TEXAS LAST MEAL
JOHN RICHARD BALTAZAR
January 16, 2003

Life is NOT a bowl of cherries.....

LAST MEAL: Baltazar requested cherries and Cool Whip, but the request wasn't met because the prison system doesn't have those items on hand.

The Skinny: Baltazar shot to death a 5-year-old girl as she was curled up on her family's couch watching "Sleeping Beauty". Baltazar said he was drunk on Sept. 27, 1997, when he went to the girl's Corpus Christi house looking for the girl's uncle, who was dating his mother. Baltazar said he had heard that the uncle, Narciso Cuellar, had beaten his mother. Cuellar had been sleeping on the couch of the family's home but moved out a week earlier.

NO WORDS: With his tattooed arms outstretched as he lay on the gurney, Baltazar declined to make a final statement. He glanced at five members of the Marines family who witnessed the execution, including Adriana's parents, her aunt and two of her grandparents. No one representing Baltazar witnessed the execution.

PRESHOW: On Tuesday, Baltazar spent much of the day talking with visitors and reading. According to prison officials, Baltazar didn't go to bed until after midnight Wednesday. Much of his morning was spent with visitors.

FACTOIDS: Baltazar's death is Texas' 291st since the state resumed executions in 1982. His execution leaves 449 inmates on death row.

Baltazar said he wasn't afraid to die but thought his crime wasn't one he should be paying for with his life.