Moises Mendoza, 40, was executed on Wednesday morning by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. He was a death row inmate convicted of murdering a 20-year-old woman named Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson. She was a new mother to a six-month-old daughter, Avery, when Mendoza brutally took her life after repeatedly strangling her, as per the court documents.
Before his execution on Wednesday, the inmate, who has been described as a “sadistic killer,” took a moment to deliver a 10-word plea to Tolleson’s family.
After a spiritual adviser prayed over him for a few minutes before his execution, Moises Sandoval Mendoza addressed his victim’s parents, her two brothers, a cousin, and an uncle. They were watching him through a window from an adjoining room. “I am sorry for having robbed you of Rachelle’s life,” he said with much remorse.
He then apologized to Avery, the daughter Tolleson left behind during her 2004 murder. Mendoza expressed his sorrow over robbing her of a mother. “I am sorry for that. I know nothing that I could ever say or do would ever make up for that. I want you to know that I am sincere. I apologize,” he said.
Following his plea to the victim’s family, Moises then took a moment to speak to his family. His wife, sister, and two friends were seated in another witness room, watching him facing his death. In Spanish, he said. “I love you, I am with you, I am well and at peace.”
“You know that I’m well and everything is love,” Mendoza died 19 minutes after receiving the lethal injection. He became the third death row inmate to be executed by the state this year and the 13th in the whole of the United States.
Last words and time of death for Moises Mendoza, who was executed tonight in Texas: pic.twitter.com/w8oyBdSS4S
— Keri Blakinger (@keribla) April 24, 2025
According to his statement to prosecutors, in the early hours of March 18, 2004, Mendoza entered Tolleson’s house from the back door. She was in the middle of a divorce with her then-husband, Andrew Tolleson, and was living alone with her six-month-old in Farmersville, a small town situated northeast of Dallas. Rachelle left her daughter home and went to get a pack of cigarettes in Mendoza’s car.
However, he drove her to a field near his house, where he sexually assaulted her before proceeding to repeatedly strangle her to death. According to court documents, he initially left the body there, but when the investigation began following Tolleson’s mysterious disappearance, he moved it near a remote creek out of paranoia.
The Courier-Gazette reports that when the body was finally discovered, it was in a churred condition, proving that Mendoza burned it in an attempt to destroy fingerprints. Ultimately, Rachelle’s body was identified through dental records. According to court records, he was unable to give a reason for his actions while confessing his crimes to the police. In a letter to his parents, Moises wrote, “I don’t know what happened to me at that moment. I turned into the devil and after I did something that I thought was in a dream.”
Statement from Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis on the Execution of Moises Mendoza
“Moises Mendoza was executed tonight for the 2004 abduction and murder of 20-year-old Rachelle Tolleson—a brutal, unforgivable crime that devastated her family and shocked our… pic.twitter.com/pYHeMahZiH
— Collin County DA (@collincountyda) April 23, 2025
Later, it was revealed by Pam O’Neil, Tolleson’s mother, that Mendoza had attended a party at his victim’s house just a few days before, and the two of them were in the same grade school classes.
Ahead of his execution on Wednesday, Rachelle’s mother said that she’d never forgive him. Speaking with CBX Texas, Pam O’Neil stated, “I don’t forgive him at all. But, you know, my heart goes out to his family.”
“I know his mom is still alive, and his sisters, and, you know, they’re losing a son and a brother. But, you know, I lost my daughter 21 years ago to a brutal murder,” she added.
