By Barbara Hoberock, Oklahoma Voice
OKLAHOMA CITY – A man who shot his live-in girlfriend in front of her pregnant daughter is seeking clemency.
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on July 14 is expected to consider the clemency request of Oklahoma County killer Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez.
Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, was sentenced to death for the 2003 shooting death of Olimpia Fisher, 43, a single mother of two daughters.
Fisher was shot in both eyes during an altercation between her and Cuesta-Rodriguez at the Oklahoma City home they shared.
He is set to die Aug. 13 by lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
“Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez is a violent domestic abuser and murderer who should not be granted the mercy he refused to show to Olimpia Fisher,” said Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. “Olimpia’s daughters and family have endured unimaginable pain for the past 23 years. I am committed to seeing that justice is done for their loved ones.”
Her daughter, Katya Wallis, who was 18 and five months pregnant, witnessed the first shot. In a letter, Wallis said she lives in an emotional prison. The moments that she needs her mother the most have been stolen, she said.
Instead of having a Hallmark vision of her mom, she sees the raw image of her mom being shot in the face as her mother reached for the phone to call 911, she wrote.
Attorneys for the state wrote that Cuesta-Rodriguez had a history of abuse and stalked Fisher, who was alive for about eight minutes after the first shot.
When police asked Cuesta-Rodriguez what would be the appropriate punishment for him, he said death, according to the state’s clemency packet.
According to defense attorneys, in 1980 Cuesta-Rodriguez escaped a life of poverty and abuse in Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift, a mass migration to the U.S. His childhood in Cuba was marred by physical abuse and a 1963 bus accident that left him with brain damage.
He arrived in Oklahoma City in 1988 and worked construction jobs until his arrest. He suffered a severe workplace injury in 1995 and used alcohol, drugs and steroids, which impacted his mental health.
His attorneys said in the clemency packet that he was heavily intoxicated at the time of the crime and believed Fisher was cheating on him.
“Today, Carlos is no longer the angry, jealous, drug and alcohol addicted man he was in 2003,” they wrote. “He is a 70-year-old mentally and physically frail man suffering from a multitude of health issues, including dementia. Carlos fully accepts responsibility for his actions and the irreversible harm he inflicted on Olimpia Fisher’s family and his own.”
The jury that sentenced him to death did not hear information about his background that might have altered that decision, his attorneys wrote.
“Carlos is not a monster,” they wrote. “He is a seriously impaired man who found himself in a deteriorating relationship with a woman he loved. He was ill-equipped to handle this inherently challenging emotional situation appropriately, and it culminated in the tragic result for which he has been remorseful ever since.”
If the Pardon and Parole Board recommends clemency, Gov. Kevin Stitt will make the final decision.
