KTSM News – Killer of 5-year-old girl to be executed on Thursday

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – David Renteria is expected to take the lethal injection on Thursday for killing and kidnapping 5-year-old Alexandra Flores in 2001.

“I just, with you would die right about now. I can’t wait to see the day where I can see you die in front of everybody else,” were the words of Alexandra’s brother Ignacio Fausto during Renteria’s sentencing in 2008.

Alexandra’s family will be at the Hunstville Unit on Thursday Nov. 16 to witness Renteria’s execution that is scheduled for 5 p.m., according to El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks.

On Nov. 18, 2001, 5-year-old Alexandra Flores was Christmas shopping with her family at a Lower Valley Walmart.

Her sister Lizette Ibarra-Barrientos telling KTSM in an interview in 2022 what happened that day.

“Our parents had agreed that we were all going to go shopping for Christmas gifts. They would buy us each set of clothes and a toy that would pick out and we would put it on layaway. We met up at the layaway and my dad asked for Alexandra and we’re like, no, she’s not with us. My mom thought she is with my dad and vice versa. And then that’s when we started looking for her,” she said.

The next day, Alexandra was found dead near Downtown El Paso with a plastic bag over her head and a burnt body.

The autopsy report revealed that she was strangled with no signs of sexual assault.

Two weeks later, Renteria was arrested and tried for the first time in September of 2003 and sentenced to death.

After filing an appeal, he was retried again in 2008.

Renteria was sentenced to death for the second time and has been waiting for the execution since.

D.A. Hicks told KTSM Renteria has been filing appeals 24 hours before the execution and the court could stop the proceeding until the very last minute before the execution.

Hicks said this is not common, but it is not unseen with these types of cases.

Renteria is the 5th El Pasoan to be executed in the past 40 years.

Last death row conviction was earlier in 2023 when Facundo Chavez was sentenced to death for killing El Paso Sherrif’s Deputy Peter Herrera.

The state’s death penalty case for Walmart shooter Patrick Crusius is currently still pending.

“This is a very somber, very serious, very prayerful time for all of us involved. But justice will be served and we’re going to be there with the victim’s family to support them and to represent the people of El Paso,” said Hicks.

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