Opinion ID: 39988
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Underlying Crime and Involved Persons

Text: Mandell Eugene Summers, Helen Summers, and Billy Mack Summers were fatally stabbed and left in a burning building. Evidence at trial revealed that Summers hired Andrew Cantu to -1- murder Summers’s relatives—father, mother, and uncle, respectively—for financial gain.1 For this crime, Texas tried, convicted, and sentenced Summers to death in 1991. Cantu enlisted the aid of Raymond Gonzales and Paul Flores to carry out the act. (Cantu had solicited another, Max Aguirre, but Aguirre declined to join the conspiracy.) Cantu’s payment was to be from money found in the house. Among others, Aguirre, Flores, and Gonzales each testified in Summers’s trial to statements made by Cantu regarding Summers. After the publication of news reports on the crime, Keenan Wilcox contacted the police and described how Summers had approached him to perform the same acts, i.e., the murder of Summers’s relatives and the burning of their house. Wilcox reported that Summers offered to pay for the crime with money found in the house and from insurance proceeds. Wilcox testified about Summers’s solicitation. While in custody, Summers befriended William Spaulding, another inmate. Spaulding assisted Summers with legal work and prepared documents for Summers. When Spaulding realized that Summers was using documents prepared by Spaulding as false evidence, Spaulding contacted prison officials and told them of his encounter with Summers. During their interactions, Summers told Spaulding o f Summers’s part in the murders. Spaulding testified as to those events at Summers’s trial.