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  The Penas lived a quiet, relaxed life in their quaint home on Lamonte Lane, in northwest Houston. Their home was located on a pine-tree-lined suburban street less than a quarter of a mile away from Stevens Elementary and less than half a mile away from T. C. Jester Park, with its clean bicycle paths and shade trees for people who sought exercise.

  Adolph described Elizabeth as a “normal little kid who loved to play out in the backyard and swim in her little plastic swimming pool.”

  Elizabeth was two years old when she was joined by her little brother, Michael. As brother and sister grew older, they fought constantly about the silliest things. Michael picked on Elizabeth, and she told on him. They always seemed to be at each other’s throats, even though they loved one another tremendously. They shared a bedroom for ten years and slept in bunk beds together.

  Adolph laughed when he talked about how Elizabeth and Michael used to fight. “It was always some piddly bullshit stuff. ‘Oh, Mom, he’s looking at me’ or ‘Oh, he’s touching me.’ Just piddly, silly kind of stuff. Just bullshit, like brothers and sisters do.”

  When the two oldest children became teenagers, they “kind of went their separate ways,” according to Adolph. “He got into basketball and baseball. She couldn’t stand PE. She didn’t like sweating. She was into her things. So, finally, they quit fighting with each other.”

  According to Adolph, Elizabeth was still very much a girly-girl. She loved to dress up and look good. It was apparent early on that she was a beautiful little girl. All of the Penas’ friends and family members would comment on what a lovely young lady Elizabeth was from an early age.

  Elizabeth had very curly hair and loved to have it fixed up, but she hated having her hair washed. Her father and mother used to wash it in the sink and Elizabeth would scream at the top of her lungs while she was doused in water. No one knew why, but it became a source of humor for the entire family.

  When Elizabeth was almost ten years old, the Penas welcomed their third child into the fold—a baby girl named Rachael. Elizabeth immediately took to Rachael and constantly doted on her little sister. She adored Rachael and did everything she could to help her mother take care of her.

  “She just thought that was the neatest thing,” Adolph recalled of his oldest daughter’s fascination with the newest addition to the family. “She thought the world of Rachael.” By the time Rachael turned four, Elizabeth had already taken her under her wing and loved playing with her.

  Elizabeth was a decent student in school. Her father believed she was “intelligent, but lazy. She did what she needed to do to get by. As far as books were concerned, she would do what she had to do to pass. One of those types of people.” Elizabeth was not interested in excessive studying or making the honor roll. According to Adolph, she was only a C to C-minus student. She was more interested in enjoying herself, looking pretty, and making lots of friends.

  The older she got, the more everyone noticed her. She grew into a stunning, thin young girl, with long, dark hair. She was one of the most popular girls in each of her schools from Oak Forest Elementary to Stevens Elementary.

  Her parents would not let Elizabeth attend F. M. Black Middle School, even though it was located just three blocks down on Lamonte Lane. Her parents believed there were too many bad things going on at Black, so they sent her to a private Catholic school.

  Her father even warned her about “men of all ages.” He told her that most men were only interested in one thing and that she should always be wary of their intentions. He told her that since she was so beautiful “men would try to take advantage” of her and that she should not “trust anyone” and “always be aware of your surroundings.”

  Adolph did not mind if his little girl had a boyfriend; he just wanted to make sure she was friends with the boy for a long time before they started dating, “Just like me and her momma did.” He worried about his little daughter having sex and getting pregnant.

  While Adolph fretted about his daughter’s blossoming into a woman, Melissa Pena could still see the little-girl quality within her oldest daughter. She described Elizabeth as “fun-loving, goofy, silly, liked to talk on the phone, sweet, gentle, and kind.” Elizabeth was “young and carefree,” with no plans.

  “She thought she had a full life in front of her,” Melissa recalled.

  According to Adolph, Elizabeth had always been a good kid until she turned fourteen. “She started hanging out with the wrong crowd. A bunch of crazy little kids. She didn’t give a damn about nothing. She wasn’t using any drugs or drinking any alcohol. She just kind of liked to get into trouble. Never went to jail. Never in trouble with the law.” Adolph did not think the kids she hung out with were bad; they just seemed bored with life. “There were no gang members, no drug dealers, no rapists, no killers. They were just bored and lifeless.”

  This had been why the Penas enrolled Elizabeth in St. Pius X Catholic private school, located in downtown Houston. This turned out to be a bad move, as Elizabeth got into even more trouble. She was removed from the private school after only six weeks. She also had her first sexual relationship with a boy during this time frame.

  “I don’t know what it was,” Adolph recalled, “but something about her from the age of fourteen to fifteen just went a little wild. She just seemed to want to get into trouble.”

  Elizabeth took out most of her teenage rebelliousness on her parents. “We would argue with her about coming home late or staying on the phone too long or for hanging out with the wrong type of people.” Elizabeth would retaliate by running away from home twice.

  “She’d sneak out the window and go to somebody’s house,” Adolph mused, “and I wouldn’t find out about it until the next day. I’d be like, ‘Where in the hell they at?’”

  Elizabeth usually ran away because she was upset with her parents over something trivial. “She had gotten pissed at us and went and stayed with this one gal over at her house. She was harboring her for like two or three days.” Adolph ran into the girl’s father out in public and said to him, “Dude, do you know you can go to jail for harboring a minor? All you had to do was tell me, ‘Hey, your girl’s over here.’”

  After Elizabeth was kicked out of St. Pius X, she was devastated and determined to start anew. She thought about the types of people she hung out with and came up with an insightful realization—she truly only had three to four friends she knew she could count on to help her out, no matter what.

  One of those friends was one of her newer girlfriends, Jennifer Ertman. Even though Jennifer was more than a year younger than Elizabeth, she would prove to be a positive influence on the older girl. Jennifer did well in school, obeyed her parents, and made plenty of friends as well. Elizabeth followed her new friend’s lead and began to turn her life back around.

  “I don’t know what happened to her,” Adolph recalled, “she was a totally different person. When she turned fifteen, she just straightened up her act.

  “I don’t know what somebody said to her or what she had seen but she turned back into a little princess. She started doing well in school. She totally turned herself around all by herself. It was kind of odd,” Pena marveled.

  The Penas were very happy Elizabeth befriended Jennifer. “She was an extremely good kid,” Adolph recalled. “I can’t imagine her being bad, with a dad like Randy.

  “Jennifer was a little doll,” Adolph continued. “Every time she’d come into the house, she would make it a point to come over and say, ‘Hello, Mr. Pena,’ even if I was in another part of the house. She was a very, very polite young lady.”

  Jennifer and Elizabeth both attended Waltrip High School and had recently completed the ninth grade. The year at Waltrip with Jennifer by her side was the best year Elizabeth had spent in ages. Her grades were improving, she pared down her friends to those who truly cared for her, and she met a young boy with whom she fell into teenage love. It appeared as if things were back on the right track for Elizabeth Pena.

  For the last few ye
ars, Adolph and Melissa would take the family to Florida for a week to ten-day vacation. It was all about fishing and sunbathing. The boys went fishing, the girls went sunbathing.

  “I was coming back from Florida and everybody was just happy. The kids were in the van. I looked up and saw my beautiful girl in the rearview mirror and thought to myself, ‘What would happen if I didn’t have these kids?’” It was a fleeting thought that Adolph had never had before. As quickly as it came into his mind, he shook it out. He looked up into the mirror and caught his daughter’s attention.

  “I love you, sweetie,” Adolph told Elizabeth.

  She smiled. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  RAUL VILLARREAL

  Chapter 3

  Thursday, June 24, 1993—3:00 P.M.

  Villarreal residence

  Chapman Street

  Houston, Texas

  Seventeen-year-old middle-school dropout Raul Villarreal sat around the house of his parents, Louisa and Omar Villarreal. Being unemployed had become a common occurrence for the young man. As a result, he was forced to live with his parents, where he did not have to pay rent or do many chores. The Villarreals lived in a quaint but poor neighborhood, and the family needed every penny it could get its hands on.

  That did not stop Raul from asking his mother for a quarter so he could go play video games down at the local convenience store. His mother agreed and gave him the change. Raul bolted out the door and headed over to the store, where he planned to kill some time playing his favorite video game, Street Fighter II, the popular sequel to the combat-fighting game that reinvigorated arcade-style video gaming.

  Raul Omar Villarreal was born on September 25, 1975, in Houston, Texas. He was the third child, behind twin sisters, Laura and Elizabeth, who were born one year earlier to his parents.

  Raul was a healthy baby born into a relatively poor family. His father, Omar, worked as a repairman with a specialty of fixing refrigerators and air conditioners. He never brought home much money, but always had food on the table for his kids, a roof over their heads, and was always there for them when they needed him. Louisa was a stay-at-home mom who doted over all of her children equally.

  What the Villarreals lacked in finances, they made up for in how they treated their children, which would later include three more. Omar and Louisa made sure the kids were clean, well-fed, and they also stressed the need for a good education and a strong belief in religion.

  The Villarreal family led a normal, unspectacular life. Omar worked, Louisa looked after the kids, the family attended church, the kids went to school, and they played sports. All fairly normal and routine for kids growing up in Houston, Texas.

  The Villarreals had a nice but small white wooden house located on Chapman Street. The house was practically encaged with burglar bars on all the windows and all the doors. It was not uncommon for a van to be parked on the tiny strip of grass between the front of the house and the narrow street.

  The Villarreals made friends with their neighbors, joined in on barbecues with them on the weekends, and frequented the Trinity Baptist Church, less than two miles away from their home. Raul first attended church when he was six years old and pretty much went every Sunday.

  Raul was not exactly the world’s best student in elementary school. He managed to get by, but he struggled with many of his classes.

  After elementary school, Raul was somehow allowed to graduate to Marshall Middle School, located less than two miles away from his family’s home. He did very poorly and was retained twice during his academic career. In other words, he flunked out of two grades, which he was forced to repeat.

  When he was thirteen years old, Raul met Pastor Rudy Sanchez, from the Trinity Baptist Church. Pastor Sanchez had known the Villarreal family for a while. He knew Raul was a very polite, obedient, quiet young boy who usually came to church every Sunday, sat quietly in the pew, and was respectful toward the setting for the invocation of Jesus Christ. Pastor Sanchez also knew Raul made his “commitment to Christ” when Raul was twelve years old.

  Pastor Sanchez noted Raul was also consistent with his appearances in Sunday school after each sermon. He was usually quiet, attentive, and a good listener. He never got into trouble with his teacher or the other Sunday-school attendees. He was well-liked by his peers, even though he was very quiet.

  Trinity Baptist Church had more than six hundred parishioners at the time. Despite the large numbers, Pastor Sanchez made it his personal mission to get to know and help as many of them as he possibly could. He took a particular interest in the Villarreal family when Omar Villarreal became sick. Since Omar was the sole breadwinner in the family, Pastor Sanchez was worried about their financial well-being and how it would affect the family emotionally.

  To help out, the pastor visited the family on a periodic basis to see how they were making ends meet. Every time he visited the Villarreals in the tiny wooden home, Raul answered the front door.

  “Hello, Raul,” Pastor Sanchez greeted the boy. “Are your parents home?”

  Raul usually would not say anything, but simply nod his head affirmatively. He would scoot back to open the door and wait until the pastor stepped inside. Too shy to say anything, Raul slipped away from the front room. Within seconds, Louisa Villarreal would enter the foyer and greet Pastor Sanchez.

  Raul usually scampered off, back into his room.

  When Pastor Sanchez did see Raul in the Villarreal home, he described him as “quiet and respectful of his parents.”

  Pastor Sanchez always enjoyed his visits with the Villarreal family. He could tell that all six of their children were loved. When the pastor would visit, he spent the majority of his time chatting with Louisa, since Omar was “a very quiet man.”

  Unfortunately, Pastor Sanchez’s ministrations did not solve the Villarreals’ problems. Omar’s downtime from work cut into what little financial budget the family had. As a result, Raul used to go to school in less than pristine clothes. He was embarrassed to be seen by other kids at school, who teased him for his pauper’s wardrobe, he claimed.

  In February 1991, at age fifteen, Raul approached his mother. He told her he no longer wanted to go to school. He was tired of the taunts and he wanted to do something about it. He begged her to let him quit so he could join his father and earn extra money for the family.

  Louisa was mortified. She did not want her son to quit school. She had always stressed the importance of a good education, and even though Raul had been kept back twice, she still believed he had what it took to succeed in school and in life.

  Raul won the argument. He informed his mother he was done. He was dropping out of school.

  He was only in seventh grade.

  Louisa was crestfallen. She visited Pastor Sanchez to see if he could provide counsel to young Raul, but it was too late. Her boy was determined to make a living and contribute to the family. Nothing was going to stop him.

  Raul also stopped going to church around the same time. He gave no explanation why.

  Raul began to work with his father repairing air conditioners and refrigerators. It was very labor-intensive work, which he did not enjoy. He did, however, like the paycheck that came with the work. He would readily give up 40 percent of it to his parents every payday.

  Louisa continued to stress the importance of a good education and convinced her son to take the GED, a battery of five tests that a person can take to earn the equivalent of a high-school diploma. Raul had the opportunity to participate in a tutoring center to prepare for the exams; however, he failed to complete his studies and never even took the tests.

  Raul felt no need, as he was making the beginnings of a living and he enjoyed the money.

  He was, however, getting very bored with his social life. He began to hang out with his cousin Eddie Sanchez, whose mother was sister to Raul’s father. Raul and Eddie were almost the same age.

  The cousins used to spend a lot of time together when they were little, because they lived within just a few b
locks of one another. That changed when Eddie’s parents moved to another part of Houston, which was more than twenty minutes away. Eddie was only six at the time. As a result, he was unable to drop by as he pleased and see his cousin. The two became less close over time; however, they occasionally attended Trinity Baptist Church together. Eddie stopped going to church when he was only eight years old.

  As the boys got older and were a bit more mobile, they got back into the habit of spending time together. Practically every weekend, the cousins made sure they got together whether it was sitting around a picnic table eating barbecue, catching the latest football game on television, or spending the weekend down at the beach in Galveston. The cousins had reignited their relationship and became much closer. They even went on a couple of double dates together.

  Eddie dropped out of school one year after Raul had. He never took his GED, either—something the cousins had in common.

  Eddie trusted his cousin implicitly. He never worried about Raul being around his common-law wife, Rene Spinks, and her young child from a previous marriage. Eddie and Rene would have another baby when Eddie was only sixteen. Eddie had no problem letting Raul hang around his wife or his two kids when he was not around, because he believed his cousin was a solid, safe, nice guy.

  Raul was nice enough that Rene suggested to her sister, Kate Dickson, that she go out with him. The couple hooked up, but it was not meant to be. According to Eddie, Kate wanted to date more than one guy and had no desire to be tied down. She even told Eddie that Raul was almost too nice and that she wanted “somebody more aggressive.”

  Kate described Raul as a “perfect gentleman” who never cursed in front of her. She also said he was too shy and had not even attempted to kiss her. In the end, after only three weeks, she found Raul to be too boring and dumped him. According to Eddie, Raul did not seem too bummed about it. Luckily, the failed relationship between Raul and Eddie’s common-law sister-in-law did not adversely affect the two cousins’ relationship.