GUILTY TX - Bridget Townsend, 18, Bandera County, 15 January 2001

[mysteriew]

Patricia Townsend's anguish over her daughter's disappearance nearly five years ago is measured in hugs missed, grandchildren denied and justice delayed.

Hopeful uncertainty about why Bridget Townsend vanished on Jan. 15, 2001, turned to chronic heartache after her remains were found 21 months later.

"The hard part was not knowing where she was," Patricia Townsend, 58, recalled of the vibrant 18-year-old she calls "my baby."

Investigators had no leads about Bridget Townsend's fate until Ramiro F. Gonzales, whom she'd known since middle school, told police in October 2002 that he'd slain her.

Gonzales, then 19, led police to Townsend's skeleton just days after he had been sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping and sexual assault of another Bandera woman, who had escaped and helped police find him.

Abandoned at birth and raised primarily by a grandmother, Gonzales was sexually abused by a male relative as a child and corrupted with alcohol and drugs by age 12, Emmett Harris, a court-appointed defense attorney, said last week.

Gonzales told mental health officials he was "obsessed" with dead bodies, the records show.

As a youth, the records state, Gonzales "on numerous occasions shot animals and then watched their bodies decay over time."

They also state that he repeatedly went to the ranch where Townsend's body was dumped to look at it after her death.

That sort of graphic testimony is upsetting to Patricia Townsend, who repeatedly left a recent pretrial hearing after being consumed with tears.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA122605.5B.bandera.limbo.8053818.html
I hope they did a real good search of that ranch. If he wasn't a serial yet, he was well on his way.

 

[Bobbisangel]

My gosh! This is just horrible. This man is one sick person. I'm sorry that he had such a horrible life growing up but it just isn't an excuse for the horrible things that he has done.

I wonder what the heck kind of a person his grandmother was? He was sexually abused by a relative and given drugs and alcohol...hooked by the time he was 12 yrs old! I don't think the state did that child any favors by allowing his grandmother to raise him.

I wonder if they will go for an insanity plea? He is not right in the head. Who in their right mind would keep going back to look at that poor girl's decaying body! That is just horrible to even think about. And he had known this girl since they were young. She probably trusted him.

My heart goes out to this mother.

 

[OkieGranny]

From June 2009:

http://www.palestineherald.com/news...cle_84f09d8b-9a6c-547d-9370-74c0d397de29.html

A man condemned for the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old woman whose remains were found west of San Antonio almost two years after she vanished lost an appeal of his conviction and death sentence at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals...

He told a Texas Ranger details that were consistent with the evidence gathered during the investigation, that he went to his drug supplier’s house to steal cocaine because he knew the man’s girlfriend, Townsend, was there alone at the time. He said he abducted Townsend after taking some money and drugs from the house and, after she tried to call her boyfriend, drove her to his family’s ranch, retrieved a high-caliber deer rifle and drove her to the spot where her remains were found.

 

[0101ABA]

Per the TDCJ, Ramiro Felix Gonzales has an execution date of 10 August 2016

http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_row/dr_scheduled_executions.html

 

[0101ABA]

Ramiro Gonzales, 34, might never have been on death row had he not admitted to kidnapping, raping and killing Bridget Townsend, 18, in 2001.

He confessed that he abducted Townsend from the home of his drug dealer and took her to a remote section of a Hill Country ranch, where he raped her before shooting her to death.

(...)

“It was just the right thing to do,” Gonzales said during an interview at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston.

“It was her mother,” he said when asked why he confessed. “An individual had told me about her mother and it impacted me really, really bad.”

“I believed that she deserved to know,” he said.

http://www.ksat.com/news/texas/convicted-killer-says-confession-was-right-thing-to-do

 

[Caring1]

Bridget’s confessed murderer set to be executed this evening on what would be Bridget’s 41st birthday.


June 26, 2024

A Texas man who admitted that he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and fatally shot the 18-year-old girlfriend of his drug dealer was set to be executed on Wednesday — what would have been the victim's 41st birthday.

The remains of Bridget Townsend weren't found until October 2002, nearly two years after she vanished, when Ramiro Gonzales , having received two life sentences for kidnapping and raping another woman, led authorities to the spot in Southwest Texas where he left her body.

If Gonzales' execution proceeds, it would be the second this year in Texas.

"She was a beautiful person who loved life and loved people," Patricia Townsend told USA Today about her daughter. "Every time she was with somebody she hadn't seen in a while, she had to hug 'em ... She didn't deserve what she got."

She told USA Today the execution will be a "joyful occasion" for her and her family.

Texas inmate set to be executed on teen victim's birthday - NewsBreak

A Texas man who admitted that he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and fatally shot the 18-year-old girlfriend of his drug dealer was set to be executed on Wednesday — what would have been the victim's 41st birthday.The remains of Bridget Townsend weren't found until October 2002, nearly two years...

www.newsbreakapp.com

 

[al66pine]

Bid for Clemency: Offer to Donate Kidney

Link* contains a pdf of convict Gonzales defense counsel’s stmt reacting to the TX. parole board’s refusal to grant 180 day reprieve or to reduce sentence.
Stmt praised the man --- " 'self-improvement, contemplation, and prayer, and... a mature, peaceful, kind, loving, and deeply religious adult...' "

Stmt claimed that after Gonzales' offer to donate "a kidney to a person in need" was made public, that many ppl contacted them; several ppl had the same blood type and “are therefore GOOD CANDIDATES for the ORGAN DONATION process." (<--- my CAPS in this quote) Seems overly simplistic about organ transplants.
IIUC, in screening potential recipients, blood type matching is just the FIRST hurdle. Many other factors are involved.**

Stmt also implored TX. governor to grant a 30 day reprieve for this convict. Said for a person in dire need of life saving procedure, that gov’r’s refusal to grant a reprieve “would in all likelihood, CONDEMN them to DEATH, along with Gonzales." (<--- my CAPS.)

Q: If granted, would a 30 day reprieve be sufficient time to conduct all necessary medical tests, locate a suitable donee, and perform the surgeries? Anyone?

BTW, phrasing of the offer to donate "a kidney to a person in need" caught my attention. As if specifying that his donated kidney would not be provided to a person not in need? Like, say, a person who wanted a spare kidney to put in home freezer??? You know, just in case? As a precaution? Or to put in an urn on fireplace mantle? IDK, the phrase struck me as curious.

___________________________
* June 26 “A death row inmate is set to be executed tonight for a 2001 rape and murder of an 18-year-old woman ..."
^ Death row inmate set to be executed tonight for 2001 rape and murder

** Other donee factors may preclude a transplant: "cardiac and pulmonary insufficiency...hepatic disease and some cancers. Concurrent tobacco use and morbid obesity... " Age may exclude some patients. *** etc, etc, etc. From "Kidney transplantation" at wiki