FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Death Penalty Upheld In Richard Hinojosa Capital Murder Case 

San Antonio, Texas; August 30, 2005: On August 25, 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Richard Hinojosa's appeal in his capital murder conviction and death sentence. Richard Hinojosa was tried in the 227th District Court, in Cause No. 95-CR-4325. He was convicted and sentenced to death on July 25,1997.

On the morning of May 10, 1994, Terry Wright was reported missing. At her residence there were signs of a struggle. A footprint was found in the mud in the atrium outside her house directly adjacent to a broken window and her car was missing. Her car was discovered later that day in an isolated location not far from her residence. That evening, with the help of a K-9 unit, officers discovered Wright's nude body in a field not far from where her car was found. A shoe print found near her body matched the shoe print found in the mud at her residence as well as the outsole of the brand and model of tennis shoes that had been purchased for Hinojosa by his wife some months before the murder. An autopsy revealed that Wright had been stabbed eleven times in the chest and back and that there was sperm present in her vagina. DNA testing revealed that appellant was the probable source of the sperm found inside Wright. Evidence also showed that around the time of the murder Hinojosa lived in his father's house, which was next door to Wright's house. A new execution date has not been set.