[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

december 17



TEXAS:

Mother of capital murder suspect in disbelief



Even after a confession from her son, Olivia Martinez doesn’t believe her 
transitioning transgender son is guilty of brutally killing 20-month-old 
Patricia Ann Rader, the sweet girl known as Annie.

Martinez is the mother of Shawn Vincent Boniello, 30, of Albuquerque, N.M. 
Boniello is charged with capital murder in Annie’s Dec. 3 death. Milam County 
District Attorney Bill Torrey will seek the death penalty if Boniello is 
convicted, Torrey announced Thursday after the Milam County grand jury indicted 
the suspect. He was also indicted under his assumed name of Shayla Angelina 
Boniello.

“It’s devastating. It’s a nightmare that I feel like myself and my family can’t 
wake up from,” Martinez told the Temple Daily Telegram Friday.

Martinez didn’t find out what supposedly happened until 2 days later, she said. 
She usually talked to Shawna every day, at least by text message. She talked to 
her son that Sunday, but not on Monday. Martinez sent several messages Tuesday, 
but never heard back — so she called Mike Matthews, who was Annie’s custodial 
grandfather, and he called her back to tell her “what allegedly had occurred.”

She was understandably shocked, Martinez said.

“It was like a nightmare,” she said. “I have read all the articles and, you 
know, I know that I’m a very faithful Christian woman. I know God has this and 
I know the truth will come out of what really happened. But I also know my 
daughter wouldn’t hurt a fly, and there is no way she did the things they 
described.”

Family members of the dead girl responded angrily.

“So what happened? Did a ghost do it?” Thomas Bond, the dead infant’s uncle, 
said.

“Let’s get real. It sounds like she’s trying to state someone else did this, 
and he’s getting blamed for it,” Rachel Bond, Annie’s aunt, said.,P> “Annie’s 
the only innocent person. She was a helpless, defenseless baby,” Rachel said. 
“We will keep all family that’s involved in our prayers. The only narrative 
we’re focusing on right now is getting justice for Annie.”

Boniello said in the statement to police that he was “punching, shaking and 
picking up the victim and wrapping her around her and squeezing the victim 
until she stopped moving.” He said he was angry and frustrated when he squeezed 
the girl until “he felt her bones begin to pop and crush,” a probable cause 
affidavit said.

Martinez described Boniello as “very distraught,” and believes the Rockdale 
Police Department targeted Shawn because of being transgender. She also 
believes there are extenuating circumstances that haven’t been examined, 
Martinez said.

Thomas Bond said that explanation made no sense. He explained they had no idea 
“she was even a he” until after police officers searched the trailer and found 
paperwork where he was going through a name change.

“If we as a family didn’t know, how would anyone else have known?” Rachel said. 
“Did anyone else even know Shayla/Shawn was in Rockdale?”

Martinez said Boniello “would never, ever have done the horrible things that 
are being said. I believe she was coerced into confessing because she was the 
easy target.”

Concerns about living in Texas

Boniello moved to Rockdale in October to be with Annie’s grandfather, Michael 
Matthews. The two met on the internet, Martinez said.

/ She had her concerns about Boniello — already transitioning — moving to a 
small town in Texas where he would probably be the only transgender and to live 
with someone he didn’t know. Also, the couple had already been evicted from 
where they had lived, Martinez said. She imagined the bias and lack of 
acceptance in the small community.

Martinez went to Rockdale in November to see Boniello and to meet the man with 
whom he lived. She stayed in the mobile home with them and watched Boniello 
interact with Annie. She said she could see how much Boniello loved Annie. 
Martinez also liked Matthews, she said.

She was still concerned, however. Three weeks after Boniello moved to Rockdale, 
he and Matthews were evicted from where they lived. Matthews didn’t have a car 
and the trailer where they lived didn’t have a stove. Boniello cooked on a hot 
plate and in a microwave and took care of Annie like “she was her own,” 
Martinez said.

Martinez mentioned the presence of Texas Department of Family and Protective 
Services in the past lives of the Matthews family. She said she didn’t know the 
family, but thought there was sufficient evidence to make someone wonder if 
something else happened to Annie that day.

Boniello was the only one there except for Annie’s 14-year-old uncle, an arrest 
affidavit said.

Matthews’ parents wanted to take Annie out several times days prior to her 
death, Rachel Bond said, but Boniello reportedly kept making excuses. He kept 
the baby from the grandparents. No one had seen Annie since Thanksgiving. It 
seemed like he isolated Mike and Annie from Matthews’ parents.

“Annie was removed from the custody of her parents shortly after her birth,” 
Lisa Block, Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman, said 
Friday. “The court appointed Matthews as her guardian on May 4 after her brief 
stay in foster care. The CPS case was closed after Matthews was appointed her 
guardian by the court.”

Although Block couldn’t say the reason Annie was removed from parental custody, 
she said, “In general, children are removed for abuse/neglect.”

Martinez fears for her Boniello’s life right now, she said.

A mother’s viewpoint

Martinez could tell starting when Shawn was three years old that he had mostly 
female behavior, she said.

“That’s not a learned behavior. She was born that way,” Martinez said. “We, as 
a society, have to accept those things. My daughter shouldn’t be condemned for 
that.”

Thomas Bond said that played no part in what happened.

Boniello is on medications to help with the transition, and she is allowed to 
take those in jail, Boniello told his mother. However, no one knows what will 
happen when the prescriptions run out, Martinez said.

Early in his early teenage years, Boniello had some substance abuse issues, his 
mother said. She added there never has been any violence or violent tendencies.

However, Martinez speculated it was possible the medications could have 
triggered something.

“It was an accident,” Martinez speculated. “Things sometimes happen that are 
outside of our control. I think my poor daughter panicked. And now words are 
being misconstrued and things are being twisted around.”

Martinez has had an outpouring here of support, prayers and good wishes from 
the people in Albuquerque who know Boniello.

Martinez asked the people of Milam County to not pass judgment until all the 
facts are known and all the evidence is uncovered.

“I hope the community of Rockdale doesn’t pass judgment on her because she is 
transgender,” she said.

Rachel Bond had a reaction to Martinez’s statement.

“If I had a son or child going through the same thing, I’d be heartbroken and 
upset but, at the same time, I’d want all the facts and justice to be done. 
We’re all adults. We have to be held accountable for our actions, and that 
includes everyone, she said.

This isn’t about gender. Everyone needs to focus on Annie and what was done to 
her, both Bonds said. And there is only one person who did it, and that’s what 
everyone needs to focus on, the couple said.

A visit with her son

Martinez said she saw her son Sunday in the Milam County Jail, adding that 
Boniello “is very emotional, cries a lot, is distraught, scared and worried.”

Martinez said Boniello asked her how Mike and his family were doing.

Boniello’s father lives in Arizona, and his relationship with Boniello is “up 
and down” because he’s had a hard time with Shawn’s transition and transgender 
issues. However, he’s planning to visit Boniello in January if he can gather 
enough money for the trip, Martinez said.

Boniello’s grandmother is deceased, and his grandfather is out of the country 
and can’t be reached, Martinez said. She said they have a small family except 
for some extended family in Italy.

“I have lifted it up to the Lord because He is good and He is just. The truth 
will come out,” Martinez said.

Arrest records

Boniello has other aliases including Shawn Mascarena and Shawn V. Mascarena.

“There is more to this. Why does he have all the aliases from one male name to 
others?” Thomas Bond said.

Besides Albuquerque, Boniello previously lived in Rio Rancho, N.M.; San 
Francisco; and Prescott, Ariz.; online records showed.

Shawn has an arrest record under the surname Mascarena, but some charges were 
dismissed by the prosecution. Other cases were listed as pending, including two 
driving while intoxicated charges, a failure to appear and a 
delivery/possession of drug paraphernalia charge. The charges ranged from 2008 
through 2011.

(source: Temple Daily Telegram)








COLORADO:

Death penalty: How likely is it to be imposed with a new Colorado governor?



With a new governor and a Democratic-controlled House and Senate, legislators 
are set to propose a bill to abolish the death penalty in Colorado.

Fort Collins Rep. Jeni Arndt, D-Fort Collins, said she's working on a bill in 
the state House to abolish the death penalty, with support from Democratic Rep. 
Adrienne Benavidez from Commerce City.

Arndt, who is seeking to fill Sen. John Kefalas' seat in the state Senate — as 
is Democratic Rep. Joann Ginal — said she can't speak to the bill's specifics 
yet, but the bill has been proposed several times in the General Assembly and 
failed, so she's trying again.

For Arndt, her faith plays a factor in why she opposes the death penalty, but 
she also believes that the death penalty is discriminatory and unevenly applied 
based on race — pointing to the fact that all the inmates on Colorado's death 
row are black.

She said she remembers asking her mom at only 5 years old why "the government 
killed people."

"She didn't have a good answer," Arndt said.

The high-profile case of Colorado man Christopher Watts — who pleaded guilty to 
killing his pregnant wife and 2 daughters but did not face the death penalty — 
brought discussion of the state’s capital punishment back to the forefront this 
fall. And 2 weeks ago, 17th Judicial District Attorney Dave Young filed his 
notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the shooting death of Adams 
County Sheriff’s Deputy Heath Gumm.

Democratic Governor-elect Jared Polis said if the Colorado General Assembly 
were to send him a bill either ending or phasing out the death penalty, he 
would be happy to sign it.

Polis believes the death penalty will be phased out on both a state and 
national level, though he said he's unsure if it'll be in 5 years, 10 or even 
20.

Currently, Colorado is one of 30 states that allow capital punishment.

The governor-elect cited the case of James Holmes, who killed 12 and injured 
scores of others in 2012 in the Aurora theater shooting, as an example. Holmes 
was not sentenced to death, but others who have killed fewer people have, 
showing that it “seems erratic in how it’s being implemented.”

Part of the inconsistency is that different prosecutors make different 
decisions about capital punishment, as do different juries, Polis said.

It's up to a district attorney's office to choose to pursue the death penalty 
in a case, but a jury has to come to a unanimous decision on the death penalty 
after a guilty verdict.

There's also the problem of cost, Polis said. A study published in the 
University of Denver Criminal Law showed that death penalty cases took almost 
four years longer to resolve than life-without-parole cases.

That same study cites an opinion piece by former Boulder County district 
attorney Stan Garnett, who said prosecuting a death penalty case can cost the 
prosecution more than $1 million in addition to costs incurred by the judiciary 
and the defense counsel, "which is almost always funded with taxpayer funds." 
The study asserts that this number is too low, but the dollar figures are 
imprecise and anecdotal.

Arndt said cost is the third reason she's pursuing the bill, though it's not 
her primary motivating factor.

Ultimately, "I think (the death penalty is) just cruel," she said, adding that 
often inmates stay on death row for long periods of time.

In the Watts case, Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said he didn’t 
seek the death penalty mainly because of the “strong wishes” of victim Shanann 
Watts’ family, but it also helped him reach a plea agreement in the case.

Neither Rourke nor his predecessor Ken Buck, now a U.S. congressman, sought the 
death penalty while serving as Weld County District attorney. The county’s last 
capital murder case was in 2002.

“The reality of the death penalty in Colorado is it is exceedingly difficult, 
even if the jury imposes a death sentence, for it to be carried out,” Rourke 
said.

The most recent death row inmate, Nathan Dunlap, convicted of killing 4 people 
in a Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora in 1993, was scheduled to be executed in 2013. 
Gov. John Hickenlooper granted him a temporary reprieve from execution, though 
he did not grant him clemency.

Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler tried the 2012 Aurora 
theater shooting case and called Colorado's death penalty statutes the 
“toughest in the United States of America.” He said the standards to impose it 
are even more difficult than those federal cases are subject to, such as in the 
case of the Boston Marathon bombing.

After all the facts were determined in the Holmes case and the defendant had 
been found guilty, the death penalty decision came down to “individual reasoned 
moral judgement.” One juror opposed the death penalty on moral grounds, and a 
unanimous consensus is required.

“We make it very intensely personal, and that’s where you lose people,” 
Brauchler said.

Brauchler said he believes the governor’s office has politicized capital 
punishment in the state.

Though Hickenlooper did not provide the Coloradoan with an interview for this 
story, his staff released a statement on his behalf that said because the death 
penalty is the “most absolute punishment that exists,” it needs to be almost 
perfect.

“It is not,” the statement reads. “The death penalty isn’t cost-effective. It 
does not stop the suffering of victims’ families. It doesn’t deter crime. A 
death penalty system must operate flawlessly, and ours doesn’t.”

The statement goes on to say that the “inconsistent and imperfect application” 
of capital punishment renders it useless.

But Brauchler disputes those arguments, saying if legislators trusted the 
voters, they would do what Hickenlooper has previously suggested and ask the 
voters to decide on the death penalty rather than pass legislation to end it.

And Brauchler believes Colorado citizens will vote to keep it.

Arndt, however, said voters selected their representatives. If residents wanted 
to make it a ballot issue, they could do that through a citizen referendum.

The potential cost-savings of an end to the death penalty, according to 
Brauchler, are “nonsense.” He said there are cost savings when people plead 
guilty to life without parole, and what makes the death penalty cases so 
expensive are the years of appeals and uncertainties, such as in the Dunlap 
case.

“This is all an effort to continue to whittle away at sanctions against people 
who commit the worst crimes in our community,” he said.

Rourke, meanwhile, isn’t looking for easy fixes to Colorado’s statutes or to 
make imposing the death penalty easier. Rather, he wants to make it “more 
functional” to be imposed and carried out.

But he thinks cost should be one of the last factors anybody considers when 
determining the fate of someone who took the lives of others and committed a 
horrific crime, calling it a “callous, cold, inappropriate consideration when 
trying to make that incredible decision.”

“We don’t seek it because it’s inexpensive. We don’t seek it because it’s 
expensive,” he said.

7 cases in Larimer County where the death penalty had impact

Though he supports the death penalty, Eighth Judicial District Attorney Cliff 
Riedel said at a panel discussion that the death penalty in Colorado is "on 
death row."

Riedel said during his tenure in Larimer County, there were seven criminal 
cases that came to the resolutions they did because the death penalty was on 
the books.

Jeffrey Etheridge: He was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting 
and killing Heather "Helena" Hoffmann in 2017 in City Park.

Travis Forbes: He was sentenced to life in prison for the 2011 murder of Kenia 
Monge in Denver, and he also brutally attacked and sexually assaulted Fort 
Collins woman Lydia Tillman and received an additional sentence in Larimer 
County.

Joseph Curl: He was sentenced to life in prison for killing and strangling 
Linnea Dick, a Front Range Community College student, in 2008, and then setting 
the home on fire.

Jason Clausen: He was sentenced to life in prison for the 2003 murder of Lacy 
Jo Miller, 22, after he impersonated a police officer to pull her over, 
abducted her and killed her.

Rick Watson: Watson, a carnival worker, was sentenced in 2002 after he beat an 
elderly man to death who had provided him a place to stay in Fort Collins at an 
apartment complex Riverside and Mountain avenues in Fort Collins.

Troy Graves: The serial rapist was sentenced to life in prison after the murder 
of a woman in Philadelphia and sexual assaults on several woman in Philadelphia 
and Fort Collins.

Marion Pruitt: Pruitt was sentenced in the 1980s to multiple life sentences for 
murdering a clerk at 7-Eleven in Fort Collins and then murdering a clerk at a 
7-Eleven in Loveland. He also murdered other individuals in different states.

(source: Coloradoan)