04/30/2008

By MICHAEL GRACZYK / Associated Press

Four condemned prisoners lost appeals Wednesday before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, including a man identified as a leader of a gang authorities said was responsible for killing six men in a robbery-shooting spree in the Rio Grande Valley.

Humberto "Gallo" Garza, 34, acknowledged planning the robbery of a marijuana cache from two houses separated by a dirt driveway on the same property in Edinburg but denied being among the gunmen in the shooting that left six victims dead.

Garza, described as a leader in a gang known as the Tri-City Bombers, or "Bombitas," is one of three men on death row for involvement in the slayings. A fourth gang member was condemned for another shooting in 2002, four months before the Edinburg killings, that left four women dead.

In all, 13 men were indicted for the January 2003 massacre. The victims were identified as members of a rival gang, the Texas Chicano Brotherhood.

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