Featured Image Credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Topics: Crime, True crime, US News, Texas, Death Row
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Crime, True crime, US News, Texas, Death Row
Warning: This article contains discussion of rape and description of violence which some readers may find distressing.
A death row inmate set for execution within days told his parents he 'turned into the devil' during the rape and murder of a 20-year-old he went to school with.
On 18 March, 2004, 20-year-old mom Rachelle O'Neil Tolleson was fatally strangled and her body hidden in a field, before being put in a dirt pit in Collin County, Texas, set on fire, and buried.
Moises S. Mendoza was later arrested and found guilty of capital murder.
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In a letter addressed to his parents, Mendoza wrote, as quoted by The Courier-Gazette: "I don't know what happened to me at that moment. I turned into the devil and after I did something that I thought was in a dream."
Mendoza was sentenced to death and has been on death row for five years - the 40-year-old now set to die by lethal injection on Wednesday (April 23).
On an episode of podcast Forensic Files, Tolleson's mother, Pam O'Neil, revealed Tolleson and Mendoza had been in the same grade school classes.
Court documents added the Friday before Tolleson's murder, Mendoza had been at her house for a party too, as reported by The Austin American Statesman.
On March 18, Mendoza reportedly went round to Tolleson's home where she lived with her daughter Avery and the pair then drove to get cigarettes.
Court documents detail Mendoza saying he began to choke Tolleson 'for no reason' before taking her to a field near his house, raping her and choking her to death.
It's reported he later dumped her body in a 'dug-out pit,' 'poked' a knife through her neck to check she was dead, and set her body on fire.
He reportedly told police this was to 'destroy fingerprints,' as reported by The Courier Gazette.
Mendoza was later described by a clinical psychologist as 'psychologically underdeveloped'.
And during his sentencing, Mendoza was described as 'one of the most violent, sadistic men' he'd ever prosecuted by former Collin County First Assistant District Attorney Greg Davis.
Around a year after Tolleson's passing, her mom spoke out.
She reflected: "Avery was her life and I was so proud of her when she became a mommy. Everything just came so naturally to her. I hate that Avery won’t have memories of her."
If Mendoza's execution goes ahead, it will make him the third person to be executed in Texas this year - Richard Tabler and Steven Nelson having been put to death previously.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org