As a true crime writer I often feel like I sound like a stuck record when I say the words 'this is one of the most disturbing cases that I have ever written about' but the truth is, all of the cases I have written about have been heartbreaking and disturbing. Whether it is one person who has had their lives so cruelly taken or a number of people, each story is equally important and one victim is one too many. We all have the right to live our lives in peace and safety as long as we treat others the way in which we would like to be treated ourselves, with respect, understanding and with the best of intentions. Of course I'm talking about what I would ideally like to be the case but we know that, in reality, our world is often quite a cruel and dark place where we have good people and some bad people....some very, very bad people.
I'm going back in time in this post to 1993, a time where it was all about hair scrunchies, girlbands and boybands, jeans paired with sweaters, grunge and blockbuster movies like Jurassic Park. Not forgetting the battle of the big ballads with Whitney Houston's cover of Dolly Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' and Meatloaf's 'I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won' Do That)'. It was an epic time to be a teenager, way before mobile phones and the Internet took over, people had to actually socialise and teenagers could be teenagers without a rush to grow up or the added pressures that young people have today. There is a lot of positive things I could list about the 1990s but again, in all reality, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, the world was still as dangerous then as it is today, it's just that with the internet we have news from other corners of the world, places we never knew existed and a hard dose of reality on a daily basis of what actually goes on in places beyond our reach. We have more knowledge of crimes and often see crimes carried out in real time on our laptops and mobile phones.
As teenagers in the 1990s (as well as a lot of people in general) there was sense of ignorance about the world and potential dangers lurking around every corner but that wasn't so much a bad thing. I mean, who wants to go through life being paranoid, not being able to fully enjoy life and worrying about what could potentially happen. I like to think that most of us nowadays have a bit of a balance, we are careful with where we go and who we trust but as we know that doesn't always guarantee 100% safety. This case has been covered quite a lot over the years but I have had many readers request for me to write about it. I was familiar with this disturbing story and like everyone else who knows the full details of what happened, it has never left me and will forever horrify me.
I always make a little note at the beginning of my posts to remind readers that the content may cover some disturbing details and in this post, that goes without question, it will be beyond nightmarish and if you feel that you can go through this very dark, upsetting and evil journey with me in this article, I will be honest and say that it won't be an easy read but I appreciate your time and it's always important that we never forget victims of such evil acts or cloak the monsters who do such things in darkness. Sometimes you find that cases where the perpetrators have been in prison for a long time and nobody's talked about their story and what they did to be put away for so long in the first place, some people tend to get a bit too sympathetic for my liking. No matter how much time has passed If someone or a gang of people have committed horrendous acts where they have taken lives, they should serve every bit of time they are given or face whatever the law has dealt for them and that includes the death penalty. I'll never understand some people who email me that so and so has been in prison for a certain length of time for doing horrendous things to children before murdering them and they'll expect me to help a campaign where the proven, convicted killer gets their sentence changed/reduced. That again taps into the whole 'death penalty' vs life sentence debate and I want to focus on this particular story that is disturbing enough.
So, let's get into this case as tough as it's going to be to get through....
Most of us remember what we were like as teenagers and some of the things we got up to away from our parents. The cheeky cigarettes, the 7-up bottle filled with cheap wine, hanging about the park at all hours and probably hanging out with people that we shouldn't have been. Listening to music, gossiping, having crushes, thinking we were invincible. Bills and taking care of a house was not even a thought in our minds, we believed that when we grew up we'd get a house and have parties all the time. Then at some point reality kicked in and then it was jobs, paying bills, cleaning the house and proper reality. In June of 1993, two close friends, 16 year old Elizabeth Pena and 14 year old Jennifer Ertman were just like your everyday teenage girls who were into fashion, boybands, hanging out with friends and experimenting with makeup. The two pretty girls were like two peas in a pod, almost joined at the hip and anyone who knew them would say how friendly and kind they were. As pretty as both the girls were, there was no air of narcissism or snobbery, they chatted away to everyone and were really down to earth with quite a maturity for their young ages. Both girls highly respected their parents and did what they were told and that included keeping in touch if they were ever out somewhere. If their parents told them to be home by a certain time, they would be there.
On the night of June the 24th 1993 the weather was quite warm in Houston, Texas and the girls had been spending some time at a friend's party when they realised they were cutting it a bit fine with the time. They had previously agreed with their parents that they would be home at a certain time and they wanted to honour that agreement. Knowing that it was looking like they would be home late if they took their usual route, they decided to walk through the park as it would only take them 10 minutes and they'd done that previously and nothing sinister ever happened. With a short walk they probably felt confident that all would be ok. I'm sure a lot of us remember times when we would cut through a park (or in my case, a graveyard.....yes, I confess, I always used to cut through the old cemetery in my hometown to get to and from high school back in the day....and in my defense a lot of the kids did that and to my knowledge, they still do) to save time and thought nothing of it, especially if we had done that so many times before.
On this warm evening the girls made their way to Oak Forest Park and unknown to them there was a gang of eight young men who were carrying out what they called a 'Gang Initiation'. These idiots called themselves 'The Black & White Gang' and they thought they were something special. Part of this gang ritual involved fighting and drinking beer and the leader of the group was 18 year old Peter Cantu who was never out of trouble. They had accepted 17 year old Raul Villarreal into their group and they all celebrated. Present at the scene were Peter Cantu, Raul Villarreal, Jose Medellin, Efrain Perez, Derrick Sean O'Brien and Venancio Medellin, Jose's 14 year old brother. Two other boys were also present and they were known locally as 'The Roman Brothers'.
Full of beer and getting rowdy, the gang members noticed two girls walking past them, it was Elizabeth and Jennifer. The two girls thought that if they kept their heads down and walked past the guys quickly there wouldn't be any trouble but Jose Medellin had other ideas and so did his evil friends. The boys were excited to see two pretty young girls in the park but instead of just paying a few compliments and letting the girls go about their way, the worst and unimaginable events came into play.
Venancio looked on as his own brother and his gang mates (encouraged and ordered by Peter Cantu) proceeded to grab and grope the girls, pushing them to the floor, pulling at their clothing, grabbing their breasts and dragging them across the grass. The Roman Brothers became alarmed and quickly realised what was going to happen and they didn't want any part of it. Instead of having a shred of human decency and attempting to help these two terrified young girls, the pair decided they would just let the guys carry-on with it and they left. No phone calls were made to the authorities.
No matter how much research one can do into a case like this, the horrifying reality of the full details of what these girls went through is traumatic to read but nobody for a moment could imagine the sheer terror and agony that those two young girls went through. Six of these monsters against two young girls and it just got worse and worse and worse. I have to mention the important fact that at one point, Jennifer had the chance to get away but she tried to help Elizabeth and so they grabbed her again and carried on assaulting her. As both girls, kicked, screamed, scratched and tried to bite their attackers the horrific rapes carried on. Both girls had been subjected to the most brutal physical and sexual assaults you do not want to imagine! They were forced to perform oral sex and were subjected to vaginal and anal rape numerous times. Each of the monsters cheered each other on as 14 year old Venancio watched on, soon enough the rest of the monsters encouraged him that it was 'his turn' and he joined in. This sickening nightmare went on for more than an hour with each of the girls trying everything to make it stop but they were powerless against these monsters.
When the monsters had finished their evil and despicable assaults they decided that the girls would have to be murdered because they would be able to identify them. Nobody could imagine what state these poor girls were in after being horrifically beaten and gang-raped, they now had to hear that they were going to be murdered. The girls begged and pleaded for their lives, they just laughed and continued to call the girls names whilst kicking them, to them they had their fun and that was that. Both of the girls were then dragged into a wooded area and Jennifer was ordered to get on to her knees, she was strangled to death with a belt as Elizabeth was forced to watch. In sheer horror and desperation, she began offering them her phone number in an attempt to get on their 'nice' side (if there was a shred of that, that even existed, I think not) but these monsters didn't care. Elizabeth tried to get away but was mercilessly kicked in the face and body with such forced that her ribs were broken and her teeth knocked out. She was then strangled to death with a pair of shoelaces.
As both girls lay on the ground, deceased, badly beaten, covered in cuts, horrific injuries both outer and inner as well as partially dressed with no respect or dignity given to them.....the monsters ended their night of horrific evil by stomping hard on each of the girl's necks to ensure (as they later said ) ''that they were dead''.
The evil and utter depravity of these boys was indescribable, they enjoyed every minute of what they had done, there was no remorse, no regret, nothing. In fact they couldn't shut up about it, Peter was bragging to his brother Joe about what they had done, just hours after the horrific and brutal murders of these two beautiful young girls.
Back in the family homes of Jennifer and Elizabeth, their parents became increasingly concerned about where their daughters were. As they'd always had a close relationship with the girls and knew that the girls were together, part of them assumed that they must have fallen asleep at their friend's house and they'd call soon but that call never came.
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