Is the State of Texas Trying to Kill This Chicano Activist?

Salazar recalls that, in the latter half of 2025, she began to notice Xinachtli’s usual energetic disposition was muted, as if his mind had caught up to his 73-year-old body and was beginning to slow down. In November, around the time of his fall, Freeman became the first of his supporters to see him in a wheelchair. “It’s just a shocking experience, seeing someone age and decline really rapidly,” she said. Just a few months prior, he had been active and engaged in his case. Now, he had slurred speech; it was clear to her that he was experiencing some kind of cognitive decline.

Dr. Dona Kim Murphey, a third-party medical specialist, conducted several limited examinations of Xinachtli. In a late November phone interview, Murphey reported that he exhibited short-term memory problems, meandering and disorganized speech, and an inability to recall his own age, stating he was 53 instead of 73. On December 2, at an in-person session, Dr. Murphey performed a neurological examination of Xinachtli with limited equipment, imploring prison officials to conduct an “urgent brain and spinal MRI” and lab tests, adding that—in the best-case scenario—Xinachtli may be able to walk again after “months of inpatient physical therapy.”

Finally, after months of delay, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice provided Freeman with Xinachtli’s complete medical records. What those documents revealed was stark: It was as if his entire body was failing at once. Xinachtli had suffered a stroke and a heart attack, and appeared to have a lesion on his liver, possibly cancerous; this was in addition to spinal degeneration, heart and kidney damage, prostate damage, and a hernia. This came as a surprise to Xinachtli, who had no idea he’d suffered from a stroke or heart attack.