Richard Hinojosa was born in San Antonio on Nov. 17, 1961, to Hortense and Gregory Hinojosa, a retired master sergeant in the army.

The couple raised their six children in a predominantly Latino neighborhood near the Fort Sam Houston military base, an area Hinojosa never strayed far from, even as an adult.

Despite his close-knit family environment, where aunts, uncles and cousins lived down the street, Hinojosa recalls a "dysfunctional" childhood in which he was the odd one out and a constant target of his older siblings' animosity.

Hinojosa also claims that he was molested by a friend of the family, who would drug and intoxicate him before forcing him to perform sexual acts.

He says he had a difficult time in school because he suffered from dyslexia and was often too "embarrassed" to speak up in class. He dropped out of school before he reached junior high.

Although the Hinojosas raised their children in the Mexican-Catholic tradition, Richard Hinojosa says he identified more with his mother's Native American roots, and often dreamed of living on a reservation.

"I romanticized the old ways of the tribe," Hinojosa told CourtTVnews.com. "It's an extended family; you have aunts and uncles everywhere. You have somebody to look out for you at all times, to guide you in the right direction."

Violence was a recurring theme in Hinojosa's childhood. When he was 10, his older brother was killed in a fight at a gas station.

After his brother's death, Hinojosa claims, he got caught up in the "tough guy" mentality and spent his teenage years drinking, fighting and struggling to hold down a job.

"You could see bad things coming for him," said Mary Virginia Petty, a former cousin in-law who raised her children in the same neighborhood as the Hinojosas. "He had a lot of older people influencing him to do and say things they thought were cute, like shoot the finger or say the f-word."

Petty described the climate of the neighborhood as predominantly "poor" and "tough," where fights for honor were frequent and sometimes deadly.

Hinojosa describes his best memories as those with his first wife, who gave birth to his first son when she was 16 and he was 17.

"That was the happiest day of my life, when we became one," he said.

The couple eventually separated. As an adult, Hinojosa had four more children with three wives, and was arrested for several times for robbery and assault, and finally for manslaughter.

In 1986, Hinojosa went to prison for gunning down a man in what he claims was a fight over their children "throwing sand in each other's eyes."

He struck a plea bargain with authorities that netted him an eight-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter. He was released two and a half years later.

Hinojosa moved to San Antonio and eventually settled back in his father's home with his fourth wife, the mother of his two youngest children. He took a job as a maintenance worker at nearby Brooks Air Force Base.

During that time, he began an affair with his father's next-door neighbor, Terry Wright. Hinojosa said the relationship played out "discreetly." When Wright was raped and murdered in May 1994, Hinojosa denied involvement.

One year later, he was indicted on capital murder charges.

HIS CRIME: An affair with a neighbor, her naked body found in a field