Man Condemned For McKinney Murders Loses Appeal
HOUSTON (AP) - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the conviction and death sentence of a 30-year-old man condemned for participating in the shooting deaths of four people at a North Texas home seven years ago.
Thirty-year-old Raul Cortez testified at his trial in 2009 that he had nothing to do with the worst mass murder in Collin County history. Testimony showed the shooting at a home in McKinney was the result of a botched robbery attempt.
Cortez's lawyers had raised what they said were 47 points of error from his trial.
The manager of a check-cashing business, 46-year-old Rosa Barbosa, was killed, along with her nephew and two of his teenage friends.
The murder case went unsolved for three years until the girlfriend of Cortez's accomplice went to police.
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