Maria del Carmen Estrada

Maria del Carmen Estrada, a 21-year-old Hispanic woman, was working as a nanny in Houston, Texas, in the spring of 1992. An immigrant from Mexico, she was making her way in a new country. Loved ones remembered her as a hardworking young woman dedicated to her job.

On the morning of April 16, 1992, at around 6:30 a.m., Maria was walking to work when a man offered her a ride. The man was Anthony Allen Shore, a former telephone repairman, tow truck driver, and part-time musician. Maria accepted the ride, a decision that had fatal consequences. Shore made unwanted sexual advances, and when she resisted, he attacked her. He sexually assaulted and strangled her, using a nylon cord and a wooden stick to fashion a tourniquet, a method that would later earn him the moniker "The Tourniquet Killer." Maria fought for her life, leaving a trace of her attacker's DNA under her fingernails. Her partially-clothed body was discovered later that day by a delivery driver in the drive-thru lane of a Dairy Queen restaurant in Houston.

The Houston Police Department launched a homicide investigation, but for more than a decade, the case went cold. Detectives had little to go on, and the identity of Maria's killer remained a mystery. The DNA evidence collected from beneath her fingernails was preserved, a crucial piece of a puzzle that would not be solved for years. The case was one of several unsolved murders of young women and girls in the Houston area that had left the community on edge.

The break in the case came in 2003. Anthony Allen Shore had been convicted of sexually assaulting two of his relatives in 1998 and was required to submit a DNA sample to a state database. A re-examination of cold cases, including Maria's, led to a match between Shore's DNA profile and the genetic material found under her fingernails. Following his arrest, Shore confessed to the murder of Maria del Carmen Estrada. He told police he had "voices in my head" and that he "didn't set out to kill her... But it got out of hand."

Shore’s confession extended beyond Maria’s murder. He admitted to killing three other young victims between 1986 and 1995: 15-year-old Laurie Tremblay, 9-year-old Diana Rebollar, and 16-year-old Dana Sanchez. He also confessed to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who survived. Prosecutors, led by the Harris County District Attorney's office, decided to try Shore for the capital murder of Maria del Carmen Estrada, as it was the case with the strongest forensic evidence.

In October 2004, Shore's trial began. The taped confession and the DNA evidence were presented to the jury, which quickly found him guilty of capital murder. During the sentencing phase, Shore, against the advice of his lawyers, told the court that he wanted the death penalty. After hearing testimony about his other violent crimes, the jury sentenced him to death in November 2004. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who had worked on the case as an assistant prosecutor when it was still unsolved, later described Shore as "a true serial killer" for whom the death penalty was appropriate.

After years on death row and a series of failed appeals, Anthony Allen Shore's execution was scheduled. It was briefly delayed in late 2017 amid an investigation into a scheme by another death row inmate to have Shore falsely confess to a different murder. After that was resolved, the execution was rescheduled. On January 18, 2018, more than 25 years after he killed Maria, Anthony Allen Shore was executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. Before he died, he offered an apology, stating, "No amount of words could ever undo what I’ve done." For the families of his victims, the execution marked the end of a long and painful journey. Andy Kahan, a crime victims' advocate for the city of Houston, spoke on their behalf, saying, "Anthony Allen Shore's reign of terror is officially over."