In the summer of 1992, Benjamin and Soila Garza, a poor couple from Lubbock, Texas, drove to Houston to take their three children on a family vacation to visit the Astroworld theme park.

It was a Sunday in July, when Garza, 38, stopped at a Payless shoe store in Houston, and waited in the car while his wife took the children to buy shoes.

Willie Shannon approached the car minutes later.

Shannon, a 19-year-old high school dropout, had been "stranded" at his sister's house and grew impatient waiting for his ride. He decided to steal a car and saw Garza sitting in his 1978 Ford station wagon.

Shannon took out his 9 mm pistol and tapped on Garza's window.

"I chose him because the car was old, and I felt he wouldn't give me a problem," Shannon recalled.

Shannon didn't count on Benjamin Garza fighting back. He also didn't know that Garza had reason to fear being murdered: He had been in the Witness Protection Program for a decade after testifying at drug trials in the Rio Grande Valley.

What happened next is in contention. Prosecutors say he entered the car from the passenger side and shot Garza intentionally. He was also accused of, but never charged with, raping a maid shortly before the carjacking.

Shannon says he tapped on the window, lifted his shirt to show Garza the gun, and told him to get out of the car. When Garza got out, he jumped in and put the gun on the dashboard to start the engine.

Shannon believes that when Garza realized it was just the car — and not Garza's life — he was after, he unexpectedly fought back. The gun went off in the struggle, Shannon says, firing a round into Garza's head.

Shannon took off in the station wagon toward Beaumont, about 90 miles east of Houston, where he was apprehended by police at a truck stop about five hours later.