Execution Report: Juan Garcia

Juan Martin Garcia, 35, was executed by lethal injection on 6 October 2015 in Huntsville, Texas for the robbery and murder of a man in a parking lot.

On 17 September 1998, Garcia, then 18, and three other men approached Hugo Solano, 32, who was walking to his van in the parking lot of a Houston apartment complex, and demanded his money. According to one of Garcia's co-defendants, when Solano refused to hand over any money, Garcia shot him four times in the head and neck with a .25-caliber pistol, killing him. Garcia took $8 in cash from the victim.

This incident was the fifth armed robbery committed by Garcia and his co-defendants - Gabriel Morales, 23; Eleazar Mendoza, 20; and Raymond McBen, 19 - during a three-week crime spree that began on 31 August. They committed two more armed robberies that day and two more before their arrest on 21 September, for a total of nine. Two other people were non-fatally shot in those crimes.

Police pulled Garcia over for a broken headlight more than a week after Solano's killing. As he was getting out of the car, his handgun hit the floorboard, and he was arrested. He was subsequently released, then arrested again when the gun was matched to Solano's death. He confessed to Solano's killing at that time.

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