OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — A man on Nebraska’s death row for killing and dismembering his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son and feeding some of the child’s remains to a dog has lost a post-conviction appeal.
The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court’s ruling that 46-year-old Raymond Mata Jr. was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction appeal. In that appeal, Mata claimed, among other things, that his constitutional rights were violated by being shackled during jury selection. He also made several constitutional claims against the state’s death penalty process that the high court rejected.
Mata killed and dismembered 3-year-old Adam Gomez in 1999. Prosecutors say he fed parts of the boy’s body to a dog and kept some of the child’s remains in a freezer to intimidate the boy’s mother.
