Abel Ochoa
Texas executed Abel Ochoa Thursday night.
Ochoa was the Oak Cliff man who killed five people one Sunday afternoon in August 2002, including his wife, Cecilia, and their two young daughters, Crystal and AnahÃ, at their home on Salerno Drive.
The Dallas Morning News earlier this week put together a narrative of Ochoa’s crimes.
The story says Ochoa was a crack addict who had been clean for 10 days, and that day, after church, his wife finally relented and took him to buy $10 worth of crack. After he smoked it, she wouldn’t give him more money, so he took a 9-mm Ruger pistol and shot his sister in law, who was holding his 9-month-old daughter. Then he shot his father-in-law, his wife and his other sister-in-law. Lastly, he shot his 7-year-old daughter four times in the back. The only survivor was Cecilia Ochoa’s sister Alma Alvizo, who was 27 at the time. She was shot and lost a kidney.
After the murders, he tried to use his wife’s ATM card to get more money for crack, but he didn’t know the PIN, and police arrested him a few minutes later at Wynnewood Shopping Center.
The Houston Chronicle reported Ochoa’s last words:
I would like to thank God, my dad, my Lord Jesus savior for saving me and changing my life. I want to apologize to my in-laws for causing all this emotional pain. I love y’all and consider y’all my sister I never had. I want to thank you for forgiving me.
