A petition has been launched to free two teenage brothers from Texas who were arrested and charged with capital murder after beating their stepfather to death for raping their 9-year-old sister. In less than a week, the Change.org petition has already gathered more than 365,000 signatures and that number continues to rise quickly.
Hidalgo County Court Records
- People believe Christian And Alejandro Trevino and their friend Juan Eduardo Melendez should be released. The Pharr Police Department arrested all three for the murder of 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla last Thursday, but members of the community believe what they did was understandable given the nature of the man’s crimes against their sister.
- They shouldn’t spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Carlos Eduardo Espina, who started the petition, believes they acted in self-defense and therefore aren’t guilty of a crime. “We ask that the state of Texas release these teenagers, who could possibly spend the rest of their life in prison for protecting their sister,” the petition states. “The three teenagers are currently in custody and have their bonds set at over 1 million dollars each. If convicted of capital murder, they face a minimum sentence of life imprisonment without parole.”
- The way Quintanilla was killed was an issue for police. They claim the man was beaten to death with brass knuckles on three separate occasions on the evening of his death before his body was loaded into the back of a pickup truck and eventually abandoned in a field in McAllen.
- Quintanilla had a history of sexual assault on minors. Pharr police chief Andy Harvey said during a press conference on Tuesday that Quintanilla had an arrest warrant issued in 2019 for allegedly sexually abusing another minor between 2014 and 2016. “He was being elusive, obviously hiding from us,” Harvey said in a statement.
