Smriti Mundhra had no desire to make an anti–death penalty film when she began looking into the story of John Henry Ramirez, a convicted murderer on Texas’s death row. Mundhra, a Los Angeles TV and film creator, wasn’t an activist, and Ramirez wasn’t innocent. There was no doubt that, back on July 14, 2004, Ramirez, 20, high on drugs and alcohol, stopped at a Corpus Christi convenience store to rob it—and found clerk Pablo Castro, 45 and a father of nine, taking out the trash. Ramirez attacked Castro, stabbed him 29 times, and walked off with $1.25. He fled to Mexico and was caught, put on trial in Texas, and sentenced to death.When Mundhra finally met Ramirez, in 2022—through the window of one of the…
The post ‘I Am Ready, Warden’ Is a Gripping Examination of Vengeance and Redemption on—and Off—Texas’s Death Row appeared first on Texas Monthly.
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