History of firing squad executions in the US
The launch squad’s executions have a long history, and recent inmates have attracted new attention as they chose the fire squad as their execution method.
Sandoval Mendoza, 40, of Moises, a convicted rapist and murderer five years later on Texas death row, is due to die Wednesday from a fatal injection. If executions move forward, Mendoza will be the third inmate executed this year in Texas, following Richard Tavler and Stephen Nelson. It will be the 13th execution in the nation.
Mendoza was sentenced to death row in Farmersville, Texas on March 18, 2004 for the murder of 20-year-old Rachel O’Neill Tollson. Tolson lives in a small town about 40 miles northeast of Dallas, with her six-month-old daughter, Avery.
This is what we know about the incident.
“I became a demon”: The prisoner in the death row said he had no reason to attack, killing his young mother.
Early on March 18, 2004, Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson was at home with her young daughter Avery. Tolson was in the middle of a divorce, so Tolson and Avery lived alone.
Mendoza told police that he had put himself inside Tolson’s house through the backdoor that night, with each court document in court documents. The two obtain a pack of cigarettes and leave baby Avery at home.
Mendoza said he drove for a while before he suffocated the choke in his car “for no reason,” he said. He then drove them into a field near his home, where he raped her and then suffocated her again, court documents say.
Mendoza then dragged Tolson out of the truck and suffocated her again until she thought she was dead, Mendoza told police. Certainly he “punched her in the throat” with a knife. Mendoza left her body on the field where he remained for several days before he was interviewed by police about Tolson’s loss, court records say.
The paranoid Mendoza wrapped Tolson’s body in a tarp and moved it to a more remote cousin’s land, just a few miles east of Farmersville. He then dumped his body in the “digated pit” and set it on fire to “destroy fingerprints,” he told police, Courier Gazette reported.
A few days later, a man searching for an Arrowhead found Thorson’s burnt body, according to the Courier Gazette.
Mendoza was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Before his beliefs and sentence, Mendoza wrote to his parents and told them there was no reason for what he had done. “I don’t know what happened at that moment. After I became a demon and did what I thought was in my dream,” writes Mendoza.
The victim’s baby daughter was “her life.”
At the time of her death, Tolson was the new mother of her six-month-old daughter Avery. Thorson enjoys activities like scrapbooking and shopping, but her mother, Pam O’Neill, said it was Avery who was “her oxygen.”
“Avery was her life and when she became a mom I was so proud of her. Everything came to her so naturally,” O’Neill told the courier gazette about a year after Tollson’s death. “I hate that Avery has no memories of her.”
Over the years, the Mendoza incident has gained some kind of infamy. In 2006, his case was featured in the 10th season of The Forensic File, and in 2008, the “solution” that the Investigative Discovery series “solved” highlighted the murder of Tolson.
On April 2nd, Mendoza’s lawyers sought an opportunity to challenge Mendoza’s conviction in federal court.
Moises Mendoza “One of the most violent and sadistic men I have ever prosecuted,” says the lawyer.
Neighbors described Mendoza as “hardworking,” but said it changed as he grew older. He spoke of “violent arguments” when he once pinned his mother and sister in their front yard, as previously reported in the courier perspective.
Mendoza graduated from high school, where he did “pretty well,” court documents say. He received several high school scholarships and completed approximately nine months of heating and air conditioning training upon graduation.
In 2003, Mendoza was arrested for involvement in two worsening robberies at the Dallas College Richland campus, according to the Courier Gazette. The 2006 “Forensic File” episode explains that it was when Tolson was released on bail for one of these robbers that he went missing.
Many of their upbringings in northern Texas were actually in the same elementary school class, and Tolson’s mother, Pam O’Neill, explained in a 2006 “Forensic File” episode of the Forensics Files, which outlined Mendoza’s case. And on Friday, Mendoza before Tolson’s murder was at Tolson’s home for a party of about 15 people, court documents say.
Clinical psychologist Mark Wigen described Mendoza as “immature” and “psychologically undeveloped” during his trial, claiming that Mendoza, as he said in court documents, fled for “screepy” and got mad when others criticized him.
During Mendoza’s sentencing, former Collin County first assistant assistant Greg Davis described Mendoza as “one of the most violent and sadistic men he has ever indicted.”
– USA Today Reporter Greta Cross contributed to this report.
