Reza Ayari
1994
Bexar County, Texas

KSAT-TV Channel 12
(San Antonio, Texas)
May 17, 2007

Execution Date Set For Cab Driver's Killer
Amador Was Convicted Of Robbing, Shooting Reza Ayari

SAN ANTONIO -- A Bexar County district judge on Thursday set 
an execution date for a man convicted of killing a taxicab driver 
in 1994.

During a hearing, John Joe Amador learned that he will die by 
lethal injection August 28.

Amador was found guilty of forcing Reza Ayari to drive him to a 
remote location in south Bexar County to rob him. Amador then 
fatally shot Ayari.

Ayari's wife, who was also in the car, survived the attack by 
playing dead and helped prosecutors convict her husband's 
killer.

Prosecutors said that Amador's lawyers have exhausted all of his 
appeals.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

WOAI-TV Channel 4
(San Antonio, Texas)
August 29, 2007

Bexar County Man Executed in Huntsville

Last Update: 9:48 pm

The man who killed a San Antonio taxi driver 13 years ago was executed at 
the state prison in Huntsville Wednesday night.

The executioners had trouble finding a vein in John Joe Amador's body, but 
the lethal injection was administered and Amador was pronounced dead 
nine minutes later.

In his last statement, John Joe Amador, said "God, forgive me. God, forgive 
them for they know not what they do." And then his final words, "peace, 
freedom, I'm ready."

Family of Amador's victim, Reza Ayari, said the convicted killer seemed 
too happy.

When Ayari was shot and killed, his son, Amir, was just 6-years-old. Amir 
remembers waiting for his dad, who never came home. For 13 years, Amir 
waited for his dad's killer to die.

"He looked me in the eye like as if I was going to have sorrowness for him," 
said Amir after Amador's execution. "I don't have sorrowness. He can fry in 
hell. I don't care."

Amir witnessed the execution of John Joe Amador, the man who murdered 
his father in his dad's taxi on a remote road in southwest Bexar County.

"They should have burned him, or they should do something else because 
he looked too happy," added Amir.

The Ayari's say Amador didn't show any sign of regret, but Reza's widow 
says she found a way to forgive the killer, just as she says her husband 
would have.

"Reza was a very generous man," says JoAnn, Ayari's wife. "He was kind, 
and very forgiving. It would not have taken that long, very long to forgive 
him."

JoAnn Ayari says for her one door has closed and another has opened.

People familiar with the case told us earlier today that John Joe Amador 
was planning to refuse to walk to the execution chamber. We're told that 
did not happen and he was cooperative.

A second man from Bexar County is scheduled to be put to death 
Thursday.  Kenneth Foster was convicted in the murder of Michael 
LaHood back in 1996.

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