Featured Image Credit: MTV
Topics: Crime, True Crime, Documentaries
Anish Vij
A man who spent 18 years trying to get his father's killer executed had a sudden realisation just moments after the lethal injection process.
On 14 July 2004, John Henry Ramirez stabbed convenience store worker Pablo Castro 29 times in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 2008, Ramirez was convicted of the murder and put on death row.
According to The Texas Tribune, his lawyers attempted to stop his execution twice by filing motions to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and Nueces County's state district attorney - but both were denied.
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Ramirez was executed via lethal injection on 3 October 2022, with a few of Castro's children and his daughter-in-law all in attendance.
Oscar-nominated short film I Am Ready, Warden follows the lead up to Ramirez's death row execution and the impact it had on Castro's son Aaron.
“The majority of the time, I was angry,” Aaron explained to The Guardian. “My father was a man who minded his own business, worked hard, enjoyed family and being around his children.
“He was just trying to survive. Ramirez took him away from us, and for that he needed to be executed.
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“Boom. Justice. Closure. The dark cloud would clear.”
However, that's not how it turned out, as just hours before his execution, Aaron had a change of heart and realised he 'didn’t need to see it'.
“There was no more need to be there,” he said when Ramirez was finally executed. “A life was lost today, taken too soon just as it was when I was 14. I’m not going to celebrate. This isn’t a moment to celebrate.
“The shock that it actually happened was just mind-blowing. The dark cloud didn’t clear, it was still there. I didn’t magically feel better.”
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Aaron came to the realisation that 'no human being should be in charge of taking the life of another'.
Documentary maker Smriti Mundhra said she wanted to make the film 'from the perspective of someone who actually had committed a crime'.
She said: “In the intervening years, in their time on death row, how does a person change? Are they the same person as the one who committed the crime?”
Mundhra explained that it took a lot of convincing to get Aaron to take part in the documentary, adding: “It was only in the last days leading up to the execution, after many months of trust building between Aaron and me, that he agreed to participate.”
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When Ramirez's death was announced on the radio, reporter Keri Blakinger added: “Everything that I’ve ever covered about the death penalty has been filtered through the lens of my words.
"And here we have the raw images of Aaron’s physical reaction as he processes the execution, which as a reporter working with words I could never do.”
In his final words, Ramirez apologised to Castro's family and expressed 'regret' for his actions, adding: "I just want to say to the family of Pablo Castro, I appreciate everything that y’all did to try and communicate with me through the victim’s advocacy program.
"I hope this finds you comfort. If this helps you then I am glad. I hope in some shape or form this helps you find closure."
I Am Ready, Warden is available to watch on Paramount+ now.