need to know that.

***

* Safe haven can't seem to find you *

* I'm craving a place to call *

I know Jennifer from middle school,

and I met Elizabeth in high school our freshman year.

Jennifer was one of my best friends.

It still hurts very, very much.

My daughter, Elizabeth,

she was a wonderful, wonderful person.

She was always very, very happy, always smiling.

She was definitely Mama's girl.

CHRISTINA: Jennifer was a little bit younger than I was,

so she was a little bit more on the shy side,

but she was starting to come out of her shell.

They were both great friends, beautiful girls

just starting to find themselves.

The summer of 1993,

we had just ended our freshman year,

and we were enjoying our summer.

That Thursday night, June 24th,

they had gotten together at a mutual friend's

apartment complex just to hang out.

ANDY: Jenny was 14, Elizabeth 16.

And typical teenage girls just, you know, having fun.

They went to a party, but they also had a curfew.

And when it became closer to the curfew hours,

they kind of looked at their watch and went,

"Oh, we'd better go."

[dramatic music plays]

CHRISTINA: I didn't go that night,

but I got a call the next morning from Jennifer's parents

asking if I had heard from her because she hadn't made it home.

But I had not.

Initially, her parents were a little worried

because it just wasn't like her

to not call and let them know where she was.

I don't think I really thought anything of it.

Just maybe they fell asleep at the apartment.

You know, we would hear from her eventually.

But that evening, when we hadn't heard

from either one of the girls, it started to get scary.

And the parents first called the police that Friday.

1993, HPD handled around

600 murders a year.

And Harris County handled around 600 murders a year.

Well, it's the same DA's office.

So we had both of their murders combined,

plus all the other law enforcement agencies

that we had to deal with.

So when the story first came out,

probably we all thought, "Oh, they're just off

"doing something silly and maybe they'll still come home."

All you could do back then

was simply report it to the police.

And a lot of times they would just hope

that the missing persons would show up.

We just started passing out flyers

at local convenience stores and businesses,

even door-to-door in the neighborhood,

and no one had seen them.

The anxiety was definitely building.

The perception was in the beginning

that they were runaways.

The Ertmans and Peñas,

they knew that they weren't "runaways."

This was something wrong.

- How are y'all? - How you been, Kelly?

I'm good. I'm good.

So, he didn't tell you I was coming out here today?

Well, I called him to see if I could come out here

and talk to y'all 'cause--

Well, she's not gonna do the interview.

- That's okay. - You wanna come in?

Yeah. Yeah.

[gentle music plays]

KELLY: She was a girlie-girl though.

ADOLPH: She was a girlie-girl. You're right.

Yeah, you're right. She loved that.

Her makeup and her get dressed up

and go out with her friends and just-- just be-- be a girl.

And she had gotten to be good friends with Jennifer, right?

They was friends for two or three years

before this happened.

The girls, they'd just started living.

I mean, they'd just started living.

People always say, "What happened that night

"that caused it to go so horribly wrong?"

Nothing. Right? They were just coming home.

They were just coming home from a birthday party.

I wish they would've called us to pick 'em up.

- They just decided to walk. - Well, it wasn't that far.

It should have been fine, you know.

It wasn't that far from my house to that apartment,

but that was the worst decision they ever made in their life.

[brooding music plays]

ANDY: The girls were missing.

Four days go by, all of a sudden there's a tip.

We don't know their name, but the tipster said,

"You know, you're looking for two girls.

"I know where they are.

"TC Jester Park."

From the apartments to the park

to Elizabeth's house, that was all walking distance.

RAMON: I kinda lived in the area.

That's why I was really surprised when I got the call

that something had happened there.

When I got there around noontime,

the crime unit was already there with a helicopter.

I started walking across the railroad tracks...

and then I went into the woods.

***

And the first thing I noticed...

were some feet and some legs.

There were two bodies that were partially nude.

But I really couldn't tell

till I got close that they were females.

That's the first time I'd ever seen anything like that.

It's always hot in Houston in the summer,

and the bodies were so badly decomposed,

it wasn't easy to just identify them from viewing them.

RAMON: It looked like they were small little animals

all over her, like maggots.

It was just awful. I still think about it

and I can still see the pictures in my head.

***

And then I noticed clothes scattered all over the place.

And then I saw a belt that was red,

that kinda half of it wasn't there.

It was just so horrific.

I can remember like it happened the other day.

The horror had been discovered

and the parents had found out.

There's a crowd around, and Randy Ertman

just broke through that crowd.

- Sir, you can't go down-- - I can.

It's my daughter goddammit.

[indistinct shouting]

KELLY: You watch that video of Randy

running down that hill screaming

and the cops holding him back 'cause they knew

he didn't need to see what was inside those trees.

And then you hear him say, "Does she have blonde hair?"

[Andy shouting] Blonde hair? Is she blonde-haired?

KELLY: You can just hear the raw pain

in his voice that day.

It breaks your heart.

[brooding music plays]

The bodies were taken to the medical examiner's office

to see what injuries specifically they had,

what the cause of death was.

The police department then began to try to figure out

who was responsible for this.

That anonymous informant called Crime Stoppers first.

And when you call Crime Stoppers,

that's anonymous and can't be traced.

That's to encourage people to call with information

for the reward money.

But when the Houston Police Department

was looking for the bodies,

initially, they couldn't find 'em

'cause they were looking in the wrong area.

And then that anonymous informant

called back to 911 to tell 'em

you're looking in the wrong spot.

And where exactly to find the bodies in a clearer way.

When you call 911, everybody knows

that's not anonymous, you can be traced.

You can't imagine seeing and listening to these people

bragging what they did to a 14- and 16-year-old girl.

I was pretty shocked that

there were that many people involved

and nobody stepped up and tried to stop it.

Mr. Ertman was right here with the police. [gentle music plays]

Right here.

And he was trying to go in there

to see if that was his daughter.

Y'all had to hold him back?

Yeah, he was yelling at the officer.

I came in behind him, tapped him on the shoulder,

and he turned around with the fist and I went,

"Whoa, whoa," so I calmed him down.

He kept telling me he wanted to see if that was his daughter.

I said, "You can't go in there."

He didn't wanna see that, anyway.

I told him, I said, "If you want to help,

go get some dental records."

And to me that should have told him something, you know.

This is the entrance to the spot.

30 years later everything's grown

but I could tell this was the entrance.

[ominous music plays]

KELLY: And you still picturing in your head

- how their bodies were? - Yeah, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I still remember the bodies.

KELLY: I've seen a lot of bad pictures,

those were the worst I've ever seen.

I don't know how you live through that as a parent.

MARIE: Insects go for skin

that's been damaged.

The skin and the tissues around the neck

and around their heads, they were just so damaged.

And so formal identification was made through dental records.

Murder was happening almost twice a day here,

but this shocked everybody.

CHRISTINA: People were afraid.

Most of my classmates were scared to go out.

[dramatic music plays]

When working a murder case, the investigators start

with their biggest leads first.

And with this case, the police started

with that anonymous informant, the person who reached out

to give the identification of where the bodies were.

And they believe who actually called in more than one time.

I was able to get the telephone number traced

and that led us to a house in the heights.

The informant was Joe Cantu and Joe's wife Christina.

Joe begins to tell me what he knew,

which involved his brother, Peter.

On the night of the murder, they were at home watching TV

when Peter and a whole group of guys

came rolling into Joe and Christina's house.

Peter started telling 'em what happened.

These boys went to their home

right after committing the murders

and they were bragging.

"We raped them, we strangled 'em.

"Look what I got. I got this watch."

TODD: It was almost like the jewelry was spoils of war

and they didn't seem to have any qualms about

distributing the ill-gotten gains.

They actually talked about "having a good time"

raping and then killing these girls.

Joe's wife is just horrified, mortified.

Now you can't imagine sitting and listening to these people

bragging what they did to a 14- and 16-year-old girl.

Joe describes the group as a gang.

Peter is the leader of the gang.

It was a local gang called the Black and White Gang.

So you had Peter Cantu, Jose Medellin,

his younger brother, Venancio Medellin,

Efrain Perez, Derrick Sean O'Brien.

And they were initiating a new member,

Raul Villarreal.

They were beating the crap out of him,

name-calling, you name it, to see if he was "honorable"

to be part of this gang.

And then all of a sudden, at the same time,

you have two young girls that are walking through it.

Joe Cantu told the Houston Police officers

when the gang initiation was taking place,

there was eight people present,

including the Sandoval brothers.

The Sandoval brothers didn't like what they were seeing

and they said, "I'm outta here," they took off.

But they didn't call 911 or the police department.

I was pretty shocked that there were that many people involved

and nobody stepped up

and tried to stop it. It blew my mind.

For Joe and Christina to report this, that took guts.

Both Christina and Joe were nervous about

any kind of retaliation,

but they knew what had happened was wrong.

And I think they were unable to live with themselves

if they had not said something.

[ominous music plays]

We went to the homes of these six suspects simultaneously

so one wouldn't call another one to say,

"The police arrested us, so you need to leave."

So, my partner and I then went up to the Peter Cantu home

and the father, he opens the door.

We asked him, "Where's Peter?" And he pointed to his bedroom.

We opened the door and he was in the bed asleep.

We kind of nudged him a little bit, said,

"Hey, it's time to get up. You're under arrest."

And that's when I started noticing around the room,

you know, some of the objects that were stolen from the girls.

Derrick Sean O'Brien's apartment, coincidentally,

is within walking distance to where the bodies were found.

He tried to run out the back door

and then was arrested.

Derrick O'Brien, in his room,

was a partial belt that was red

that matched the belt I found in the woods.

We ended up bringing everybody down to the homicide division

where the interviews started taking place.

Having the physical evidence that connects

Derrick Sean O'Brien and Peter Cantu

to the girls' murders is wonderful.

But you're gonna wanna make sure you have evidence

that connects to everyone involved in the crime

so you can get 'em all.

[reporter] These are the suspects.

18-Year-Old Jose Ernesto Medellin

in the blue shirt and the teen handcuffed with him

is 17-year-old Efrain Perez.

Another suspect, 18-year-old Peter Cantu,

tried to kick a reporter as he was escorted by detectives.

KELLY: I don't think that any of the defendants

ever showed any kind of special level of remorse

or even regret.

But I think that we all agreed

that Peter Cantu was on a different level

as far as mean.

He was the leader of the gang.

And they arrested all six of them,

which I thought was a blessing.

'Cause I thought, "God forbid,

"that they wouldn't find the individuals

"that did this to my daughter."

I would've never got over this

if they had not found all six of them

son of a bitches.

Excuse my language.

I was 16 at the time

and most of the guys were 17, 18, and one 14-year-old.

They could have been people that we knew in high school.

[reporter] They've been accused but not formally charged

with capital murder and are being held

on $100,000 bond each.

Another suspect is only 14 years old

and was taken separately from HPD headquarters

to juvenile authorities.

All the suspects were questioned at the same time.

They were all separated, but all statements

were kinda different from each other.

CAROLYN: These guys are all pointing fingers at each other

when they're asking who grabbed them.

One saying, this one did it. One saying the other one did it.

And one saying, "Well, I grabbed her,

"but I just grabbed her hand."

Trying to get information about any kind of crime,

much less a capital murder from a gang member

and asking them to talk on another gang member

is pretty much impossible.

And I would say it's just about the very hardest job

any prosecutor ever has to deal with.

'Cause they're not gonna talk.

They know if they talk

that labels them for the rest of their life.

arrested six defendants [dramatic music plays]lice Departme

for the murders of Jennifer Ertman

and Elizabeth Peña.

Because none of the individual

six defendants was coming all the way clean

with what he did or with what anybody else did initially,

the police department had to go at each of them

strategically from different points of view,

trying to figure out the details

of what they all did as best they could.

It was a matter of bouncing to these different rooms

and talking to the detectives that had talked to them.

As you start getting nuggets of information

and using those pieces of information

to elicit more of the truth,

they start opening up a little bit.

KELLY: No defendant ever tells everything about what they do.

They always minimize.

But then as HPD Homicide went from room to room

and told each other what the other ones admitted

on their co-defendants, they were able to get

more and more details out of each of them individually.

According to the statements that these defendants gave,

Elizabeth Peña was grabbed first

and Jennifer ran and could've gotten away,

but went back to help her friend,

and then she was grabbed as well.

And then they were taken down the hill

where it was a wooded area,

and that's where the assaults occurred.

There was an ambivalent tone

in a lot of what they were saying.

It's kinda chilling when you listen to it.

It was like a raping frenzy,

a killing frenzy.

If you've ever watched National Geographic shows

what lions do to gazelles,

the lions were the Black and White gang,

Jenny and Elizabeth were the gazelles,

and I'll just leave it to your imagination

what happened to these two teenagers.

CHRISTINA: They had to endure a lot of pain.

It was very hard to hear. Like, how sick?

It's devastating to me.

Why would anybody that's not evil

do something like that to a small child?

You have to be evil.

I don't know.

I never understood how somebody standing there

didn't say "stop."

Although these defendants point the fingers at each other,

in Texas we have what's called the law of parties.

If you can prove that people acted together

to commit a certain offense,

they're jointly and severably liable

for that offense.

KELLY: As they talk about it,

you wouldn't call it graphic

because they tell it's so matter of fact

they kinda like that they're getting to talk about it.

I just remember hearing it and going,

"My God, the jury's gonna hate you."

[somber music plays]

CAROLYN: The girls were buried

one week after their bodies were discovered.

Their funerals were held back to back

and they're buried in the same cemetery.

I attended the funeral service for Jenny,

and it was an overflowing crowd.

I mean, it was extending almost out to the street.

I helped Jennifer's parents pick out some songs to play,

you know, at the funeral.

"I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston

and Boyz II Men, the "End of the Road."

I don't know how you ever forget all the details

of what happened to each of those girls.

If you've ever been the victim of a murder

like the Peñas and the Ertmans,

the parents, what they went through,

losing their babies and burying their babies.

Think of a victim you've ever had in your whole career

who's gone through more than them.

- I don't have any. - There's not one.

All six of these defendants

were charged with capital murder.

Clearly, there were different ways

you could have charged them.

You could have charged them as a double murder, capital murder,

or as a sexual assault murder capital murder,

or as a robbery-murder capital murder,

so any of those combinations of ways to file capital murder

could have applied to all of these defendants.

Ultimately, the elected DA made the final decision

to seek the death penalty.

Johnny Sutton was the first chair in Raul Villarreal's case

because he was the chief of the court.

He asked me to sit on the case with him

because I had death penalty experience.

My case was Efrain Perez.

When you have this many defendants,

and there were five who were determined to be adults,

and one who was under 17

who would be processed as a juvenile.

And so they're assigned to different courts.

Everybody was with a different set of prosecutors

that would handle that case.

KELLY: You had five different judges

in charge of their individual defendants.

We never had to deal with that before.

The same witnesses over and over again times five.

The same cops, the same family,

the same medical examiner who did the autopsy.

This was the first for everybody in all kinds of ways.

Vinny Medellin went first 'cause he's a juvenile.

He didn't have a trial, just had a hearing.

He pled guilty to aggravated sexual assault,

and he got the maximum.

They took the life of our daughters, didn't they?

Okay, they ought to take the life of this man, too.

By the way, he's not even a man,

he's a sick individual.

Of course they're disappointed.

How could they not be? They want their daughter back.

He got life 40,

a juvenile sentence,

but he only got it one time.

Remember, we have two victims

and we have all different kinds of ways

we could have filed capital murder.

So they didn't file more than one

and they didn't try to stack 'em

and make 'em consecutive sentences

if he will agree to testify truthfully and completely.

"I am very sorry for what happened.

"I lay awake every night

"and wish I had physically fought the other guys,

"even my brother, to protect them."

that all five defendantsas originall

were gonna be tried at or around the same time

to make it as easy as possible on the victims' families.

But every judge is his own king.

They decide when they wanna go to trial,

how fast they wanna go to trial.

And I remember Judge Harmon had Peter Cantu

and he was going first.

Judge Harmon would've gone first whether or not

Peter Cantu was the leader of the gang.

He would've tried the next day if he could have.

He was ready to go to trial always.

And if you were in his courtroom,

you were gonna work your butt off.

It was almost a circus-like atmosphere.

You had family, you had friends.

I've never seen so many people in one courtroom.

Peter Cantu is the leader of the gang.

I think he was the reason everything happened.

It was hard to be in the same room with him.

When the gang initiation was taking place,

there was eight people present,

including the Sandoval brothers,

and when Jenny and Elizabeth

walked upon the gang initiation,

the Sandoval brothers, they bolted.

Did they do anything?

Did they call police? No.

But at the very least they did testify

that they observed Cantu, Medellin,

and O'Brien grab Elizabeth,

and then when Jenny went over to help,

grab her as well.

You don't get to pick and choose your witnesses.

Not gonna have nuns to talk about--

It's a gang initiation.

So on the scale of do you believe the Sandoval brothers...

they walked away because they knew

this was horrible and they didn't do it,

so I think that helped their credibility.

MARIE: And Joe Cantu also testified.

It was a big deal that Joe was willing to testify

against his own brother and against the other gang members.

The case might not have been solved without Joe.

The families, they got out when the medical examiner testified.

The details that the medical examiner needed

to get into to fully describe

what those girls suffered

was gonna be horrible to listen to.

But the jury had to fully appreciate all that

if they were gonna be asked to decide, ultimately,

does Peter Cantu deserve life or does he deserve death?

MARIE: I'd never seen photos

that disturbing.

I remember...

seeing them in my sleep.

You know?

TODD: The defense, they wanna do right by their client

and give them the kind of defense that he deserves.

That being said, the defense didn't have

a whole lot to work with, I'm afraid.

The jury of 12 people unanimously

found Peter Cantu guilty of capital murder.

ANDY: The guilty verdict we knew was coming.

The real issue was,

was he gonna get the ultimate sentence

in the state of Texas,

and that's the death penalty.

At the end of the punishment phase was again unanimous

that he should receive the death penalty.

ANDY: We're in the hallway waiting

and Judge Harmon came up to me

and I'll never forget it.

He goes, "Hey, what do you think

"if I allow Mr. Ertman

"to say a few words?"

"I think, Judge, he would love it."

Before this trial,

the Victims' Bill of Rights had been expanded

to allow victims' family to give an impact statement,

not before the jury.

And it had nothing to do with what the sentence would be,

but just to let them have the opportunity

to speak out if they wanted to.

It takes a little bit off your chest

to be able to tell the scumbags what they've done to you.

ANDY: When Randy Ertman and Mr. Peña stood up,

that changed the course of history

for victims' rights in Harris County.

Everybody now knew you could do this.

[phone ringing]

[dramatic music plays]

Derrick Sean O'Brien's trial was about to start

when Joe Cantu called in again.

He had information that

Peter Cantu, Jose Medellin, and O'Brien

had committed another murder.

Derrick Sean O'Brien [tense music plays] before

was set to go to trial,

Joe Cantu came forward again,

this time with information linking Derrick Sean O'Brien

to the unsolved rape and murder of a woman

in a park named Patricia Lopez.

The police tell O'Brien's lawyer that Derrick Sean O'Brien

needs to provide his DNA for that investigation.

TODD: Through the investigation,

we learned that six months earlier,

Jose Medellin, Peter Cantu and Derrick Sean O'Brien,

brutally raped, brutally murdered, disemboweled,

and left in a public park.

CAROLYN: How could they do this to Jennifer and Elizabeth

unless they've had some experience

taking a life before?

In the Patricia Lopez case,

we did get some DNA that matched back to Jose Medellin.

But it was a fingerprint on a beer can at the scene

that matched Derrick Sean O'Brien.

When it becomes apparent that Derrick Sean O'Brien

took part in the murder of Patricia Lopez,

that evidence is ultimately used

in the punishment phase of Derrick Sean O'Brien's trial

for what he did to Jennifer and Elizabeth.

TODD: Derrick Sean O'Brien was convicted pretty quickly.

And then they also assessed the death penalty.

KELLY: There are still three defendants left

whose trials are set.

The decision was made that we were gonna try

all three of those defendants at the same time simultaneously.

Mostly just to try and take away

some of the pain and anguish

that Jennifer and Elizabeth's parents

were having to go through.

To get it over with.

No one had ever tried to do that

in a courthouse anywhere in this country.

Johnny Sutton and I were in charge

of handling defendant Raul Villarreal.

He was 17 years old, he was a first offender.

He was the one being initiated into the gang that night.

And based on the evidence that we had for punishment,

our case was the most difficult one to try.

On September 13th, 1994,

the trial against Raul Villarreal began.

Johnny Sutton started our trial with his opening statement

where he laid out how the girls came up on the gang that night

and told the part of the story that a lot of people didn't know

where Jennifer Ertman had the chance to escape.

She could have run away,

but she went back to help Elizabeth

'cause Elizabeth was crying out to her for help.

We open our case by calling Sandra Ertman to the stand.

That's Jennifer's mom.

And she started out her testimony

by talking about what Jennifer was wearing

that last night she was alive.

Her striped shirt, her baggy jeans,

and her purple Converse tennis shoes,

all clothes that her daddy had given her for graduation,

which the jury got to see pictures of

in the crime scene photos.

Sandra also talked about the jewelry

that Jennifer owned and had on that night

and that all was important and came into play

because that jewelry was divided up

like the spoils among the defendants

and later recovered at some of their houses and apartments.

ANDY: The same witnesses testify at each trial.

Joe Cantu testified.

You had the officers, you had the Sandoval brothers,

Venancio Medellin testified against everyone

except for his brother.

I think I was in court for three days straight

to testify in all three cases.

Well, in my case, I had a very detailed statement

from Efrain Perez about what he did

and what he saw other people do.

My daughter was the same age as these girls.

And it was very emotional for me personally

to read the police investigation.

We didn't have cameras in the courtroom

in this trial for Efrain Perez.

We had a sketch artist, Robbie Pleasant.

I'm questioning the medical examiner.

It's Judge Ruben Guerrero with the jury

and the defendant is in there

and his attorneys and Don Smith,

who's my second chair.

After the trial was over, one of the jurors approached me

and said that I must have had ice water in my veins

because when I was doing the medical examiner

that I didn't show any emotions.

But it was just the opposite.

There was a couple of the cases

where some of the defense attorneys tried to mitigate

their client's actual role in this,

Raul Villarreal probably the most,

because Villarreal was the one that was getting initiated

at the time.

What I said to the jury was,

"Don't get caught up in comparing

"Raul Villarreal to Peter Cantu.

"Because Raul Villarreal could have walked away.

"He could have stopped.

"He could have not participated.

"And you heard his statement, you heard his confession.

"Did he sound like he was sorry for what he did?

"So don't get caught up

"in trying to compare 'em to each other.

"That's not really the point."

With the three trials going on at the same time,

my case, there was a guilty verdict.

And the other two cases, they were both found guilty,

and the punishment phase begins.

Raul Villarreal was only 17,

and he didn't have a prior criminal history.

We knew that going in that was gonna be

the hard part of this case.

Remember the opposite of that, he's just 17

and look what he's capable of doing already.

He wanted to be a part of that gang.

He wanted to be initiated that night.

He chose to rape these two little girls

that are screaming and crying, "Stop, stop, stop,"

and then stomp 'em with his boots

and choke 'em out.

And you think that just because he's 17

we're supposed to forget about that

and give him a life sentence? What?

Johnny and I gave our final arguments

and we were waiting for a verdict

just like the other two courtrooms were.

And none of us were sure what the verdicts were gonna be.

And the longer you wait, the more worried you get.

CAROLYN: Although they were young, [dramatic music plays]

most people were in support

of what the prosecution was going after,

and that was death for all five of these young men.

There is an argument on both sides.

But in that case,

the strength of any argument against it

didn't get any traction.

My case, there was a guilty verdict

and a death penalty assessed.

And the other two cases, they were both found guilty

and the verdicts were also the death penalty.

Out of all five of the adult defendants,

every single one of them was sentenced to death.

I think it was the only time something like that

had happened in the whole country.

All hell broke loose.

That's your son, buddy!

Don't do mine!

From what I overheard, Mr. Perez shouted to Mr. Peña

that it was his fault for raising his daughter that way.

KELLY: Tempers were high, people were angry.

The potential for an explosion was there

every day all day long.

ANDY: After the three trials,

Randy comes up to me and he said,

"You know, I'd really like to be there

"when they execute these guys.

"Can I do that?"

I said, "You know what?

"That's a really good question.

"I don't know."

Back then, when it came time for the execution to happen,

the defendant's family and law enforcement could be there,

but the victim's families

had never really pushed that point,

as surprising as that is.

Today, it's way more routine than expected.

ANDY: I presented this issue

not as a death penalty issue, but as a civil rights issue.

All victims' families want

is the same rights and dignity

that inmates' families currently have.

We testified in front of the Board of Criminal Justice.

They unanimously voted 9-0 to change the policy.

CAROLYN: O'Brien was executed in July 2006.

Joe Medellin was executed in August 2008.

Peter Cantu, the so-called leader of the gang,

was executed in August 2010.

ADOLPH: I thought that was pretty nice

that I was able to go.

It relieved me, it relieved me a lot

to know that these individuals had died

for what they did to my daughter.

Couple of years later,

the US Supreme Court decides that

you cannot give the death penalty

to 17-year-olds.

So that allowed a couple of these guys

to get their death penalty sentence commuted.

You appreciate in the big scheme of things

of our five defendants, or six,

two were 17, but almost 18

and a couple of the other ones were 18, but barely.

So why does a couple of months

of when you're born matter that much

in deciding what your ultimate punishment is?

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

It was hard knowing that

they weren't going to have to pay for what they did

like the other guys did.

We got three more that's still in there.

I just hope to God they'll never get out.

I hope to God they don't.

You know, the thing about all that you went through,

and I don't know if you ever realized it,

but y'all changed the whole criminal justice system

for the DA's office too.

The whole having to meet with people

and prep to testify and sit through all those arguments

and picking all those jurors.

I don't know how y'all did all that.

They went through more than

any of us would ever wanna go through in our whole life,

losing our babies.

And then they still were strong enough to do

what they did to change the system.

If I could help somebody else go through the living hell,

I feel good about that.

But I miss him so bad.

Did he stay fired up to the end?

He was a fighter, you know that.

- You too. - I'm sorry. He was a fighter.

So the pendant that I'm wearing was Jennifer's.

And her parents sent it

to my older daughter

who's named after Jennifer for her high school graduation.

So ten years ago she wore it

when she walked across the stage,

so she had...

a piece of Jennifer with her

since Jennifer was never able to walk across the stage.

It meant a lot.

Thank you, Kelly, thank you so much.

All right, you be good.

They're really good people and they're strong.

I don't know how they've survived.

I don't know how they continue to survive.

I don't know how they do it.