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Death Sentence for Arizona Minuteman Who Killed Girl and Dad
By Valeria
Fernández
New
America Media
Feb
22, 2011
PHOENIX, Ariz.—Shawna
Forde, a leader in the Minutemen border watch movement, has been
sentenced to die for the 2009 killings of a Latino father and his
9-year-old daughter in their home.
Forde, 43, was convicted last week of first-degree murder in the deaths
of Raul Junior Flores and his daughter, Brisenia Flores. She was also
convicted for the attempted murder of Gina Gonzalez, Brisenia’s mother.
Prosecutors argued that Forde plotted the home invasion, believing
Flores was a drug dealer. She aimed to steal money to finance activities
of the Minuteman American Defense (MAD), a splinter group of the
Minutemen, which she founded to report undocumented immigrants to the
Border Patrol.
In her testimony, Gina Gonzalez, the only witness in the case, gave a
heartbreaking account of the massacre that unfolded May 30, 2009, at her
home in Arivaca, Ariz.,13 miles from the Mexican border.
Gonzalez testified that her husband woke her, saying that police was at
the door. Their daughter, Brisenia, lay sleeping on the couch with her
puppy.
Brisenia Pleaded for Her Life
When Flores opened the door, he saw a woman standing there, accompanied
by two men, later identified as Albert Robert Gaxiola and Jason Eugene
Bush. They told him they were looking for fugitives. When Flores
questioned them, Bush allegedly opened fire, fatally shooting him and
injuring Gonzales in the leg.
Gonzalez played dead on the floor, and listened as Brisenia pleaded for
her life, only to then hear the shooter reload his gun and kill the
little girl. Her other daughter was spending the night at her
grandmother’s.
Moments after the intruders left, Gonzalez called 911, but the woman
returned with a gunman and told him to finish her off. Gonzalez, though,
was able to shoot him in self-defense with a gun she had found in the
house.
During the trial, defense attorneys Eric Larsen and Jill Thorpe argued
that Gonzalez couldn’t positively identify Forde as the woman who
invaded her home, and that prosecutors had no direct evidence to prove
Forde was even there that day.
They also said there weren’t fingerprints in the home, or DNA that could
tie her to the murders.
But Pima County attorneys’ Rick Unklesbay and Kelly Johnson
presented evidence that Forde had attempted to recruit people to go
after drug dealers. Text messages left on her phone also implicated her
in the murders.
Authorities also presented the jury jewelry that belonged to Gonzalez
found in Forde’s possession.
While Flores had a history of drug-related offenses, no drugs were found
in the house.
Before the jury imposed the death penalty, they heard arguments from the
defense to spare Forde’s life. She was presented as someone who had
suffered sexual and physical abuse from one of her husbands. Thorpe
argued she suffered a stroke that resulted in brain damage that impacted
her judgment, leaving her open to manipulation.
Bush and Gaxiola will be tried later this spring and could also be
sentenced to die if found guilty.
The Forde decision comes in the aftermath of January’s deadly public
shooting in Tucson that left six people dead, including another
9-year-old girl, and injured 13 people, among them U.S. Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords, D-Ariz.
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