HUNTSVILLE, Texas – After two decades on death row, Moises Sandoval Mendoza was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening at the Huntsville State Penitentiary, finally facing the ultimate penalty for one of the most brutal murders in Collin County history.
The 41-year-old convict was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. local time, ending a 21-year legal and emotional ordeal for the family of 20-year-old Relle O’Neal Tollison, a young mother who was strangled, sexually assaulted, stabbed and set on fire in March 2004.
Mendoza’s final moments inside the small death chamber were marked by a repeated, emotional apology directed at the victim’s family, who watched through a glass window just a few feet away. Calling each relative by name, he said, “I am sorry for having robbed you of Relle’s life. I know nothing that I could ever say or do would ever make up for that.
I want you to know I am sincere. I apologize.”
He also acknowledged the baby girl Tollison left behind, now 21 years old and forced to grow up without her mother. Then, switching to Spanish, Mendoza told his own family—his wife, sister and two friends who were present in a separate viewing room—that he was “well and at peace.” He added, “Everything is love.
Thank you for being here today.”
The execution began shortly after 6 p. m. when the warden gave the signal for the lethal drugs to flow.
Witnesses reported that Mendoza exhaled sharply and emitted a few loud gasps before his body relaxed. Within 20 minutes, he was gone.
The crime that landed Mendoza on death row remains seared into the memory of Farmersville, a small, close-knit town 45 miles northeast of Dallas. On the night of March 17, 2004, Tollison had returned home with her five-month-old baby after visiting her parents. Shortly after she arrived, Mendoza—a former high school classmate—appeared at her door.
He abducted her from her own home, leaving the infant alone in a crib.
The next morning, Tollison’s mother found the baby cold, wet and crying, but alive. Tollison was missing. Six days later, her body was discovered in a field near a creek.
The remains were so charred and mutilated that dental records were required for identification. Mendoza had strangled her until she passed out, sexual assaulted her, then choked her again. Believing she was dead, he dragged her body to a field and stabbed her in the throat to ensure she wouldn’t survive.
Finally, he set the corpse on fire to destroy evidence.
Mendoza’s downfall came when he bragged about the murder to a friend, who immediately contacted police. In custody, he confessed in chilling detail, showing no remorse. In fact, detectives noted that he seemed proud of what he had done.
He led investigators to the remote spot where he had dumped Tollison’s body.
At trial in 2005, the evidence was overwhelming. Mendoza was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. The jury found that the murder occurred during a kidnapping and sexual assault, and that Mendoza posed a continuing threat of future danger.
For the next 20 years, Mendoza filed appeal after appeal, exhausting every legal avenue. During that time, he married while on death row and reportedly found religion, earning certificates in self-improvement programs and becoming a positive influence on fellow inmates. But none of that erased the atrocity of his crime in the eyes of the law or the victim’s family.
As for his last meal, Texas no longer allows condemned inmates to choose a special meal—a policy enacted in 2011 after an inmate ordered an extravagant feast and refused to eat it. So Mendoza’s final meal was the standard prison dinner tray, no different from what any other prisoner received that day.
After the execution, Tollison’s mother, Pam O’Neal, spoke to reporters outside the prison. Her voice steady but heavy with decades of grief, she said: “He’s been on death row for 20 years. That ended today.
He was put to sleep. He felt no pain. I wish I could say the same about my daughter’s death.”
The execution marked the third of the year at the Huntsville Unit, a facility that has carried out more executions than any other in the United States. For Tollison’s family, it was the end of a long, painful journey. But for a grieving mother, nothing could bring her daughter back.