SAN ANTONIO — Pablo Castro loved his family and was loved by his community. His son Aaron Castro remembers his father’s smile.

“Many people would stop by for a friendly face,” he said.

They would stop by at a small convenience store where Pablo Castro worked for years. It was down the street from their home. But the summer of 2004 would leave a void in this neighborhood.

“My memory starts with hearing 'mataron Pablo,' which translates to, ‘they killed Pablo,'" Aaron Castro said. 

Aaron Castro was just 14 years old.

“I remember feeling this chill down my spine," he said. 

His 46-year-old father was stabbed 29 times, robbed of $1.25 and left for dead.

“A trained military man attacked my father viciously,” Aaron Castro said.

John Henry Ramirez was 20 years old when he left the scene of the crime and was on the loose for three years. Finally convicted in 2009, he’s now 37 and on death row.

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“It seems to me as if they toyed with the system to delay, and delay and delay,” Aaron Castro said.

Ramirez’s executions dates have been delayed before. Most recently it was delayed in September after he requested that his pastor be present and lay hands on him in prayer —  before he dies by lethal injection.

“Why couldn’t I just reach out and touch him?” Dana Moore, pastor at Second Baptist Church, said.

Through a church ministry, Moore has been meeting with Ramirez on a regular basis.

“Hold his hand, hold a foot — or something and pray over him at that time,” Moore said.

It’s that question that made its way to the highest court.

“A delaying tactic it was not,” Moore said. “We never thought that it would go all the way to the Supreme Court. I do know that Christ has really changed him." 

Ramirez was granted his last wish. Pastor Moore will be at the execution this October.

As for Aaron Castro, he doesn’t care if a pastor is present. He said he too is a religious man.

“Forgiveness is not for the other person, it’s for yourself,” he said. “And I had to forgive to move on with my life.”

He said all he wants now is justice.