British trainee dental nurse tells family she’s at Disney World before marrying US death row inmate

British trainee dental nurse, 26, flies to Arizona to marry US death row inmate, 35, after telling her family she was going on holiday to Disney World

Rebecca Short, 26, from Oxfordshire, told family she was on holiday in the US She posted photos of herself at Disney World, Florida, in Mickey Mouse ears However, she surprised relatives when she also married a US death row inmateManuel Ovante Jr, 35, faces execution by lethal injection for a double murder

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A British trainee dental nurse said she was going to Disney World before she flew to Arizona and married a death row inmate who killed two people and dumped one of their bodies in an alley.

Rebecca Short, 26, from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, told her family she was on holiday in the US and even posted holiday snaps from Disney World, Florida, and the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.

However, she surprised her relatives by posting photos of herself marrying Mexican-American double murderer Manuel Ovante Jr, 35, who is on death row at Eyman jail, Florence, Arizona.

Ovante has spent more than a decade in jail after he was sentenced to death in 2010 for murdering two men as he was looking for methamphetamine in 2008.

Rebecca Short, 26, from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, told her family she was on holiday in Disney World, Florida, before saying she had married a US death row inmate

The trainee dental nurse posted a photo of herself in Mickey Mouse ears from Disney World, Florida

Ovante went to a man’s house on June 11, 2008, with three of his friends as they searched for drugs.

The group encountered a woman and two men inside. Ovante shot one of the woman twice in the head as she slept and wounded the two men.

Ovant and his friends then took one of the injured men with them in a truck as he bled from his gunshot wounds until he died.

They dumped the man’s corpse in an alley. The other injured man survived the attack.

The double killer was allowed to leave his cell to wed his British pen pal bride on April 14 and smiled as he posed for a picture.

Rebecca celebrated the marriage with Ovante’s family and showed off a tiered wedding cake with black icing and the words ‘Till death do us part!’

Ovante is one of 113 death row prisoners at the Arizona jail, where inmates set for execution typically spend 17 years before they are killed by lethal injection.

She celebrated the marriage with a tiered cake with red roses and black icing that read ‘Till death do us part!’

She also posed with the double killer’s family after she married him. She met Manuel Ovante Jr, 35, who is on death row at Eyman jail, Florence, Arizona, via a pen pal site for prisoners

One of her friends said she was ‘always obsessed with watching Netflix documentaries about serial killers in America, but no one thought she’d run off and marry one,’ in an interview with The Sun.

The Oxfordshire woman posed in a black dress with Mexican-American Ovante, who was in his prison-issue orange jumpsuit.

She had written to him after coming across his pen pal profile on the internet, which said, ‘I’m easy to get along with and tend to be a goofball.’

Ovante also wrote he was ‘Very loyal to people I care about’.

He said: Nobody is perfect, so I hope not to be judged by past mistakes.

‘I love to read and listen to music. I have a daughter named Bonnie.

‘Not sure what I’m looking for in a pen pal so, I guess you’ll have to surprise me.’

What did Manuel Ovante Jr do to receive a death sentence? 

Manuel Ovante Jr is a convicted double murderer on death row at at Eyman jail, Florence, Arizona.

In April 2022 he married British trainee dental nurse Rebecca Short, 26, from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

She had told her family she was on holiday at Disney World before she married the killer.

What did Ovante do to receive a death sentence? 

Ovante and three of his friends were searching for drugs in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 11, 2008, when they came to Jordan Trujillo’s house.

The Mexican-American man hoped Ms Trujillo would be able to give them methamphetamine but she refused.

Ovante seemed unperturbed and returned again and again to her home until at last they found her when she was asleep.

Two others, Damien Vickers and Gabriel Valenzuela were also at the house while Ms Trujillo was asleep on the living room sofa.

Without warning, Ovante drew a loaded gun and shouted ‘Who left the safety on?’ He pointed it at Valenzuela and told him not to move.

Then he moved his aim to the sleeping Jordan Trujillo on the sofa. He shot her twice in the head, killing her almost instantly.

Mr Valenzuela and Mr Vickers started shouting. Ovante started shooting, hitting them both multiple times.   

Manuel Ovante Jr, 35, (pictured) shot a woman head twice as she slept and killed a man before dumping his body in an alley

While Mr Vickers begged for help, Mr Valenzuela called the police. Ovante and two of his friends wanted to flee the scene but his third accomplice wanted to take Mr Vickers to hospital.

Ovante let the injured man into the truck, still bleeding from his gunshot wounds and clinging to one of his attackers.

Yet Ovante refused to take him to hospital and let him bleed out in the truck, When he finally died, Ovante dumped the man’s body in an alley.

It was around a month later that Ovante was arrested. He pleaded guilty to two counts of first degree murder and one count of aggravated assault.

He was sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole after 25 years for Ms Trujillo’s murder, given the death penalty for Mr Vickers’s murder, and a mitigated term of six years in prison for the aggravated assault on Mr Valenzuela, who survived his injuries.

Source: caselaw.findlaw.com 

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