JUST IN: Texas Executes a Mexican Even After 17 Nations Tried To Save Him | Final Words & Meal

A man is strapped to a gurney inside the walls unit death chamber. His arms are stretched out. The room is dead quiet. Guards stand at the door.   This moment had been coming for 13 years. In that time, the state of Texas had tried to execute him 14 times. 14 times the court stepped in.

 14 stays, 14 last-minute reprieves, a number almost unheard of in American legal history. 17 nations had protested this execution. The president of Mexico had personally called the governor of Texas. The United Nations had written letters. None of it mattered. The needle still went in. Before he lost consciousness, Javier Suárez Medina spoke his final words in two languages to two different countries. He even began to sing.

 But first, what brought a 19-year-old to a Dallas parking [music] lot with a machine pistol and a dead police officer? Welcome back to Redmark Files, where we go beyond the headlines and into the truth. If you are new here, hit subscribe and turn on notifications. This case, you will not want to miss a single detail.

 Before we get into the case, let’s talk about the victim. His name was Lawrence Rudy Cadena. Most people called him Larry. Larry was a Mexican-American man from Dallas, Texas. He had given 17 years of his life to the streets of Dallas as a police officer. 17 years of late nights, dangerous assignments, and putting the city before himself.

 Just 1 year before his death, Larry transferred from the vice division to narcotics. A fresh chapter, a new challenge. He was 43 years old and still showing up every single day. The people who worked with him never forgot him. Dallas Police Sergeant David McCoy said Larry helped him get through the loss of his own father earlier that same year.

Larry was the kind of man other people leaned on. McCoy later said, “As a police officer, you never think it’s going to happen to you or happen to someone you know.” Larry left behind his parents, including his father, Lorenzo Cadena. Lorenzo could not bring himself to think about the day his son died. That grief never left him.

 1988 was already a brutal year for Dallas law enforcement. Five officers died in the line of duty that year. Larry Cadena was the fifth. He was working one final undercover drug operation. He would never go home. Javier Suarez Medina was born in Mexico in the region of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, but he did not grow up there.

When Javier was just 3 years old, his family moved to the United States. He grew up entirely in Texas. He went to school in Texas. He spoke English. He lived like any other kid on the block. To look at him, you would never guess he was not an American citizen. But legally, on paper, Javier Suarez Medina was a Mexican national.

 That one fact, easy to overlook in 1988, would come back with enormous force 14 years later. Before the night that changed everything, Javier was not a hardened criminal. He worked at a fast-food restaurant. Court records show he had no prior felony convictions at the time of the shooting. What he did have were a few run-ins with the law.

 A trespassing arrest at an elementary school in 1985, a car theft arrest in 1988. There were also unproven allegations connecting him to an aggravated robbery in 1987, but his defense team produced employment records showing he was at work during that incident. Nothing was ever proven. At trial, clinical psychologist Dr.

Robert Powitsky took the stand and described Javier as someone with a dependent personality disorder. In simple terms, Javier had a deep need to be accepted. He wanted approval. He wanted to belong. And that need made him very easy to manipulate. 15 people took the stand and described Javier as peaceful, calm, and law-abiding.

 15 people. But, court records told a very different story. Because somewhere along the way, Javier Suarez Medina crossed paths with a man named Hector Rodriguez, known on the streets simply as Tony. And from that moment, nothing would ever be the same. On the night of December 13th, 1988, Javier was 19 years old.

 Young, armed, and completely out of his depth. To understand what happened on December 13th, 1988, you need to understand the man at the center of it all. Hector Rodriguez, known on the streets as Tony. Tony was not a small-time dealer. He had been on the radar of Dallas narcotics officers for some time.

 In fact, officer Larry Cadena had already purchased drugs from Tony before that night, more than once. Law enforcement had been carefully building a case, cultivating the relationship, making controlled buys, waiting for the right moment to move in and shut the whole operation down. That moment was supposed to be December 13th.

Dallas narcotics officers had set up what is known as a buy-bust, a controlled purchase large enough to justify felony arrests. Cadena would go in, buy the drugs, and the team waiting nearby would move in. Clean, simple, routine. What they did not know was that Tony had a plan of his own. By this point, Javier Suarez Medina was already deep inside Tony’s circle, and Tony had given him a job.

 Javier was to deliver the cocaine, collect the money, and walk away. That was what he was told. But, Tony’s real plan went much further than a handoff. According to what Javier would later confess, Tony told him they would follow the buyer after the deal, and take everything back. The drugs, the money, by whatever means necessary.

 Then, Tony handed Javier a brown leather trench coat. Underneath it, a loaded Uzi machine pistol. Tony told him it was there in case anything happened. Javier took the coat. He took the weapon. He followed the instructions. He was handed a weapon and told to follow orders. What he did not fully understand, and what would cost him everything, was what those orders actually meant.

 This was not a one-man operation. Court records confirm that multiple people were involved, each with a specific role, each position for a specific purpose. Let’s go through them one by one. Hector Tony Rodriguez was the organizer. He owned the red Chevrolet Citation used that night. He put the entire plan together. He gave Javier the weapon.

 He gave Javier the instructions. Everything started and ended with Tony. Fernando Fernandez was 17 years old. His job was simple. Get to the driver’s side of Cadena’s car during the shooting and grab the money. That was his assignment. He knew exactly what was coming. Jimmy Sanders was also on the scene. Court records show he had a brief conversation with the occupants of a black pickup truck before the deal went down.

 That conversation was not casual. It was a signal. Sanders knew what was happening. Then, there was a second occupant inside that black pickup truck, someone who was present, watching, and ready. That person was never formally identified in public court records. To this day, their identity remains unknown.

 The pickup truck itself was stolen. It had been taken from a parking lot at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and was later found abandoned less than 1 mile from the crime scene. According to Javier’s own confession, the plan was this: deliver fake cocaine worth $4,000, collect the money, then follow the buyer and rob him. If it came to it, kill him.

Nothing about Javier’s role that night was accidental. The trench coat was chosen deliberately to hide the Uzi. He was placed, equipped, and given his position in advance. And when the black pickup circled the parking lot before the deal resumed, that was not random. That was a signal. Everyone was in place. The stage was set.

 If you are still with me, and I know you are, do me a favor right now. Hit that like button. It helps this channel more than you know. Now, let’s get into the night everything fell apart. December 13th, 1988. East Dallas. Evening. A stop-and-go convenience store parking lot. Quiet. Ordinary. The kind of place nobody looks twice at.

 Officer Larry Cadena sat behind the wheel of his undercover Camaro. He was not alone. Two backup officers were parked nearby in a separate unmarked vehicle, watching from a distance. Everything was in position. This was supposed to be a routine buy-bust. It was anything but. Tony arrived in his red Chevrolet Citation. Fernando Fernandez and Jimmy Sanders were already on the scene.

Cadena got into Tony’s car. They negotiated. Tony demanded to see the money first. Cadena refused. Not until he saw the drugs. Tony reached in and produced a cocaine sample. 100 mg. 87% pure. Cadena took it back to his Camaro. The deal was moving forward. Tony and Fernandez drove away, supposedly to get the rest of the cocaine.

 A black pickup truck rolled into the lot. It idled. Sanders walked over and spoke briefly with the occupants. The truck made a slow pass alongside Cadena’s Camaro. Then it left. Everything looked routine. It was not. About 15 minutes later, Tony and Fernandez came back. Fernandez walked over to Cadena and told him, “The guy in the pickup will have what you want.” The black pickup returned.

 Two men inside. Javier Suarez Medina. Brown leather trench coat, walking fast toward the passenger side of Cadena’s Camaro. He grabbed the door handle. It was locked. He pulled at it frantically. Cadena unlocked the door. Javier threw a bag of white powder onto the seat. Then, in one motion, he pulled the Uzi from beneath his coat and opened fire at point-blank range.

Eight shots. 9-mm rounds. Four of them pierced Larry Cadena’s heart. He was also struck in the abdomen, chest, and both arms. Sergeant David McCoy, watching from across the street, later testified, “He never said, ‘Hey, I want your money.’ He just cold-bloodedly shot him nine times in the chest.

” Javier slammed the passenger door, ran to the driver’s side, pulled it open, raised the weapon again. A backup officer rushed in and fired four shots. Javier went down, wounded. Fernandez leaped over Javier’s body, dove into Cadena’s car, and began tearing open his shirt and pants, searching for the buy money. A second officer fired once and wounded Fernandez.

 Then came gunfire from behind. Tony was trying to escape in the Citation. An officer fired two shots through the windshield. Tony was fatally wounded. Larry Cadena was rushed to hospital. 30 minutes later, he was pronounced dead. Javier Suarez Medina was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital that had treated President John F. Kennedy decades earlier.

 He had been shot twice. While lying in that hospital bed, still under medical care, he agreed to speak with investigators. They turned on a recorder. What came out of Javier’s own mouth that night would follow him for the rest of his life. He told investigators that Tony had asked him to deliver $4,000 worth of cocaine.

 He was given the trench coat and the Uzi in case anything happened. He said Tony had told him the plan. Follow the buyer after the deal, shoot him, and take back the drugs and the money. When asked how he responded to that plan, Javier said, “All right.” At the Stop N Go, after throwing the bag into Cadena’s car, Javier said he heard two gunshots.

 He looked up, looked down, closed his eyes, and started firing. He thought he fired two or three times. Eight rounds were discharged. And then he said this, “Cadena did not shoot at me. He didn’t even have a gun in his hand.” Fernando Fernandez was arrested at the scene, wounded. The black pickup truck was found abandoned less than 1 mile away, stolen, with Dallas-Fort Worth Airport plates.

 The second occupant was never found. Jimmy Sanders was later arrested on separate drug charges. Tony Hector Rodriguez was dead. And somewhere in Dallas that night, a phone rang at the Cadena family home. Lorenzo Cadena answered it. What he was told on that call no father should ever have to hear. The Dallas Police Department and Dallas County prosecutors moved fast.

 Nine days after the shooting on December 22nd, 1988, Javier Suarez Medina was formally indicted. The charge was capital murder, specifically intentionally killing Lawrence Rudy Cadena during the commission or attempted commission of a robbery. That specific combination, murder during a robbery, is exactly what triggers the death penalty under Texas law.

The evidence prosecutors had was overwhelming. The bag of white powder Javier threw into Cadena’s car was tested. It contained no cocaine, no controlled substance of any kind. The delivery was completely fake. But the cocaine sample Tony had given Cadena earlier that same evening? Tested real, 87% pure. Ballistics confirmed the weapon used was an Uzi-style semi-automatic machine pistol.

 At least three Dallas police officers who were present at the scene provided witness testimony. And sitting at the very center of the prosecution’s case, Javier’s own tape-recorded confession made at Parkland Memorial Hospital hours after the shooting. His own words, his own voice, played before the jury. The defense had a difficult road ahead.

Their argument rested on three points: Javier’s dependent personality disorder, the influence and pressure applied by Tony, and the fact that Javier did not know Cadena was a police officer. Javier himself testified at trial, “I thought he was just a regular drug dealer. He didn’t have no sign for me to know that he was a cop.

” The prosecution’s response was direct. Under Texas law, it did not matter. Killing anyone, officer or civilian, during a robbery meets the threshold for capital murder. There was no alibi to challenge, no question of identity. The only real fight left was over intent, and whether Javier Suarez Medina deserved to die for what he had done.

 There was no dramatic turning point in this investigation, no surprise witness, no hidden evidence suddenly uncovered. The case against Javier Suarez Medina was built on something far more powerful than any of that. The defense did not deny that Javier fired the shots. Their entire strategy was built around mitigation. He was 19 years old.

 He had a dependent personality disorder. He was manipulated by Tony. He did not know Cadena was a police officer. He worked at a fast food restaurant, not a career criminal. 15 character witnesses took the stand and described Javier as peaceful and non-threatening. Dr. Powitsky testified that Javier posed no future danger to society, a critical question under Texas capital sentencing law. The prosecution dismantled it all.

Javier had heard Tony’s plan to kill the buyer. He had said, “All right.” He had fired eight rounds, not two or three as he claimed. The jury heard the tape. They heard every word, and in May of 1989, they made their decision. On May 24th, 1989, a Dallas County jury found Javier Suarez Medina guilty of capital murder.

12 days later, on June 5th, 1989, following a separate punishment hearing, the court made it official. Javier Suarez Medina was sentenced to death. His co-defendant, Fernando Fernandez, was convicted of armed robbery and cocaine delivery. He received a 60-year sentence and began serving it that same year.

 For Javier, the appeals began immediately, and they would stretch across more than a decade. On May 5th, 1993, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed the case and affirmed both the conviction and the sentence. Nothing changed. Between June 1995 and September 1998, multiple state habeas corpus petitions were filed.

Evidentiary hearings were held. 238 findings of fact and conclusions of law were issued. Every single one was denied. Between 1999 and 2001, federal habeas petitions were filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Oral arguments were heard by US District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater in April of 2001.

 Relief was denied the following month. The certificate of appealability was also denied. In January of 2002, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the denial of habeas relief. On June 28th, 2002, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Every domestic legal door had been closed. So, Javier’s legal team turned to a completely different argument, one rooted not in American law, but in international law.

They argued that when Javier was arrested in 1988, Texas violated Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by never informing him of his right to contact the Mexican Consulate. The Mexican Consul was not notified until after Javier had already been convicted and sentenced to death. No American court had ever commuted a death sentence on Vienna Convention grounds.

But the international community was not willing to stay quiet. For 13 years, Javier Suarez Medina lived inside the Terrell Unit in Livingston, Texas. One hour outside his cell per day, the rest of the time alone. Four walls, a bed, and the knowledge that somewhere down the road, the state of Texas intended to end his life.

 During those 13 years, a date was set for his execution 14 times. 14 times, last-minute legal challenges came through and the court stepped in. 14 stays. His attorney, Sandra Babcock, later said, “I’ve never known a case in which the person has had that many execution dates.” After years of fighting, something in Javier began to shift.

 In interviews, he stopped talking about survival. He started talking about peace. “I prefer to die than spend the rest of my life here inside,” he said, “because here there is no life. And then, there’s a part of me that’s looking forward to it. I’m more at peace now.” By 2002, his case had become an international crisis.

 17 nations, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, formally intervened, filing joint legal briefs urging the US Supreme Court to review the case. The European Union weighed in. The United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights weighed in. Amnesty International and the American Bar Association both called for a stay of execution.

 Mexican President Vicente Fox personally called Governor Rick Perry. He wrote letters to both Perry and US Secretary of State Colin Powell. His government declared the Medina case their highest priority. None of it worked. On August 13th, 2002, the day before the scheduled execution, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 17 to 0 to deny clemency.

 16 to 1 to deny a stay recommendation to the governor. The following morning, August 14th, the US Supreme Court rejected a final appeal without comment. Approximately 90 minutes before the execution was set to begin. Governor Perry denied a 30-day reprieve. At 6:00 in the evening inside the death chamber at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, the witnesses took their places.

 Among them, Medina’s mother and son, Javier’s father, consular officials, media observers, Javier was strapped to the gurney. He had declined a final meal. He began his final statement, lengthy, deliberate, and calm. He apologized to the Cadena family. I’d like to apologize to the Cadena family for whatever hurt and suffering I’ve caused them. I am truly sorry.

May you find peace in this. To his own family, he said, “I’m going home. I’m at peace. I’m at rest.” Then he switched to Spanish. He thanked his supporters for never leaving him alone. He ended with two words, “Viva Mexico.” On the other side of the glass, his father raised a clenched fist. The lethal injection began.

 Javier Suarez Medina started to sing “Amazing Grace.” He reached the words, “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” And then he lost consciousness. At 6:23 in the evening, he was pronounced dead. He was the 21st person executed in Texas that year, the 277th since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982. The day after the execution, Mexican President Vicente Fox canceled his three-day trip to Texas, including a planned visit to President Bush’s ranch in Crawford.

He called what happened a lamentable circumstance. The Cadena family had something to say about that. Larry’s cousin, Buddy Ochoa, spoke plainly. We are a Mexican-American family. The difference is Cadena became a role model for other Mexican-Americans, and this guy became a drug dealer. Where is the fairness? Lorenzo Cadena, Larry’s father, never found a way to revisit the day his son died. That void was never filled.

 And Dallas Sergeant David McCoy, the man who watched his friend get shot from across a parking lot, still has Larry Cadena’s raid jacket. He found it hanging on the back of Larry’s chair after the funeral. He has kept it ever since. Two families, two countries, one international treaty that courts refused to enforce, one man executed, one officer who never came home.

Was justice served? That is a question only you can answer. What moment in this case hit you the hardest? Drop it in the comments. I read every single one. And if you are not subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? Hit that button, ring the bell, and I will see you in the next one.