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In his final words, Gonzales apologized to the Townsend family. “I’m sorry I can’t articulate, I can’t put into words the pain I have caused y’all, the hurt, what I took away that I cannot give back. I lived the rest of this life for you guys to the best of my ability for restitution, restoration, taking responsibility ... I’m sorry.”

“The Ramiro who the state of Texas killed tonight was not the Ramiro who committed these crimes twenty years ago,” Gonzales’ lawyers, Thea Posel and Raoul Schonemann said in a statement. “The Ramiro who left this world was, by all accounts, a deeply spiritual, generous, patient, and intentional person, full of remorse, someone whose driving force was love. He sought to spread and embody love in all aspects of his life, even in the deprivation and physical isolation of death row where he lived for the past 18 years.”