LIFE SENTENCE FOR TEEN A TRAGEDY ALL AROUND

By Juan Montoya

My parents still remember when they went to the prayer service of our neighbor's daughter Brenda Nuñez.
As parents who had lost a son to violence, they shared in the terrible pain and grief of losing an offspring in the prime of youth. My brother Luis was 23. Brenda was 17. We were neighbors living within a block of the Weslaco Street-Gilson Road intersection.
"Mi hija era muy buena," Brenda's mother cried softly as she hugged my mother. "Ella era buena."
There was nothing she or my father could reply, other than to share a profound sympathy for her and remembering the terrible moments when they buried their own son after he had also been brutally stabbed and killed in a Houston apartment by his roommates.
Although his killers have never been found because they fled to their native Mexico, Brenda's killer was. He turned out to be the infatuated teenage neighbor who became obsessed after she broke off their boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
The details of the murder are gruesome. Detectives found more than 27 knife wounds and her throat was slashed. She had been sexually assaulted.
What drove the then-16-year-old Hector Angel Herrasti Jr. over the edge of reason to commit such a hideous crime on someone he loved? Only he and his demons know.
What the neighbors know is that Brenda had just returned from a weekend spiritual retreat with a youth group from Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Las Prietas on Feb. 8, 2008. The next day Herrasti walked into her house and killed her.
She was, as her mother said, the only daughter left with the family. Her other siblings were married and had moved away with their families.
He was his parents' only son.
After the judge handed the 18-year-old a life sentence and he signed away his right to appeal, Chief First Assistant District Attorney Charles E. Mattingly issued a statement that the DA was "very pleased with the outcome of this prosecution. Justice has been served, the victim has had her day in court, and the defendant will be punished severely."
Really, Chuck?
Brenda and Hector's parents are still neighbors. A day won't pass that they will not see each other and remember the terrible bind that tied their destinies together. Her parents – like mine – will never recover from their loss. And his parents will live in terror of what might befall their only son as he spends the rest of his life surrounded by murderers and other hardened criminals.
In all probability, his parents – like hers – have effectively lost their offspring.
Greek tragedies have nothing on what befell these two good families last year. There, but for the grace of God, go we.