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David Oliver CRUZ

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Abduction - Rape
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: August 7, 1988
Date of arrest: August 1988
Date of birth: May 18, 1967
Victim profile: Kelly Elizabeth Donovan, 24 (linguist in the Air Force)
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife
Location: Bexar County, Texas, USA
Status: Executed by lethal injection in Texas on August 9, 2000
 
 
 
 
 
 


Summary:


Cruz was convicted and sentenced to death for the August 1988 rape and murder of 24 year old Kelly Donovan.

Donovan was a linguist in the Air Force, stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.

On the night she was murdered, Donovan had left her dorm room to go for a walk after work.

Cruz and his friend, Jerry Daren Kemplin, kidnapped Donovan as they drove home from a party where they had engaged in binge drinking.

After forcing her into the car, Cruz and Kemplin drove Donovan to a secluded area, forced her to get out and demanded that she take off her clothes.

Cruz then told Donovan to lie on the ground and then he raped her while Kemplin stayed in the car listening to the radio and smoking a cigarette.

After about 10 minutes, Cruz told Donovan to get to her feet and to come around to the back of the car.

There, Cruz raped her again. Cruz asked Kemplin if he wanted to rape Donovan, but he refused.

As Donovan lay on the ground crying, Cruz remarked to Kemplin, "That's all I need to do is go to jail for rape."

Cruz then went to the car, got a knife and stabbed Donovan repeatedly.

Cruz called police when he heard they were looking for him and provided blood and saliva samples that linked him to Kelly Donovan's murder. Cruz also gave police a detailed statement about the murder, as did Kemplin, who corroborated Cruz' confession.

Accomplice Kemplin was sentenced to 65 years imprisonment.

 
 

Texas Attorney General

Media Release - Oliver David Cruz Scheduled to be Executed

AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General John Cornyn offers the following information on Oliver David Cruz who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m., Wednesday, August 9th:

In October of 1989 Oliver David Cruz was convicted and sentenced to death for the August 1988 rape and murder of 24-year-old Kelly Donovan. Donovan was a linguist in the Air Force, stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.

On the night she was murdered, Donovan had left her dorm room to go for a walk after work. Cruz and his friend, Jerry Daren Kemplin, kidnapped Donovan as they drove home from a party where they had engaged in binge drinking.

Donovan was walking on the road that Cruz and Kemplin were driving down. After forcing her into the car, Cruz and Kemplin drove Donovan to a secluded area, forced her to get out and demanded that she take off her clothes.

Cruz then told Donovan to lie on the ground and then he raped her while Kemplin stayed in the car listening to the radio and smoking a cigarette.

After about 10 minutes, Cruz told Donovan to get to her feet and to come around to the back of the car. There, Cruz raped her again. Cruz asked Kemplin if he wanted to rape Donovan, but he refused. As Donovan lay on the ground crying, Cruz remarked to Kemplin, "That's all I need to do is go to jail for rape." Cruz then went to the car, got a knife and stabbed Donovan repeatedly.

In the days following the rape and murder of Kelly Donovan, Cruz admitted to killing at least three other people.

When Cruz returned the bloody murder weapon to his friend, he told him that he had just raped and killed Kelly Donovan. When Cruz was confronted by another friend with a newspaper article about the murder, Cruz again claimed responsibility for killing Kelly Donovan.

Cruz called police when he heard they were looking for him and provided blood and saliva samples that linked him to Kelly Donovan's murder. Cruz also gave police a detailed statement about the murder, as did Kemplin, who corroborated Cruz' confession.

EVIDENCE

Cruz gave a written statement to police admitting that he killed Kelly Donovan. After raping Donovan, Cruz told his accomplice Jerry Kemplin, that he did not want Donovan to identify them. Shortly after saying that, Cruz got a knife and stabbed Donovan to death. When Cruz returned the knife he killed Kelly Donovan with to a friend, he admitted to killing Donovan.

When another friend confronted Cruz with a newspaper article about the murder, Cruz again admitted to killing Donovan. The jury also heard testimony from expert witnesses about Cruz' alleged diminished mental capacity. The jury was instructed to consider this issue in Cruz' favor before determining his sentence.

APPEALS TIME-LINE

  • June 23, 1993 - Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Cruz' capital conviction.

  • Oct. 31, 1994 - United States Supreme Court denied Cruz' petition for writ of certiorari.

  • Oct. 15, 1997 - Court of Criminal Appeals denied State habeas relief.

  • Nov. 09, 1999 - District court entered final judgement denying Cruz' federal habeas petition.

  • July 21, 2000 - Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied federal habeas relief.

  • Cruz has filed a petition for clemency with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY

One witness testified during the punishment phase of the trial that Cruz had shot him with a shotgun. The witness suffered minor injuries.

Two police officers testified during the punishment phase of the trial about an incident where Cruz resisted arrest on some traffic warrants. Cruz kicked one officer in the chest, groin and face. He also threatened to kill both officers.

A Bexar County detention officer testified during the punishment phase of the trial that Cruz hit one inmate, knocking him to the ground, while he was in jail in 1988. Another detention officer testified that he saw Cruz and another inmate in a fight, which Cruz later said was started because of a racially motivated encounter on his part.

When Cruz' co-defendant, Jerry Daren Kemplin testified at the guilt phase of the trial, he said Cruz mouthed a threat to him after his testimony at trial, telling Kemplin that he messed up by testifying and that he was going to be dead.

 
 

ProDeathPenalty.com

Oliver Cruz and Jerry Kemplin were convicted in the abduction, rape and murder of 24-year-old Kelly Elizabeth Donovan, a senior airman stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. Donovan was abducted by the pair after she had left the base to take a walk.

She was taken to an isolated area in the western part of Bexar county, sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death. Cruz and Kemplin later told police that they decided to kill Donovan so that she couldn't testify against them in her abduction and rape. Kemplin was sentenced to 65 years in prison.

 
 

Texas Execution Information Center

Txexecutions.org

David Oliver Cruz, 33, was executed by lethal injection on 9 August in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a 24-year-old woman he abducted and raped. In August 1988, Kelly Elizabeth Donovan, a senior airman stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, left the base to take a walk.

She was abducted by Cruz, then 21, and Jerry Daren Kemplin, also 21. Cruz and Kemplin had both been drinking and using LSD. They drove Donovan to an isolated area.

According to court testimony, Cruz repeatedly raped Donovan while Kemplin stayed in the car. Then, as Donovan lay on the ground crying, Cruz told Kemplin, "The last thing I need to do is go to jail for rape." Cruz stabbed the woman 20 times until she was dead. He and Kemplin left her body alongside the road.

In the ensuing days, Cruz told several people what he had done. When he learned that the police were looking for him, he called them and confessed and gave blood and saliva samples that tied him to the crime. Ten days before Donovan's murder, Cruz was found guilty of resisting arrest and was sentenced to five days in jail. Details about the reason for the arrest were not available.

In different IQ tests presented during his trial and appeals, Cruz scored 64 and 76. A person who scores below 70 is generally considered to be mentally retarded. Last year, the Texas legislature rejected a bill that would prohibit the execution of a mentally retarded person.

The bill's sponsor said he would propose the bill again in the next session of the legislature. Cruz's lawyer asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for a stay of execution, in hopes that the bill would be proposed again and passed into law, possibly saving his client's life. Cruz's appellate lawyer also contended that the trial lawyer did not adequately inform the jury of the extent of Cruz's mental impairment.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that the execution of a mentally retarded person did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Cruz's claim that his death sentence was unconstitutional.

Prosecutors noted that the jury was aware of Cruz's mental capacities and it was their decision to impose the death sentence. And, in a surprise move on the day before his execution, prosecutors presented an IQ test Cruz took when entering prison, on which he scored 83. Current Texas law prohibits a mentally incompetent person from being executed, which means they must be able to understand that they are going to be executed and must understand the reason.

In a tearful death row interview last week, Cruz said "I know I was wrong." "I feel real bad about it," he said. There's nothing I can do to change it, bring that person back." He added, "Keep me locked up, but don't kill me. I know I could help people." He then put his head in his hands and wept. "I'm not ready to die," he said.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Cruz's request for a stay, by an 18-0 vote. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal by a 6-3 vote. Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry, who was acting governor Wednesday night because Gov. George W. Bush was out of the state, declined to grant Cruz an emergency 30-day stay.

Cruz was sobbing and teary-eyed during his last statement, which went as follows: "First of all, I want to apologize to the family of Kelly Elizabeth Donovan. I'm sorry for what I did to her twelve years ago. I wish they could forgive me for what I did. I am sorry. I'm sorry for hurting my family; I'm sorry for hurting my friends. Please forgive me. Take me home, Jesus, I'm ready. I love you all." As the drugs began to take effect, a tear came from his right eye and ran down the side of his face. He was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m.

Cruz's execution began at about 6:30 p.m. because another prisoner, Brian Roberson, was being executed at the customary 6:00 p.m. time. Execution dates are set by local district judges and, as a result, two executions sometimes happen to be scheduled for the same day.

Multiple executions are carried out in the same chamber and on the same gurney, although new sheets, needles, and tubing are used each time. Jerry Kemplin accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against Cruz. He is serving a 65-year sentence for murder and will be eligible for parole in 2004.

 
 

In Texas, a Pair of Executions

By Michael Graczyk - Abeline Reporter News.com

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Two condemned killers, one of them a prisoner opponents said was mentally retarded and should not be executed, were put to death Wednesday evening in the nation's busiest death chamber. “I want to apologize to the family of Kelly Elizabeth Donovan,” a sobbing and teary-eyed Oliver David Cruz, 33, the second of the inmates to be punished, said. “I'm sorry for what I did to her 12 years ago. I wish they could forgive me for what I did.”

Cruz, considered mentally retarded by his supporters, was condemned for the 1988 abduction, rape and fatal stabbing of a 24-year-old woman stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Cruz's IQ tested as low as 63 but the Supreme Court, which has allowed other mentally ill or retarded inmates to be executed, voted 6-3 Wednesday morning to deny his emergency application for a reprieve.

The court also rejected a separate appeal for Cruz. “I'm sorry for hurting my family, I'm sorry for hurting my friends. Please forgive me,” Cruz said. He then sobbed and exclaimed: “Take me home Jesus, I'm ready.” As his face twitched, he took one deep breath and stopped moving. Moments later, a tear began running out of his right eye and down the side of his face.

He was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CDT, five minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms. About 30 minutes earlier, Brian Keith Roberson, condemned for the 1986 stabbing deaths of an elderly couple who lived across the street from him in Dallas, was executed.

Smiling and defiant to the end, Roberson, 36, lashed out at family members and police officers who testified against him at his trial. “You ain't got what you want,” he said. He then said he wanted to tell all the “racist white folks that hate blacks” and all the “black folks who hate themselves” that in the words of his brother Nat Turner, “You all can kiss by black a**. I'm ready. Let's go. I'll see you when you get there.”

Roberson then said goodbye to his family members and died at 6:17 p.m. CDT, five minutes after the lethal drug cocktail was injected. He lost an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote earlier Wednesday.

“This has brought closure to this grim and gruesome situation,” said Randy Fleming, grandson of Roberson's victims, and one of the people who watched Roberson die. Roberson's twin brother, Bruce, who also watched the execution, was critical of Gov. George W. Bush but said he was going to party Wednesday night. “When God comes, he's going to kick ass and take names,” Bruce Roberson said. “And justice system: You can kiss my a**.”

The back-to-back lethal injections were the first multiple executions in Texas since June 1997 and marked the third time since capital punishment resumed in the state in 1982 that more than one inmate was executed in one day. “The execution dates are set by district judges at the local level,” said Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's office. “The fact that two executions are set on the same date is just coincidence.”

The double execution was a far cry from Feb. 8, 1924, when Texas prison officials, taking over execution duties from the counties for the first time, inaugurated the electric chair in Huntsville by putting five inmates to death.

The attention paid to the two inmates has paled in comparison to the hoopla that drew the hundreds of protesters and media to Huntsville in June for the lethal injection of Gary Graham. Graham's claims of innocence and an unfair trial spotlighted Texas as the nation's execution capital and support of the death penalty by Bush, the Republican presidential nominee.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, in identical 18-0 votes earlier this week, refused to recommend to Bush that he halt Wednesday's executions, the 27th and 28th in Texas this year. They were the first of six scheduled this month. “I'm not ready to die,” Cruz said in an interview last week. “That's what scares me the most.”

A senior airman who worked as a linguist at Kelly Air Base, Kelly Donovan, 24, of Rumson, N.J., was taking a walk the night of Aug. 7, 1988, when she was abducted by Cruz and Jerry Kemplin, who were driving home after a drinking party. She was raped by Cruz, who then stabbed her to death. “I made a mistake. I don't blame nobody. I take full responsibility,” Cruz said. “There's nothing I could do or say to bring the person back. There's nothing I could do or say to her family about how sorry I am.” Cruz blamed the attack on drug use that began for him at age 13.

He said he and Kemplin, who testified against him in exchange for a 65-year prison term, had taken LSD and drank “a couple of bottles of liquor.” “She was just someone,” he said of Donovan. “I don't expect nobody to have pity on me.”

Cruz's attorney, Jeff Pokorak, argued that a jury was not given enough information about his client's lifelong mental impairment. An IQ under 70 is considered at least mildly retarded, but prosecutors noted that Cruz previously had scored above 70.

Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed said a recently uncovered test, administered by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice when Cruz entered prison in 1989, showed his IQ at 83. “Our office ended up subpoenaing the records when the issue of his competency came up,” Reed said Wednesday. Pokorak said the report's timing and history were suspicious, since it did not surface when the prison turned over all of Cruz's records to a former attorney. “It was some kind of double-secret probation report,” Pokorak said dismissively.

Among the 25 states that allow the execution of retarded killers, some are considering laws prohibiting the practice. The Texas Legislature, which killed a bill last session outlawing the execution of someone whose IQ is below 65, will revisit the issue in 2001.

In the Dallas case, Roberson fatally stabbed James Boots, 79, and Boots' wife, Lillian, 75, during a home robbery. “I wasn't in a solid frame of mind,” he said, blaming the attack on his use of PCP and liquor. “I was just juiced up.”

 
 

European Union in the U.S.

Dear Governor Bush,

We, as the representatives of the Presidency of the European Union, France, together with the next president, Sweden, and the European Commission wish to convey to you an urgent humanitarian appeal by the EU on behalf of Mr. Oliver Cruz. We make this request pursuant to the European Union’s policy of seeking a global moratorium on the use of the death penalty, which we have long renounced in Europe.

The execution of Mr. Cruz, a U.S. citizen, is scheduled to be carried out by Texas State Authorities on August 9, 2000. Mr. Cruz is considered by many experts to have deficient mental capacity and is considered mentally retarded, as stated by expert witnesses at his trial. We urge you to demonstrate compassion with regard to this case.

While Mr. Cruz has admitted his guilt for the crime, it is our opinion that his execution would additionally violate the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Resolution 1989/64 of 24 May 1989 on the implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty.

This resolution recommends that United Nations Member States eliminate the death penalty for persons suffering from mental retardation or extremely limited mental competence, whether at the stage of sentence or execution. The EU considers that the execution of Mr. Cruz would be contrary to these generally accepted human rights norms.

The European Union respectfully urges you to commute Mr. Cruz’s sentence to any other such penalty compatible with International law. Sincerely,

François Barry Delongchamps
Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. of France to the US

Bo Eriksson
Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. of Sweden

John Richardson
Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. to the US Delegation of the European Commission.

 

 

 
 
 
 
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