The southern state of Texas executed this Thursday David Santiago Renteria, a man sentenced to death for the murder of a five-year-old girl two decades ago, whom he kidnapped from a department store.

The execution in Texas was the second overnight in the United States, after Alabama also executed a prisoner for a 1993 murder minutes earlier. The last time two prisoners were executed in one day was exactly one year ago, on November 16, 2022.

Renteria, a 53-year-old Hispanic man, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. local time after receiving lethal injection at Huntsville prison -near Houston- according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

His last words, spoken in front of witnesses from his family and the victim, were:

“I regret all the mistakes I have made. And to those who asked for my death and who are going to kill me, I forgive.”

On November 18, 2001, Renteria took advantage of the neglect of the parents of 5-year-old Alexandra Flores to kidnap her from a Walmart department store in El Paso, on the border with Mexico.

Surveillance cameras show the man leading the girl away from the stores where the family was doing Christmas shopping that Sunday afternoon.

The girl’s body was found the next morning, naked and burnt, in an alley located about 25 kilometers from the abduction site. An autopsy revealed that Alexandra Flores died of strangulation.

Two years later, in November 2003, Renteria was sentenced to death by a popular jury.