They'll Blame Us:Genny Rojas·Ivan Gonzales·Veronica Gonzales

Genny Rojas was four years old. She had been handed to her aunt and uncle, Veronica and Ivan Gonzales, under a private family arrangement that put no social worker in the apartment and left no file open anywhere in San Diego County. The couple lived in Chula Vista, south of the city, with children of their own.

Over roughly six months Genny was starved, beaten, burned with a hair dryer and shut in a bedroom closet where a hook had been fastened to the clothes rail so she could be strung up. On July 21, 1995, she was held down in bathwater heated to about 148 degrees. Veronica ran to a neighbor’s door that evening and begged her not to call police, and Ivan carried the girl across the hall. She could not be revived. The couple’s eight-year-old son later described on videotape what he had seen in the bathroom, and that testimony became the center of both trials.

The two were tried separately and both were convicted of first-degree murder with a torture special circumstance. Ivan was convicted in November 1997 and sentenced to death that January; Veronica was convicted in May 1998 and sentenced in July. Prosecutors said they were the first married couple sent to California’s death row for the same crime.