HOUSTON – A man convicted of rape and murder will be removed from death row, according to court documents.
In January 1991, while on parole for robbery, Robert James Campbell was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering bank teller Alexandra Rendon, after he abducted her from a Houston gas station, court documents said.
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He later gave away her clothes and jewelry as gifts, court records said.
Evidence presented during Campbell’s trial showed that he also committed another kidnapping and armed robbery around the time of Rendon's death.
Campbell was convicted of capital murder, sentenced to death by lethal injection, and sent to Texas’s death row.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office filed an advisory Wednesday concluding that in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding intellectual disability and the death penalty, as well as the opinion of its expert witness, Campbell should be granted a new punishment hearing.
Because the option of life without parole was not available in 1991, he will be resentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Wednesday that she will ensure that Campbell remains in prison for the rest of his life.
“Campbell’s crimes were extraordinarily heinous and vile,” Ogg said. “His acts were among the worst of the worst.
NBC News reported that Campbell scored a 68 out of 100 on an IQ test in 2014, and prison notes reflected that he scored a 71 in 1992. Officials said he scored 84 after a robbery conviction two years earlier, though the court noted they provided no details about that exam.
With the high court’s opinion, in Moore v. Texas, the Texas attorney general’s office and the Harris County district attorney’s office, determined that after 24 years, the state can no longer contest Campbell’s claim that he is ineligible for the death penalty, because he is intellectually disabled.
The district attorney’s office will file formal protests at all of Campbell’s parole reviews in the future, Ogg said.
“In unison with his victims and their families, we will do everything we can to see that he serves every second of his life sentence,” Ogg said.
Attorney Israel Santa, the victim's cousin and representative for Rendon's family, released the following statement:
“It is with a heavy heart and disappointment that we hear of the recent developments in the case
against Robert James Campbell, the man who brutally murdered our loved one, Alejandra Rendon. We
truly believe that justice would have been properly served with his execution. Nevertheless, we accept
the recent decisions made by the State of Texas and the Supreme Court, and we ask for continued
prayers for our family after having received this devastating news. At this point, we can only hope and
pray that Robert James Campbell spends the rest of his living years behind bars, and himself seeks
forgiveness from our God almighty."
