Bridget Townsend was just getting her start in life as a young woman in the small Texas town of Bandera when Ramiro Gonzales raped and killed her. Her mom says she was ‘a beautiful person.’

Bridget Townsend was planning for the future. The Texas 18-year-old was working full-time at a resort and eagerly waiting to hear back about an application to get into nursing school.

But on Jan. 14, 2001, a man named Ramiro Gonzales stole all that away and all the other moments and milestones that make up a life when he kidnapped, raped and murdered Bridget.

“She was a beautiful person who loved life and loved people,” her mother, Patricia Townsend, told USA TODAY on Saturday. “Every time she was with somebody she hadn’t seen in a while, she had to hug ’em … She didn’t deserve what she got.” 

Now more than 23 years later, Gonzales is set to be executed for the crime in Texas on Wednesday, which would have been Bridget’s 41st birthday. Patricia Townsend said the execution will be a “joyful occasion” for her and her family, who have been waiting so long for justice.

As Gonzales’ execution approaches, USA TODAY is looking back at the tragic crime, who Bridget was what her family lost.

A terrible night

Bridget was at her boyfriend Joe Leal’s house that terrible night.

Leal dealt drugs and Gonzales went to his house to steal cocaine, finding Bridget there alone.

After Gonzales came in and stole some cash, Bridget started to call Leal. That’s when Gonzales overpowered her, tied her up and drove her to his grandfather’s ranch, where he raped and shot her before dumping her body in a field, according to court records.

When Leal arrived home later that night, Bridget’s truck, purse and keys were their usual spots but he couldn’t find her anywhere and called police.

For nearly two years, no one but Gonzales knew what happened to Bridget. One day while he was serving a life sentence for the rape and kidnapping of another woman, Gonzales decided to confess to killing Bridget, leading authorities to her remains in a field in Bandera, a small town 40 miles northwest of San Antonio.

Gonzales was convicted of Bridget’s murder in September 2006.

‘Thank God I got to see her’

Patricia Townsend last saw her daughter the same day she was killed. Townsend was working at a video store and had asked Bridget to drop by and return a video.

“Thank God I got to see her. And I told her I loved her. And I hugged her,” Townsend said. 

Bridget left soon after, saying she was going to bed because she had to drive to work in the morning. Townsend told her daughter goodbye, reminding her that she loved her. 

After Townsend closed the video store and went home for the night, she said she couldn’t shake the feeling that she heard Bridget call out to her: “Mom.”  She tried to call Bridget but there was no answer.

“And I said, ‘Well don’t fret, Pat.’ She said she had to get up early and go to work so she’s probably sleeping,” Townsend said. “But I should have known better because always slept with her phone right next to her in case somebody called her.”

She thought about going to check on Bridget but talked herself out of it.

“And to this day I regret not going out there,” she said. “Maybe I would have been there in time to stop him.”

Patricia Townsend gets worst news of her life

For nearly two years, Townsend spent most of her time putting up flyers about her daughter and chasing leads.

Until one night a Bandera County sheriff asked her to come to the station. Although she had been holding out hope that her daughter was alive despite the odds, she instead got the worst news of her life.

The sheriff told Townsend that Gonzales had confessed to Bridget’s murder, had led police to her body and that he had some things he was hoping she might be able to identify. 

“And I walked on down the street. I couldn’t hear it anymore,” she said.

Towsend says she didn’t even have a body to bury on Oct. 16, 2002 because Gonzales “wanted to see her body decay.” 

Townsend rejected arguments from Gonzales that a childhood filled with trauma and neglect helped lead him down a path that ended in her daughter’s murder.

“He doesn’t deserve mercy,” she said. “And his childhood should not have anything to do with it. I know a lot of people that had a hard childhood … He made his choice.”

It’s Gonzales’ own fault that he no longer has a life.

“He could be going to school or have a wife and kids,” she said. “I don’t feel sorry for him at all and I don’t want other people to feel sorry for him. Some people I feel sorry for are his grandma and grandpa that raised him.” 

What has also brought comfort to Townsend amid the grief is that Gonzales is set to leave the world the same day Bridget came into it. 

“When they told me June 26, I started crying, crying and crying,” she said. “That’s her birthday.”

Instead of celebrating her daughter’s 41st birthday, she’ll drive four hours from her home in San Antonio to the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville and watch Gonzales die.

Silvia Hernandez, with her hair pulled back into a long ponytail, is visible from the kitchen only when she comes to the metal-framed pass, where the server grabs plated dishes to run to customers. Her glasses are precariously balanced on the lower bridge of her nose, but she snaps them back into place as she turns to attend to the cooking at her restaurant, Taqueria Gael, in Andrews.

Crossing north five years ago was the easy part of her life’s journey, Hernandez says. Growing up in El Salto, a small, quiet town in the northern Mexican state of Durango, she worked long hours hawking street food and cooking in her parents’ restaurant. She opened her own business, a hot dog cart, as a teenager, and got married at sixteen to a husband who eventually became abusive, she says. Moving to Texas was, Hernandez believed, her way out. Once she arrived in the Permian Basin town of Andrews, she began to work at local food trucks and would feed fellow food truck employees home-cooked meals of sopa de fideo, chicken, and caldo. 

One Christmas, she brought the workers a holiday meal of lengua, fries, and soup. It wasn’t much, but the six young men who had no family to spend Christmas with were delighted and thankful. “It’s one of my favorite memories,” Hernandez says. So it’s no surprise that when Hernandez visited Mexico for fifteen days, the workers in Andrews messaged and called her, pleading with her to return. To their relief, she did. Then, a year ago, she opened Taqueria Gael.

Until my recent trip, my experience with tacos in West Texas had been disappointing at best. Tex-Mex in general, and the burrito in particular, was where restaurants in the area shone—that is, until my visit to Taqueria Gael, a bastion of Mexican home cooking that stands alongside the best of Texas’s Mexican restaurants. 

The same goes for the previous business that was located inside the yellow building that houses now Taqueria Gael, near the Andrews Highway. It was called La Morena and was owned by famed curmudgeon Greg Revelez. Back in 2020, the Tex-Mex joint was more of a community hub than a good restaurant. Not that it was bad—the Kitchen Sink Burrito, a smothered package of carnitas, refried beans, fries, and pearls of yellow rice topped with melted cheese and smothered in spicy brown gravy, was one of my favorite dishes of that year. Otherwise, the food was, with all due respect, forgettable. In other words, I didn’t expect such exciting and soothing comida casera (home cooking) in the oil patch town about 45 minutes north of Odessa, much less the matron behind the taqueria.

Taqueria Gael is a symbol of Hernandez’s resilience. Through her food, Hernandez shares with customers the traditions and craft passed down through the generations of women before her as well as through a life of extreme hardships. 

Hernandez’s grandmother, Teresa, was a single mother of twelve children. To support her family, the matriarch, who could neither read nor write, sold menudo and other dishes she learned from her elders and passed on to her children and grandchildren. At twelve years old, Hernandez’s mother, Modesta, moved from Durango to Mexico City to work in a hospital. About a decade later, she returned to El Salto to work in Restaurante Anita. It was at the restaurant that she met her future husband. The two were immediately inseparable and married in eight days. To help provide for the growing household, Modesta opened a small restaurant, Comedor Valeria, in the family’s living room. She sold carnitas, chicharrones, gorditas, and, of course, the clan’s specialty, menudo.

Hernandez joined the family business as a teenager when she opened a hot dog cart, which she later expanded to sell carnitas. Soon after, her troubles with her husband started. Hernandez hadn’t known the kind of man he would become: a womanizing and abusive drug addict and alcoholic, as she describes him. She dealt with it as best she could, through work. “I promised myself that my children would never know cold or poverty,” Hernandez says. 

Their first child, daughter Valeria, was diagnosed with epilepsy at three months old. To pay for Valeria’s treatment, Hernandez added tamales and buñelos to her street cart’s menu. Her daughter’s epilepsy disappeared at the age of four. Four years after that, Hernandez says her husband raped and impregnated her. She gave birth to a boy, Adrian. “My son is the product of abuse, but he is a blessing. He’s my baby,” Hernandez says with joy and pride in her voice. The young man is now studying information engineering, a field that blends computer science with math. “He is a man in every sense of the word. He is responsible. He is a man of his word. He isn’t lazy, nor does he drink or smoke,” Hernandez says. 

In April 1998, Hernandez’s father passed away. At this time, violence was at a disastrously high level in Mexico. Her brother was kidnapped and eventually released. On another day, her husband said he was going to work and never returned. “I was left alone to raise my kids and work harder,” she says. Hernandez continued to add dishes to her cart’s menu. She did whatever she needed to do to provide for her family. She was also once more pregnant. To her anguish, the baby was stillborn. 

As soon as she could, Hernandez began the paperwork for a visa to come to the United States. She knew however hard she worked in Mexico, it wouldn’t be enough to give her children the educations and futures she dreamed they deserved. The only option was to find work north of the Rio Grande. Finally, five years ago, she was able to settle in Andrews, where she eventually opened Taqueria Gael, named after her supportive, caring partner, whom she met while working at various food trucks in Andrews. Love and the gratitude for a better life are evident in every dish.

The tacos she serves are all tacos de guisado wrapped in soft, nixtamalized-corn tortillas that are made in-house. The green picadillo, stewed with tiny potato cubes, translucent chopped onion, and invisible but fiery chiles, was a delight. The asado verde—rough-chopped chicken blanketed in a dark green salsa—was even better and hotter. The asado rojo, plump with pork obscured by an inky red sauce, left me silent. My eyes closed, and I smiled. The barbacoa was a dark bramble peeking out from below freshly grated queso blanco. For the quesadilla, queso blanco is enveloped in a corn tortilla and cooked on the flattop until the cheese melts into a milky, stretchy consistency. It only took one bite for me to feel at home.

The pozole—deep red, almost clay-colored—was a bowl of guajillo chile–punctuated stew bobbing with tender, juicy bits of pork chop. It was a hot day when I visited Taqueria Gael, but as I recalled the voices of many women in my life, I remembered hot days are made for hot food. The small, round, Nutella-filled doughnuts, glazed and shiny in the midday sun coming through one of the restaurant’s windows, were so good. I wanted to eat them all lest I offend Hernandez, who brought them to the table herself. Alas, the stop at Taqueria Gael was one of several I had planned en route to the Panhandle. Otherwise, I would’ve lingered, asked for coffee to wash down the dessert, and likely consumed the whole plate of doughnuts. 

The worst of Hernandez’s life is behind her. She has made peace with the past and how it has formed her, thanks to her children and her partner. She welcomes every customer like she’s welcoming her own children to eat. As trite as that sounds, the proof is in the amazing pozole. Eating it, I felt like I belonged in Taqueria Gael, like Hernandez was happy to see me enjoy her food. Hernandez expresses it better: “I have been able to overcome obstacles with food. Everything I cook, everything I do, I do with all my heart and with love.”

Taqueria Gael
500 SW Avenue D, Andrews
Phone: 432-223-8827
Hours: Monday–Saturday 7–2, 5–8

Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young appeared on the GBag Nation show on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) to discuss the returns of Max Scherzer, Josh Jung, and more.

Here are some of the highlights, edited lightly for clarity.

What was your biggest takeaway from the first series sweep of the season?

Chris Young: Most importantly, I thought we showed signs of life from our offense. Really we strung together four or five straight games where we felt like we had really good quality of at-bats. We scored runs. We had timely hitting and certainly our pitching this this weekend with two back-to-back shutouts was outstanding. So I love the way we played. I love the way we competed. I think it’s something to build on. We’ve got a tough road trip ahead of us this week in Milwaukee and Baltimore. But I thought I saw signs of what we have to be successful. I’m hopeful it continues

What did you think about Max Scherzer’s debut and how is he feeling today? How will you manage his workload going forward?

Young: He said he’s feeling good, feeling normal. He said the next couple of days will determine kind of how he bounces back. He didn’t have a normal spring training. He didn’t even have a normal rehab, so to speak. We’re still learning a little bit how he’s going to recover how he’s going to bounce back. He’s still building up strength and endurance as well. So we are going to monitor him closely this week to make sure he recovers well.

But yesterday he was outstanding. It was so fun to watch him. I know that his stuff isn’t what it used to be in terms of when he was in the prime of his career. But watching him pitch and compete yesterday, it just felt like he was a step ahead of the hitters. It is really kind of a lost art in today’s game in terms of seeing a guy who could recognize swings, see what the opponent was trying to do and make adjustments on the fly. Despite the scouting report, it was vintage pitching.

The reality is [Max Scherzer] is 39 years old, he’s turning 40. I know how my body felt at 38 years old when I retired and every day was a challenge. He has kept himself in phenomenal shape. He’s really a freak when it comes to his recovery, the way he’s been able to recover from the surgery and the way he’s gone through his rehab. But we do have to be cognizant of the age and really that’s why we built the pitching staff that way we have. We have, at this point, a surplus of starters. We’re going to need them all. We’ve got starting pitching depth, assuming we stay healthy. It gives us some flexibility to be able to monitor Max, or the other guys, and build in extra rest or bullpen days or, even at some point, skip a start to keep them fresh and healthy throughout the year.

What have you seen from Wyatt Langford as he’s turned the corner and figured things out?

Young: I’ve seen a great aptitude from [Wyatt Langford] in terms of his ability to make adjustments. He obviously had a great spring training and then got off to a cold start here. But I think that should have been expected to some extent with how fast he got through the minor leagues and just adjusting to the quality of big league pitching. We’re seeing it all across the league, offense is down. The pitching in today’s game is so good, and to think that he was in college baseball last year. Now he’s seeing the best pitching in the world on a nightly basis, and you’re starting to see him make adjustments and really feel confident at the plate. The performance this month has really reflected that. It just shows what what a high aptitude Wyatt has for making adjustments, for learning how talented he is, and the hard work that he puts in. I think that the hitting coaches deserve some recognition here as well for identifying a couple things in his swing that have put him in a better position to really handle major league pitching. Collectively they’ve all done a great job, and we’re seeing the results of that.

Josh Smith has been great for the Rangers at third base in Josh Jung’s absence. What’s the plan when Jung returns from his injury?

Young: First of all, Josh Jung is probably not going to be able to play every day as he comes off this. This is a major surgery and to ask him to go out and play every day would be irresponsible. I think that Josh Smith will still get plenty of third base reps. I think that Josh Smith will see time at DH, he can play left field, center field, he can play shortstop, obviously we can spell [Corey Seager], or DH Corey Seager while Josh Smith plays shortstop. Josh Smith has played so well. He’s going to be in the lineup on a daily basis. Where that is position-wise, we’ll figure out. Bruce Bochy is brilliant at moving guys around and keeping guys fresh. We’ll figure out how to get all these guys in the lineup. But the reality is we need all of them going well together, at which point I feel like we’ll make a good run.

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