Ruben Montoya Cantu (December 5, 1966 – August 24, 1993) was a Texan who was executed for a murder committed when he was 17 years old. During the years following the conviction, the surviving victim, the co-defendant, the district attorney, and the jury forewoman have made public statements that cast doubt on Cantu's guilty verdict. Background Ruben Cantu grew up with his mother and father until the age of 14, when the couple split up, with Ruben's mother moving 20 miles (32 km) away and Ruben and his father continuing to live in a trailer in a crime-ridden south San Antonio barrio. The neighborhood was home to a loose band of tough kids called the Grey Eagles, of which Cantu became a leader despite being rather small and in special-ed classes at school. By age 15, he was stealing cars for an organized auto theft ring, often spending days at a time driving stolen cars to Mexico for cash. When the San Antonio Police Department was embroiled in scandal, with vigilantes and drug-dealing officers well known to the community, Cantu was stealing cars and dodging the police. His older brothers had been arrested on drug and theft charges, but despite several run-ins with the police, Ruben never was convicted of anything before the November 1984 crime that led to his execution. Convicted of armed robbery and murder The prosecution's case at the trial that convicted Ruben Cantu is summarized as follows: On the night of November 8, 1984, at approximately 11:30 p.m., Ruben Cantu (age 17 at the time) and his friend David Garza (15), broke into a vacant San Antonio house under construction at 605 Briggs Street and robbed two Hispanic males at gunpoint. The two victims, Pedro Gomez (25 or 35) and Juan Moreno (19) had been workmen sleeping on floor mattresses at a construction site, guarding against burglary, as a water heater had been recently stolen from the work site. The two victims were sleeping in their work clothes, with their pockets full of their cash earnings at the time of the robbery. Cantu and Garza were carrying a rifle, which they used to rob the two men of their wristwatches. As they tried to take their cash, they were interrupted by Gomez's attempt to retrieve a pistol hidden under his mattress. Gomez was shot at least nine times by the boys' rifle, dying instantly, and Moreno