Martin Gonzalez, who also went by Martin Gonzalez Escamilla, was convicted in Travis County, Texas, of killing three women he had been close to: his wife, Sylvia Garcia, who disappeared in Austin in June 1995, and two women he met in 1998, Maria Flores and Olivia Estrada. Each died of blunt force injuries, and Estrada had also been shot. The three deaths were tried together as a single count of capital murder under the Texas provision for the murder of more than one person in the same scheme or course of conduct.
The case took years to assemble. Sylvia Garcia was found dead within months of her disappearance but was not identified until 2000. Gonzalez was first arrested in November 1998 on a charge of kidnapping Olivia Estrada, before any of the three women had been identified as dead. Estrada and Flores were found dead in the autumn of 1999, and only after all three had been found and identified was he indicted for capital murder. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty. The jury refused it, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal he argued that killings spread over several years did not amount to one course of conduct. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin rejected that argument in October 2001.
Sylvia Garcia was 44, and divorced from her first husband, when she married Martin Gonzalez in Monclova, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, in May 1994. Later that year he moved to Austin. She followed him in March 1995.
In Austin she kept in close touch with her family in Mexico. She telephoned her daughter in Monclova almost every day, and on those calls, the court record states, she seemed nervous and unhappy. Her last call home, and the last letter her family received from her, came on June 8, 1995.
She was last seen in Austin on June 24, 1995. The next day, the court record states, Gonzalez moved out and took all of their furnishings with him.
Her family in Mexico did not see her again. In late September 1995 an unidentified woman was found dead in Austin. The cause of death was later given as blunt force trauma. For several years she had no name.
The Austin Police Department homicide detective assigned to the case, Robert Merrill, asked the forensic artist Karen T. Taylor to prepare a facial reconstruction, according to an account of the case published on Taylor's professional site. Taylor drew the face from the front and in profile, with advice from the anthropologist David Glassman and the anatomist Robert George.
The drawings were released to the news media. Someone who had known the woman saw them and contacted the police, the account says. No dental records could be found to confirm the match, so investigators turned to DNA. Her relatives in Mexico still had letters she had written and sealed, and traces of her saliva on the envelopes yielded a DNA profile that could be compared with DNA from the unidentified woman. The comparison gave a positive identification. The Third Court of Appeals recorded that DNA tests identified her as Sylvia Garcia in 2000.
The case was featured in an episode of the television series Forensic Files titled "Saving Face," which showed Taylor's reconstruction.
Maria Flores was born in Panama. In 1994 she moved to Austin with two of her children. She met Martin Gonzalez in 1998, when she was 53, and soon moved in with him.
Her daughter testified at the trial about the relationship. She said Gonzalez was jealous and physically abusive toward her mother, and that he made Flores hand over all of her earnings to him.
On May 20, 1998, Flores left for work with Gonzalez and did not come back. When her daughter asked him where her mother was, the daughter said, he seemed nervous. Gonzalez himself reported Flores missing. The police closed the case in June 1998.
She was found dead in Austin on November 22, 1999. The medical examiner found that she had died of blunt force injuries.
Olivia Estrada was 54 when she met Martin Gonzalez at a dance hall in 1998, and the two began a relationship. The court record describes him as a man with a violent temper. Estrada told her doctor that he had threatened to choke her if she tried to leave him. She did not go to the police, because she feared that calling them would only lead to more violence.
By October 1998 her family had grown worried. Relatives urged her to seek a restraining order, and they made plans to be with her when she ended the relationship, so that she would not have to face him alone.
On October 29, 1998, her daughter called the police. Estrada had not answered her telephone for two days, and her house appeared to be empty. Officers treated her disappearance as a crime.
In November 1998 Gonzalez was arrested and charged with kidnapping Olivia Estrada. She was still missing. Further investigation, the court of appeals later wrote, linked him to the deaths of Sylvia Garcia and Maria Flores. Estrada was found dead in Bastrop County, Texas, on October 18, 1999. The medical examiner found blunt force trauma, and she had also been shot.
Maria Flores was found dead in Austin on November 22, 1999. Sylvia Garcia's identification through DNA followed in 2000.
Gonzalez was charged under section 19.03(a)(7)(B) of the Texas Penal Code, which makes it capital murder to murder more than one person pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct. After all three women had been found and identified, he was indicted for capital murder for the deaths of Sylvia Garcia, Maria Flores and Olivia Estrada.
The case was assigned to the 147th Judicial District Court of Travis County, with Judge Wilford Flowers presiding, under cause number 0996134.
At trial the jury heard from members of the women's families. Maria Flores's daughter described his jealousy and abuse and the control he kept over her mother's money. Evidence about Olivia Estrada included what she had told her doctor about his threats.
Detective Robert Merrill, the lead investigator, testified about the similarities among the three disappearances and deaths. He told the jury that Gonzalez had been romantically involved with all three women and had lived with them. Merrill also said that investigators had "indications" that Gonzalez became jealous when the women talked with other people. The defense objected that this was hearsay. Judge Flowers sustained the objection and told the jurors to disregard the remark, but denied the defense's request for a mistrial.
The court instructed the jury that it could convict Gonzalez of capital murder if it found that he had murdered all three women, or any two of them, under the circumstances the statute requires. The jury returned a general verdict of guilty.
The state sought the death penalty, and the jury went on to decide punishment. It answered the mitigation issue in Gonzalez's favor, and because of that answer the court assessed a sentence of life imprisonment.
The district attorney made his disagreement public. In an article published on October 6, 2000, the Austin Chronicle reported that Travis County prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Martin Gonzalez the month before, and that the jury had said no. District Attorney Ronnie Earle told the paper that juries sometimes disagree with his office and his office sometimes disagrees with them, and that it had disagreed strongly with the jury in that case.
The comment came during an election contest over how often the office should seek death. Earle's challenger, Shane Phelps, had promised to pursue more death sentences. Earle argued that his office's cautious approach reflected the views of Travis County jurors, who in his account wanted the penalty used only to protect the public. The Chronicle described how the office decided such questions: a capital murder committee of about ten staff members examined each case, considered the views of the victim's family and the strength of the evidence, and made a recommendation, with Earle making the final decision.
Gonzalez appealed to the Texas Court of Appeals for the Third District, in Austin. The case, No. 03-00-00668-CR, was heard by a panel of Chief Justice Aboussie and Justices Yeakel and Patterson. Justice Patterson wrote the opinion.
He did not dispute on appeal that the evidence was sufficient to show he had committed the murders. His challenge was narrower. He argued that the evidence could not support the finding that the killings were part of the same scheme or course of conduct, and that the statute, as applied to killings so far apart in time, was unconstitutionally vague. He also argued that the state needed to prove a similar motive and a similar method for each killing.
The court rejected each point. It relied on Corwin v. State, a 1993 decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which held that a regular mode or pattern of behavior can support a course-of-conduct finding and that the statute does not necessarily require a single overarching motive. Motive and method, the court said, are not the only considerations; a jury may look at all of the circumstances.
Looking at those circumstances, the court found that Gonzalez had formed intimate relationships with three middle-aged women and had then killed them in roughly the same way over a period of about five years. The connection between Maria Flores and Olivia Estrada was especially close. The two women were near the same age, each met him in 1998, the relationships were much alike, he was threatening and abusive toward both, and both were killed within five months of each other. All three women died of blunt force injuries.
On that record, the court held, Gonzalez had fair notice that his conduct was prohibited, and a rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the murders were part of the same course of conduct. His factual sufficiency challenge failed because he pointed to no specific evidence against the finding and was, in effect, asking the appellate court to weigh the evidence again, which it declined to do.
The court also upheld the denial of a mistrial over Detective Merrill's remark about jealousy. The instruction to disregard was enough to cure the problem, the court said; the remark was not so inflammatory that jurors could not set it aside, and any harm that remained was harmless because other witnesses had testified about his jealousy.
The judgment was affirmed on October 18, 2001, in an opinion marked "do not publish."
Two points in the case are not settled by the court record.
The jury's general verdict did not say whether it found that Gonzalez murdered all three women or two of them; the charge permitted a conviction on either basis.
How Maria Flores and Olivia Estrada were identified is not set out in the court record.
May 1994: Martin Gonzalez marries Sylvia Garcia, 44, in Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico.
Late 1994: Gonzalez moves to Austin, Texas. Maria Flores moves from Panama to Austin with two of her children the same year.
March 1995: Sylvia Garcia joins him in Austin.
June 8, 1995: Garcia's last telephone call and last letter reach her family in Monclova.
June 24, 1995: Garcia is last seen in Austin. The next day Gonzalez moves out and takes the furnishings.
Late September 1995: An unidentified woman, later identified as Garcia, is found dead in Austin.
1998: Gonzalez meets Maria Flores, 53, who moves in with him, and Olivia Estrada, 54, whom he meets at a dance hall.
May 20, 1998: Maria Flores leaves for work with Gonzalez and does not return. He reports her missing.
June 1998: Police close the Flores missing-person case.
October 1998: Estrada's family urges her to seek a restraining order.
October 29, 1998: Estrada's daughter calls police after two days without contact.
November 1998: Gonzalez is arrested in Austin on a charge of kidnapping Olivia Estrada.
October 18, 1999: Estrada is found dead in Bastrop County.
November 22, 1999: Flores is found dead in Austin.
2000: DNA tests identify the woman found in 1995 as Sylvia Garcia.
2000: Gonzalez is tried for capital murder in the 147th District Court of Travis County, Judge Wilford Flowers presiding. The jury convicts him; prosecutors seek death, the jury answers the mitigation issue in his favor, and he is sentenced to life imprisonment.
October 6, 2000: The Austin Chronicle reports District Attorney Ronnie Earle's strong disagreement with the jury's refusal to impose death.
October 18, 2001: The Third Court of Appeals in Austin affirms the conviction.