Twice, my daughters have confronted the stark reality of guns in Uvalde schools. 

First, my youngest daughter, Lexi, faced a deranged 18-year-old armed with an AR-15-style rifle as he murdered 19 students and two teachers while police lingered in the school’s hallway. Lexi, forever 10 years old, was one of those fourth graders who never came home from Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022. Two years later, in February of this year, my middle daughter, Jahleela, who is 13, was unknowingly in a classroom with a student who had brought a handgun to Morales Junior High. The student had plans to sell the weapon to a peer. In this case, other students reported his actions, and everyone left campus unharmed.

This is Uvalde, post-May 24.

Top: Gloria Cazares and her husband Javier, who lost their daughter Jackie, weep in celebration with other Uvalde families after a Texas House committee passes the “raise-the-age” bill, which later failed to become law. Bottom Left: Uvalde families led by Brett Cross (R), uncle and guardian of Uziyah Garcia, and Mack Segovia, stepfather of Eliahna Torres, carry a Day of the Dead altar in 2022. Bottom Right: (Left to right) Manuel Rizo, Berlinda Arreola, Kimberly Garcia, and Felicha Martinez—who respectively lost their niece, granddaughter, daughter, and son—stand together last May in the Texas Capitol.

I am the mother of a mass-shooting victim. That concept, which still looks foreign to me as I read it back to myself, reminds me of my time as a reporter in Uvalde—before 2022. It was May 2019 when Uvalde Memorial Hospital secured Sue Klebold, mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold, to be the keynote speaker at its “Healthy Minds Matter” event. The hospital asked that I interview her in my capacity as a journalist for the Uvalde Leader-News to publicize the event. During our conversation, in which she advocated for mental health resources, Sue said, “I am the mother of a killer.” Those words had such a chilling effect on me that I used them as the headline for the story, which appeared on the front page. Five years later, I describe myself as the mother of a mass-shooting victim, and I advocate daily for stronger gun control.

Two weeks after I lost Lexi, and three days before her funeral, I agreed to testify before Congress about the effects of gun violence. I don’t recall making a conscious decision to actively join the gun violence prevention movement, but, looking back, I’ve always been a member. I have always prioritized children over some civilians’ desire to own high-powered weapons of war. On the heels of other mass shootings, some of which I wrote about for the Uvalde paper, I vocalized my beliefs with friends, local law enforcement members, and other officials. Now I am a passionate, deliberate advocate for preventing gun violence. As we’ve seen in Uvalde, gun violence is an epidemic. It is spreading across our country at a rate we are unable to contain. 

Kimberly and Felix share a quiet moment in between meetings with state lawmakers in Austin last February.

Just this April, my youngest child, 10-year-old Julian—a fourth grader just like Lexi was before that gun-wielding Uvalde High School dropout shattered our family—saw bullets in his elementary school classroom. That day, I was on my lunch break from the newspaper, where I now work in advertising, when I received a call from Uvalde Elementary, the temporary campus for students who would have been at Robb Elementary if not for May 24, 2022. The administrator sounded hesitant before she informed me that Julian’s classmate brought bullets to school. He showed them to Julian and two other classmates, who told their teacher. The school district released yet another notice to parents, promising appropriate repercussions for the child who brought ammunition to school for a private show-and-tell.

This is Uvalde, post-May 24. 

Left: Javier Cazares remembers his daughter, Jackie, in her bedroom one month after the school shooting that took her life. Right: Ana Rodriguez kisses the urn containing her daughter Maite’s ashes.

After hanging up the phone, I sobbed at my kitchen table. My oldest child, 19-year-old Kalisa, tried to comfort me. Now, as I write this, sitting alone in a hotel room after yet another gun violence prevention conference, I wonder how to keep going. What more do I have to offer when I feel so empty? I think about the conversation I had with Julian when he came home that day. “My friend shouldn’t have brought bullets to school, but it’s also his parents’ fault,” he said. “They should have them put away.”

What if that child had found a gun, instead? How close did I come to losing my son in the same manner, at the same age, as his sister? We are all one “What if?” away from devastation by gun violence. Those of us who have already lost so much are not immune to losing more. So I keep fighting. For Lexi, for my other children, for all children. 

Ten-year-old Uziyah Garcia’s math notebook was struck by a bullet during the shooting. He was among the 19 children killed.

As we’ve seen in Uvalde—along with Columbine, Parkland, and so many other places in America—you cannot leave the protection of children in the hands of law enforcement. Uvalde’s response was delayed by a minimum of 77 minutes and perhaps even years: In 2018, two Morales Junior High School students, who may have been loosely connected to the Robb Elementary shooter, planned a mass casualty event for April 20, 2022. That was the year they would graduate from high school, and April 20 had been the date of the 1999 Columbine massacre. The two students then changed plans, moving the date up to 2018, but one got cold feet and told an adult. As a reporter then, I remember writing that story, pushing aside my own what-ifs. At the time, Kalisa was in their eighth-grade class. 

Top Left: Friends and family of Eliahna Torres celebrate what would have been her 11th birthday last January. Bottom Left: The Rubios spend time at Lexi’s grave last April after what would have been Makenna Elrod Seiler’s 11th birthday. Right: Veronica Silguero closes her eyes at a celebration of what would have been her daughter Jailah’s 12th birthday last September.

People often talk about how a mother is born when she gives birth, but no one discusses the death of that mother when she buries her child. One day, Lexi was here, and I was whole. The next, I was completely broken. 

I marched, rallied, met with U.S. and state politicians. I flew to D.C., Florida, California, Chicago, and Massachusetts. Last year, my husband Felix and I, along with other families affected by mass shootings, spent months advocating at the Texas Capitol for House Bill 2744, which would have raised the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic guns from 18 to 21. Had this bill been law in 2022, the gunman would not have been able to legally purchase the AR-15-style weapon he used to murder my daughter. The state House Select Committee on Community Safety passed the bill 8-5, but it ultimately died without a vote from the full House.

Caitlyne Gonzalez, who survived the Robb shooting, dances to Taylor Swift at her best friend Jackie’s grave.

Now, as we prepare for next year’s legislative session, people ask me where I find the strength. It’s not strength but determination. As it was in those muddled days after May 24 when I agreed to testify before Congress, it’s not a choice but an expression of my love for Lexi. She is not physically here to hold, to kiss, to raise. I can only honor her by working to save lives and prevent more heartache.

Top Left: Lexi’s younger brother, Julian, picks sunflowers. Top Right: Ana Rodriguez kisses her son Darnell as she drops him off at school a little over a year after the shooting. Bottom Left: Jerry Mata, who lost his daughter Tess, watches this year’s solar eclipse near Tess’ grave. Bottom Right: Last September, Kimberly Mata-Rubio announces her run for Uvalde mayor, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

In post-May 24 Uvalde, two of my surviving children have had to deal with peers callously bringing weapons and ammunition to class despite the recent loss of 21 lives, including Lexi’s. Every time there is a lockdown, do my kids wonder if they’ll make it home? Do they wonder if they’ll get home to find they’ve lost another sibling?

This April, Kimberly Mata-Rubio reads a bedtime story to her son Julian, now 10.

Daniel Villegas stood shakily behind the defendant’s table, held up by his attorneys. He was already in tears as the bailiff handed the judge the jury’s written decision, trying to catch his breath with heaving gulps. When the judge read the words, “not guilty,” Villegas dropped like a stone. 

It was October 2018, and Villegas had just been acquitted by an El Paso jury after spending nearly two decades in prison for a double murder he was convicted of when he was a teenager. 

It was the third time he’d stood trial for the killings. His first trial in 1994 resulted in a hung jury, but a second jury convicted him in 1995 and sentenced him to life in prison. Villegas’ original conviction was overturned in 2013, after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling, but then-El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza decided to try the case again. This was despite a judge’s determination that the confession Villegas signed when he was 16 years old was coerced and inadmissible.

One of the attorneys in the DA’s office tapped to prosecute Villegas in the 2018 trial was James Montoya, who maintains that, despite the acquittal that October, the prosecution had the right guy. 

“There were multiple prosecutors who worked on that case. … Our motivation throughout the entirety of that process was figuring out who murdered [the victims],” Montoya told the Texas Observer this month. “Our collective review of the case … [supports] that Mr. Villegas is the one who killed them.”

Now Montoya, a Democrat, is running for district attorney in El Paso, a position that oversees criminal prosecutions in El Paso County and two adjacent counties. He’s facing another Democrat, Alma Trejo, in a May 28 runoff election to determine who will go up against Republican incumbent—and Governor Greg Abbott-appointee—Bill Hicks in November. 

Montoya’s stance regarding Villegas’ trial has raised alarm bells for some prominent El Pasoans. Democratic state Representative Joe Moody, who is supporting Trejo, told the Observer he’s extremely invested in who takes the DA seat, given the office’s discretion and policymaking ability. He said the office has been “decimated” in recent years by staff turnover and leadership changes. Although he supported Montoya’s unsuccessful 2020 primary bid for the same office, Moody has reservations about Montoya’s judgment, in large part because of the latter’s stance on Villegas’ case. 

Villegas’ defense attorney in the 2018 trial, Joe Spencer, told the Observer he was “disappointed that [Montoya] did not see what everybody else saw. … I question his judgment because of that,” he said. “This evidence was so overwhelming.”

Villegas, one of eight people exonerated after being convicted of felonies in El Paso County since 1990, is also speaking out against Montoya’s run this year and highlighting the need for a critical eye on past cases. 

On April 10, 1993, 17-year-old Armando Lazo and 18-year-old Bobby England were shot and killed while walking home from a house party in northeast El Paso. The murders outraged the community, and police were eager to get someone in custody. Based on a tip from Daniel Villegas’ cousin—who later said police threatened to charge him with the crime—Villegas was arrested 11 days after the murders. That same night, detective Alfonso Marquez got him to confess.

Later, Villegas testified that Detective Marquez had threatened him into confessing, allegedly telling him if he didn’t, he’d be sent to county jail to be sexually assaulted. The same detective also allegedly threatened to “take him to the desert and beat him if he did not admit to the shooting,” according to Villegas’ testimony. 

Shortly after signing his confession in April 1993, Villegas told a social worker it wasn’t true. But the state relied heavily on it during his first and second trial. A recently elected Jaime Esparza, who held the DA’s office from 1993 until 2020, turned the case into a valuable bit of political theater.

After he was convicted in 1995, Villegas’ appeal was denied. He sat in prison, with no hope until local El Paso businessman John Mimbela, who married the mother of Villegas’ nieces in 2005, got involved in the case. Between 2007 and 2018, Mimbela told the Observer he spent “well over $500,000” on attorneys, investigators, expert witnesses, court documents, and promotional materials and events—all in an attempt to get Villegas out of prison.  

“It shouldn’t take this amount of money to get justice,” Mimbela said. “It never would have, had [prosecutors] not fought so hard with taxpayers’ money to keep an innocent person behind bars.” 

In 2007, Villegas filed a writ of habeas corpus, asking for a new trial. El Paso District Judge Sam Medrano Jr. took up the case and held a hearing in 2011. The next year, Medrano recommended Villegas get a new trial, saying his original lawyers erred in failing to try to get the coerced confession thrown out. The conservative Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Medrano’s decision after the state appealed, granting that Villegas’ defense counsel had been ineffective. Villegas was let out of prison in 2014, and he and his legal team waited to see if Esparza would take him to trial a third time. In the meantime, Medrano ruled that the confession would be invalid for any future trial. 

In 2018, ahead of the long-awaited third trial, the DA’s office offered Villegas an “Alford Plea,” which would have guaranteed he wouldn’t get any more prison time but wouldn’t have allowed him to clear his name. Villegas rejected the offer. 

In the third trial, prosecutors weren’t permitted to bring up Villegas’ coerced confession. Spencer, Villegas’ defense attorney, said that without it, the state had nothing to pin on Villegas—no physical evidence. Spencer said when the state rested its case, he looked at the jury box. “Every one of those jurors looked at [them] with disbelief and shock.” 

Since his 2018 acquittal, Villegas has kept a close eye on the local court system. Villegas hasn’t thrown his support behind a DA candidate yet, but he urges El Paso residents to cast their vote and have a say in who holds the powerful office in the next term. “Once you vote this person in, we’re going to be stuck with them for four years,” Villegas told the Observer. “And it may be you who gets the wrongful conviction next time. ”

Ideologically, the two Democratic candidates on the ballot this month have many overlapping views: They both want to focus resources on violent crimes, beef up staffing in the ailing DA’s office, and divert mental health-related crimes from the court system. But the gaps between their platforms show on the issue of past convictions.

Both candidates worked at one point under former DA Esparza, and both highlight their courtroom experience in their campaigns. Trejo spent time as a prosecutor before becoming a judge, and she says she tried around 80 felonies in her career. Montoya, who has worked as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney in his ten years as a lawyer, highlights some of his past cases by name on his campaign website. Villegas’ case isn’t listed. 

Montoya told the Observer that he’s in favor of conviction integrity units, but that wrongful convictions aren’t a big problem in El Paso. He said the county doesn’t have the history of prosecutorial misconduct some other large counties have. He said he doesn’t believe there are many El Pasoans serving time in Texas on wrongful convictions. 

When asked about Villegas’ case, Montoya emphasized that prior to 2014 multiple appeals courts failed to rule Villegas’ adolescent confession invalid. He also pointed out that there have never been findings of prosecutorial misconduct in the case. 

Trejo told the Observer that Villegas’ case—which she was never involved with—proves the need for a “strong” conviction integrity unit in El Paso. She said she’d welcome review of past cases she’s tried, especially given major improvements in forensic technology in recent decades. 

“I would encourage it because, at the end of the day, it’s our duty to make sure justice is served,” Trejo said. “And you know what? The public doesn’t benefit by having the wrong person in custody, because all that means is the person who committed the offense is walking the street. It doesn’t benefit anybody.”

Villegas filed suit against several El Paso officials in 2015, seeking damages for his wrongful conviction, but the process has been slow-moving. The civil trial was supposed to take place last October, but it was postponed until May 28—the day of the runoff in the DA election. It’s since been further pushed to an undetermined date.

ORTONVILLE — Luck and skill were on their side as long-distance paddling enthusiasts Scott Miller and Scott Duffus sped down the length of the Minnesota River in 63 hours and five minutes.

“We got awfully lucky with the water levels and the weather,” Miller said.

The two paddlers launched their Wenonah Jensen 18 racing canoe below the dam at Ortonville at 5:27 p.m. Thursday, May 9, for their 317-mile sprint to the Mendota Bridge in Fort Snelling State Park. They arrived on the morning of May 12.

Scott Duffus, in the bow, paddles as he and paddling partner Scott Miller make their way down the Minnesota River under blue skies and fair conditions on May 10, 2024.Contributed / Scott Miller

Their time averages just over five miles per hour, including the time used to take two short sleep breaks and a few 5- and 10-minute stops along the way for food, water and to change clothes.

Fast waters, mild temperatures and even a tailwind at opportune times helped the two set the bar high for anyone who takes on the challenge. Their goal is to establish a registry, as do long-distance runners, that will allow other paddlers to set records for runs down Minnesota rivers or to match the time others set.

Both are experienced and passionate long-distance paddlers.

Miller, 48, was part of the team that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for paddling the Mississippi River in 16 days, 20 hours and 16 minutes in May 2023. Duffus, 67, was part of the support team for that run. He and Miller have also paddled in long-distance paddle races, including the arduous Missouri River 340, which covers that many miles.

Miller conceded that he was not in as good a physical shape for the Minnesota River run as he was last year for the Mississippi River, but experience counts. He and Duffus were both prepared to deal with the sleep deprivation and hallucinations that are part of a multi-day marathon of this type.

Thanks to their experience, they also had the advantage of putting all of the other important pieces together: The right mindset and gear, and knowledge of how to best meet nutrition and hydration needs.

A support crew followed them along the route and provided pop-up shelters when the two paddlers took their two stops for sleep. They took a four-hour break around New Ulm on May 10 and a two-hour break near Belle Plaine on May 11.

Miller said Duffus realized on Saturday that he was becoming preoccupied with the hallucinations he was experiencing. He had the good sense to suggest a sleep break before they made the final dash to the finish line, according to Miller.

Part of their run was magical. Northern lights flashed and shimmered above them on May 10.

The true beauty of the adventure was the river itself, according to Miller. They were able to appreciate the epic sweep of it by making such a quick run. From a narrow channel at the start to flooded woodlands on the lower reaches, it never disappointed.

They paddled through the darkness on Marsh and Lac qui Parle lakes before an audience of thousands of pelicans.

They needed to portage around the Granite Falls dam. They put in below the U.S. 212 bridge and rode the churning waters of the rapids that follow.

“The stretch from Granite Falls to Morton is just spectacular,” Miller said. Towering granite outcrops and mature woodlands bursting in spring greenery gave the sense of being in the wild. “It was just sublime, absolutely sublime.”

For more

To view photos and a video of their adventure, check out their Facebook page at Minnesota Speed Record . They will be posting information in the future on a registry they hope to set up.

Miller is now in the process of organizing this year’s Mississippi River Weekend, which features races and fun activities June 9 in Champlin with a 150-mile race starting June 7 in Brainerd. Check out TwoPaddles.org for information.

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