by Houston and the world at large are a better place following Tuesday’s execution of Peter Cantu, the 3rd gangbanger to be euthanized for the horrific north Houston gang rape and murder of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena in 1993.
Cantu was found to have exhorted the other ‘bangers to kill the girls after the sexual assaults and was turned in by his own brother after bragging about the murders.
I understand from a recent commenter that the Ertman family has no other children. Their family died 17 years ago while Cantu, the literal scum of the Earth, lived on. His execution is, I’m sure, meager recompense for their loss.
This small justice is, nonetheless, needed by society as a whole as evidence of law in a lawless world, the hard-won triumph of civilized people over brute animals such as Peter Cantu, and the painful, necessary excision of cancerous cells from the human body.
Rest in peace, girls. Millions of Houstonians will remember your names and faces until we too are buried in God’s ground.
