Hector De Peña was the first lawyer assigned to defend Carlos ...

2012] Los Tocayos Carlos, Part III, Chapter 11 943
shown a group of photos by Detective Escobedo. It was then that
Lawrence first met Carlos—on June 1st or 2nd, to tell his client what
was in the state’s file, and again on Saturday June 4th, to hear
DeLuna’s side of the story.
Lawrence had hoped that his client would accept a plea
bargain. But Carlos “wasn’t going to take a deal because he said ‘I am
innocent,’” Lawrence explained later. “He told me from the beginning
that [he] saw something, heard sirens and [thought the] cops wouldn’t
believe him, so he ran.” Carlos was “reluctant to give up a name,”
Lawrence recalled. “He wanted to be sure he would be protected if he
gave [a] name.”
* * * * *
Although the prosecutors discussed the possibility of a plea
bargain with DeLuna and his lawyers, no one mentioned that
possibility to Wanda Lopez’s brother, Richard.
Not long after Wanda died, four Corpus Christi law
enforcement officers in suits came by to pay their respects to Richard
Vargas and his parents. They assured the family they had caught the
killer and would prosecute him to a death sentence.
Richard told them they’d better finish the job, because if they
didn’t he would. “You don’t need to get involved,” they told him. “We’ll
see it through.”
Decades later, Richard said he had meant what he said.
Everything up until that visit—how the police operator had
interrogated his sister instead of sending someone to save her, how
they washed down the store before anyone knew what happened, how
they gave the TV stations the tape without letting the family know—
had made him wonder how seriously the police were taking the case.
At the time, Richard recalled, he couldn’t get DeLuna out of his head.
He dreamed about sneaking into the jail to kill the bastard himself.
* * * * *
At the end of May, a retired judge from Houston named
Wallace “Pete” Moore was assigned to run the trial in DeLuna’s case.
Moore liked to take a case in Corpus now and then. It was a good way
to pick up a little extra income. If he stayed in the good graces of the
local judges, the assignments might keep coming.
Or, at least, that’s how Jon Kelly had Moore figured. Kelly
didn’t like to have visiting judges in the criminal cases he handled
because they’re “getting paid” and “don’t want to cause trouble for the
judge whose bench [they’re] sitting on. That’s number one.” A visiting
judge is “there not to make waves. And the way to do that is to rule