Manuel Martnez Coronado, a Guatemalan mass mu*rderer who k*illed seven people on May 17, 1995, lived from 1964 or 1965 until 10 February 1998. Coronado received a death sentence for the crimes, and in 1998, he was put to death by lethal injection in Guatemala.
Background
Manuel Martínez Coronado was a member of the Chortí ethnic group who worked as a peasant farmer.
Mur*ders
On May 17, 1995, Coronado ki*lled seven members of the same family over a land dispute. Daniel Arias, his stepfather, helped him. Juan Bautista Arias, 58, his wife Rosalbina Miguel, their children Francias, 12, Jovita, 8, Arnoldo, 5, and Anbal, 2, as well as his sister Emilia Arias, 68, were all k*illed in the attack.
Arrest and execution
Coronado was taken into custody and is now facing numerous homicide charges. He was the first person in Guatemala to receive a lethal injection death sentence after a brief trial (which the government had recently legalized). Arias, who was in his mid-sixties and too old to be put to death, received a 30-year prison term. Amnesty International made an effort to imply that Arias was responsible for the mur*ders.
The Guatemalan authorities decided to uphold the verdict despite requests from Amnesty International to have it reversed. On February 10, 1998, at 6 a.m. (12:00 a.m. GMT), the execution took place and was live-broadcast on national television. The sounds of his wife and children crying could be heard by the television audience throughout the ordeal, which took eighteen minutes for him to pass away after the drug administration started.
On death row, Coronado allegedly converted to Christianity and prayed to God for forgiveness, according to Coronado’s mother.
Criticism
Amnesty International, which had opposed the death penalty, expressed concern that the execution of the man by doctors was a “breach of medical ethics” and that Guatemalan authorities had refused to reveal the names of the medical personnel who had carried it out.
