The execution of Ivan Cantu, 50, by lethal injection on February 28, 2024, at the Huntsville Unit in Texas, closed a 22-year legal battle that left the families of two murder victims with a sense of closure and a growing chorus of doubt about whether the state executed the right man
Cantu was pronounced dead at 6:47 p. m. , 21 minutes after the pentobarbital began flowing.
His final words, directed to the families of James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen, repeated what he had said for more than two decades: he was innocent. “I want you to know that I never killed James and Amy,” he said. “If I did, if I knew who did, you would have been the first to know.”
His execution proceeded after every appeal was denied. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against a commutation or a four-month delay. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Fifth U
S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected final requests. No special last meal was provided—Texas abolished that practice in 2011 after an inmate ordered a feast and then refused to eat.
Cantu ate the standard prison dinner.
The case captivated the public because of mounting questions about the evidence that put Cantu on death row. The murders occurred on November 4, 2000, in north Dallas. Police found James Mosqueda, 27, and Amy Kitchen, 22, shot multiple times in their bedroom.
There was no sign of forced entry. Investigators quickly focused on Mosqueda’s cousin, Ivan Cantu, who had left for Arkansas the same day.
A Corvette belonging to Mosqueda was found parked outside Cantu’s apartment. In a kitchen trash can, investigators found jeans and socks with blood matching both victims. A gun tied to the murders was discovered under a couch cushion at Cantu’s ex-girlfriend’s apartment.
A thumbprint of Cantu’s was on the magazine. His fiancée, Amy Bircher, told police Cantu confessed and drove her to see the bodies. A jury convicted him in October 2001 and sentenced him to death.
But over the years, key pillars of the prosecution’s case began to crack. A police officer who inspected Cantu’s apartment shortly after the murders signed a 2020 affidavit saying the bloody jeans were not there when she searched. DNA testing did not conclusively place Cantu’s DNA on the jeans.
The Rolex that Bircher claimed Cantu threw out a car window was actually recovered from Mosqueda’s home and returned to his family—contradicting her trial testimony. Witnesses said Bircher wore Amy Kitchen’s engagement ring a week before the murders.
Bircher died in 2021. Her brother Jeff, who also testified against Cantu, later recanted, admitting he lied and was a frequent drug user at the time. A former FBI special agent flagged inconsistencies in ballistics evidence.
Cantu’s post-conviction attorneys argued his trial lawyers were ineffective and failed to even hire an investigator.
Despite this, the Collin County District Attorney’s Office maintained the conviction was solid. They noted that multiple courts had reviewed the case over two decades and found no basis to overturn it. Cantu’s own trial lawyer had signed an affidavit saying Cantu privately confessed to killing Mosqueda over a drug dispute.
Amy Kitchen, the prosecution argued, was a witness eliminated because she was present.
The case exploded into the public eye after a private investigator’s podcast, “Cousins by Blood,” documented the inconsistencies over 40 episodes. More than 150,000 people signed petitions demanding a stay. Celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Martin Sheen, and Jane Fonda urged Governor Greg Abbott to intervene.
Original jurors, including foreman Jeff Calhoun, called for a new trial.
Sister Helen Prejean, the nun featured in “Dead Man Walking,” became Cantu’s spiritual advisor. “There was not fairness at this trial,” she said. “All we’re asking is to delay the execution long enough to be able to have a hearing.”
In April 2023, a Collin County judge temporarily halted the execution, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed that order four months later.
On the night of the execution, Cantu appeared calm. Associated Press reporters noted he did not sound bitter. He held Sister Helen’s hand as she whispered to him for nearly two minutes.
At 6:26 p. m. , the injection began.
After his death, the district attorney, Greg Willis, said, “After two decades of multiple reviews of his conviction by both state and federal courts, Ivan Cantu finally found justice.” But Texas Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty countered, “Regardless of where you stand on capital punishment, it is a great miscarriage of justice when we put to death a potentially innocent person.”
Ivan Cantu maintained his innocence until the end. James Mosqueda was 27. Amy Kitchen was 22, a nursing student engaged to be married.
Nobody alive can say with certainty what happened inside that bedroom on November 4, 2000. What remains is a record of contested evidence, a dead key witness, a recanting brother, and a state that moved forward nonetheless.
The case leaves an indelible question that will echo through the Texas criminal justice system for years to come: was the right man executed, or did the state lose its certainty along the way?
