Jury hands down death sentence for Arlington man who killed two, beheaded one victim
A Tarrant County jury has handed down a death sentence for a convicted murderer who prosecutors called a Mexican drug cartel hit man and a monster with a “sickness to kill people.”
Jurors deliberated for slightly more than four hours Wednesday on whether to give Hector Acosta the death penalty or life in prison without parole. He was found guilty of killing two people in Arlington in 2017, beheading one of the victims, and mutilating their bodies with a machete and a two-by-four.
Prosecutors said that Acosta would always be a threat.
“He’s a murderer,” Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Rousseau said Wednesday morning in closing arguments. “Don’t let these people down.”
Defense attorneys urged the jury to give Acosta a life sentence, pointing out a brain injury may have affected the Arlington man’s life.
“This is a horrible thing that happened,” said attorney Bill Ray in his closing argument. “I’m not asking for a gift to give Hector. He will never get out.”
Jurors found Acosta guilty of capital murder of multiple persons last week in Criminal District Court No. 396 in Fort Worth.
Acosta fatally shot Erick “Diablo” Zelaya in 2017 at an Arlington home the two were sharing at the time. Seconds later, he killed the victim’s 17-year-old girlfriend, Iris Chirinos. After shooting them, Acosta severed Zelaya’s head with a machete.
Defendant joined gangs at early age
In closing arguments Wednesday morning, Ray and fellow defense attorney Gary Smart told jurors Acosta had grown up surrounded by violence in Monterrey, Mexico, and his world came crashing down just months before the 2017 killings when his parents died and his wife took their children to Arkansas.
“We’re not here to tell you that there were any justifications for what Hector did,” Smart said. “He’s a human being. We can save a life here.”
Smart noted that Acosta made this statement to Arlington police in September 2017: “I will regret this for the rest of my life,” Acosta told the detective.
Prosecutor Tim Rodgers said Acosta claimed to have committed murders, kidnappings and torture for Cartel Del Noreste and he had a “sickness to kill people.”
He showed an interest in gang life from as early as age 7, prosecutors said.
“At a young age, his parents tried everything they could to help him,” Rodgers said. “But at an early age he wanted to be a gangster.”
“Could you have imagined what violence and brutality you were going to see in this trial? Such disregard for human life and the human body?” Rodgers asked the jury. “You have had to face the reality that monsters like this exist not too far away from us.”
Rousseau added that Acosta was a killer trained by the cartels who even wore his allegiance when he was booked into jail. The prosecutor noted Acosta wore red shoes and a belt buckle with a photo of “Scarface” in it and had cartel tattoos.
“When he was young and his family left Mexico to live in Houston, he became a member of a street gang there,” Rousseau said. “But he moved back to Mexico where he joined the cartel. He was doing drug deals on the side, and that angered the cartels. He cannot follow the rules of the cartel. How would you expect him to follow rules in prison?”
A series of murders
The Arlington case began with the discovery of Zelaya’s severed head on Sept. 2, 2017, near a man-made walking trail not far from AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Near the head, Arlington police found a sign written in Spanish that read,”La Raza Se Resreta y Faltan 4,” which loosely translated appears to mean, “The race, or group, must be respected and there’s only four left.”
The bodies of Zelaya and Chirinos were later found in a shallow grave in the back yard of an Arlington home.
Acosta fired two shots into the head of Zelaya, his roommate, while he was asleep because the victim had confessed to being one of the gunmen who had shot at Acosta’s Arlington home in May 2017, a prosecutor told the jury in an opening statement as the trial began.
Acosta also faces another violent crime charge in the robbery and killing of Triston Ray Algiene in July 2017 in Fort Worth.
Acosta and another man, Felipe Eduardo Ortiz, are charged with Algiene’s murder.
During the punishment phase of Acosta’s trial in the Arlington killings, prosecutors introduced evidence from the Fort Worth case. They said Acosta and his accomplices bound and viciously beat Algiene while robbing him.
After Algiene gave them the wrong PIN number for his bank account, they shot him to death. Acosta then cut his body in half, buried him under a house and covered his body with cement, prosecutors said.
Algiene’s dismembered body — concealed under a repair patch in a home’s foundation — was found Oct. 3, 2017, inside a vacant house in the 6400 block of Woodway Drive in southwest Fort Worth.
Prosecutors on Wednesday told the jury that Acosta has joked about the Fort Worth killing while he has been in jail. Acosta is accused of kicking Algiene’s head and injuring his toe.
“He said he was going to name his toe Triston,” Rousseau said. “He got it treated just before this trial.”
Acosta did not have any shoes on Wednesday morning in court — just a pair of socks.
Evidence was also presented that while being held in the jail awaiting trial, Acosta tried to start a drug trafficking operation.
“Some people can get better,” Rodgers said. “Some are just bad.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 11:33 AM.
