A judge in Harris County, Texas, signed a death warrant on August 14th, 2026, setting the execution of Reynaldo Dennes for November 19th, 2026, nearly three decades after a brutal diamond heist that left a man dead and over $3. 5 million in gems vanished without a trace. The warrant, a routine administrative step in Texas capital cases, now triggers a countdown to a lethal injection scheduled between 6:00 and 9:00 p.
m. at the Huntsville Unit. Dennes, now 70 years old, has exhausted his appeals, including a final rejection by the U.
S. Supreme Court in December 2020. The execution will be Texas’s ninth of the year, but the case remains haunted by an enduring mystery: the whereabouts of a fortune in diamonds, now valued at over $7 million adjusted for inflation, that disappeared from a Houston office building on January 24th, 1996.
The crime unfolded in the Green Rock building, a nondescript office tower in Houston where two men worked in the same industry but on different floors. The victim, Yanos Sux, was a 60-year-old wholesale diamond dealer operating from the seventh floor, known in the local Hungarian community as a generous benefactor. On the night of the murder, Sux had more than $3.
6 million in diamonds in his office safe, along with roughly $200,000 in cash and a five-carat diamond pinky ring he habitually wore. The second man, Reynaldo Dennes, was a Cuban-born jewelry designer in his late 30s, running a business called Designs by Reynaldo from an office in the same building. Prosecutors described the heist as an inside job, noting Dennes had been inside Sux’s office before and knew the security setup.
The plan took months to construct, according to court records. Dennes recruited a young machinist named Antonio Ramirez, who worked in his workshop, to build a firearm silencer based on a hand-drawn sketch. Ramirez built two versions, the second of which Dennes test-fired inside his own office.
Ramirez initially agreed to join the robbery with Dennes’s brother, Alberto, as the shooter, but fled the country two days before the crime and never participated. Dennes also enlisted Estrella Martinez, a cleaner in the building with whom he was romantically involved, according to trial testimony. He gave her a cell phone two days before the murder and instructed her to distract the security guard, paying her $5,000 for her role.
On the night of January 24th, 1996, the timeline was precise. At 5:40 p. m.
, Sux’s business partner left for the day, leaving Sux alone for what he called an evening appointment. Around 6:30 p. m.
, Dennes called Martinez, who opened the loading dock door, allowing Dennes and his brother Alberto to slip inside and head straight for the stairwell, bypassing the guard desk. Just after 7:00 p. m.
, Dennes called again, and Martinez told the guard, David Copeland, that she had locked her keys in a fifth-floor office, asking for help. Around 7:30 p. m.
, a third call triggered a second distraction that fell apart before it could play out. Moments later, Copeland found a man kneeling behind the security desk, apparently working on equipment. The man stood, walked toward the loading dock, then turned back, placed a hand on Copeland’s shoulder, and said, “I have something I want to show you.”
He pressed a suppressed 9mm handgun to Copeland’s chest and fired twice. Copeland fell, played dead, and heard the man pulling wires and equipment from the security desk before running for the loading dock. He survived.
Police arrived to find Copeland shot but alive, shell casings on the floor, and two VCRs missing from the security system. Around 11:00 p. m.
, unable to reach her husband, Sux’s wife learned of the shooting. Officers went to check on Sux directly, finding no forced entry and Sux dead in his office. The safe stood open and empty.
The diamonds, cash, and ring were all gone. His computer appeared tampered with, as if someone had tried to pry a disc out with tweezers. Investigators didn’t have to look far.
A search of Dennes’s office turned up a disassembled lathe, the same kind used to build the silencer, along with a fired 9mm bullet and an owner’s manual for a Taurus 9mm handgun. Firearms examiner Robert Baldwin compared three pieces of evidence: the bullet from Sux’s body, the bullet from Dennes’s own office, and bullets recovered from the lobby. All three had been fired from the same gun.
Cartridge casings from the lobby also matched casings from the field where the silencer had been test-fired months earlier.
Reynaldo Dennes was convicted of capital murder on September 4th, 1997, and sentenced to death. The trial was straightforward on the question of guilt, but the mystery of the stolen diamonds has never been solved. Not one stone from that safe has ever been recovered.
Not the cash. Not the ring. Court records suggest some of the money went toward a sports car, but by the time the case was built, the diamonds themselves were long gone.
Retired prosecutor Don Smith, who handled the case, told reporters in 2026, “We know that nothing has been recovered. We know somebody’s got the money.” Adjusted for inflation, that stolen inventory would be worth about $7.
2 million today. When informed of that number, Smith’s reaction was blunt: “Wow. Somebody got a deal, I guess.”
The delay between the death sentence and the execution date is typical for capital cases in the United States. Dennes’s conviction was upheld on direct appeal. His federal habeas petition was denied, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his final major challenge in 2020.
That December, the U. S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case at all, clearing the last legal hurdle.
It still took nearly six more years for prosecutors to formally move forward. The Harris County District Attorney’s office cited “changes in office leadership, new Supreme Court decisions, or the need for additional factual investigation” as reasons for the delay. In June 2026, prosecutors filed the paperwork, and on August 14th, a judge signed the order setting the date for November 19th, between 6:00 and 9:00 p.
m.
Reynaldo Dennes is now 70 years old. Barring any last-minute legal action, he is scheduled to be executed on November 19th, 2026. But the case itself has never fully closed.
Somewhere out there, $7 million in diamonds, by today’s value, are sitting in someone’s possession. Perhaps they were sold off piece by piece decades ago, scattered across the black market or hidden in a private collection. Perhaps they remain hidden, waiting for a discovery that may never come.
The investigation into the missing gems has been dormant for years, with no new leads or credible tips. The diamonds, if they still exist, represent a loose thread in a case that otherwise appears resolved.
The execution of Reynaldo Dennes will close a chapter of violence and greed that began on a cold January night in 1996. It will not, however, answer the question that has lingered for three decades: where did the diamonds go? The heist was meticulously planned, executed with precision, and yet the proceeds vanished without a trace.
Dennes, who built the murder weapon and orchestrated the robbery, has never revealed the location of the stones. His brother Alberto, who was the shooter, was never charged, and his role remains unclear. Estrella Martinez, the cleaner who aided the plot, served time and was released years ago, but she has never provided information about the diamonds.
The silence from all involved has been absolute.
The case has drawn attention from true crime enthusiasts and amateur investigators, who speculate about the diamonds’ fate. Some believe they were smuggled out of the country, perhaps to Cuba, where Dennes had ties. Others think they were sold to a fence who melted them down or recut them, making them untraceable.
A few hold out hope that the stones are still hidden somewhere in Houston, perhaps in a storage unit or a buried cache. The lack of evidence has frustrated law enforcement for decades. Retired prosecutor Don Smith acknowledged the frustration, saying, “We know somebody got away with a fortune.
That’s the part that sticks with you.”
The execution date of November 19th, 2026, is now set. The state of Texas will carry out the sentence, and Reynaldo Dennes will be put to death for a crime that left a family grieving and a community shaken. But the diamonds remain a ghost in the story, a reminder that justice is not always complete.
The victim’s family has never recovered the stolen property, and the financial loss was compounded by the emotional toll of the murder. The Hungarian community in Houston, which lost a benefactor, has never fully healed. The case stands as a testament to the complexity of crime and punishment, where the perpetrator is held accountable, but the spoils of the crime remain elusive.
As the clock ticks down to November 19th, the question of the diamonds persists. If you were investigating this case today, 30 years later, where would you even start looking for $7 million in missing diamonds? The answer is as uncertain as the fate of the stones themselves.
The investigation is closed, but the mystery endures. Reynaldo Dennes will die, but the diamonds, if they still exist, are out there, waiting for someone to find them. The story of the Green Rock building heist is not over, not entirely.
It is a story with a verdict, a sentence, and an execution date, but no resolution on the treasure. The diamonds are the final piece of a puzzle that may never be solved.
