Huntsville, Texas - Ramiro Gonzales is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Wednesday, even though the psychiatrist who played a key role in putting him on death row no longer believes he poses a possible future threat to society.

Dr. Edward Gripon visited Gonzales on death row in 2022 and concluded: "it is my opinion, to a reasonable psychiatric probability, that he does not pose a threat of future danger to society."

Gripon also noted that his original assessment had relied on faulty statistics, including the claim that there is an up to 80% recidivism rate among people who commit sex crimes. The statistic was later found to have come from an unverified statement in a 1986 Psychology Today article.

Gonzales was convicted of raping and killing Bridget Townsend, his drug dealer's girlfriend, in 2001 when they were both 18 years old. He was trying to steal drugs at the time.

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"This is a man who has demonstrated a tendency to want to control, to manipulate, and to take advantage of certain other individuals," Gripon told the jury during the 2006 trial – an opinion he has now reversed.

Texas is the only state that requires jurors in death row cases to predict "whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society."

It is also one of the only states that will sentence teenagers to death.

A video submitted along with Gonzales' clemency petition highlighted the 41-year-old's difficult childhood.

Gonzales' 17-year-old mother drank and did drugs throughout the pregnancy, which she also attempted to terminate. He was given up to his grandparents when he was born and grew up in an environment in which alcohol and sexual abuse were common.

"There was a lot of sexual abuse in the family," Gonzales' cousin Jessica says in the clemency video. "That was something that to this day is not really talked about [...] and that abuse continued on to the next generation, which was Ramiro and me."

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A ray of hope came into Gonzales' life when his uncle married a woman named Loretta. She became one of the few adult family members to show him love and attention, and his life began to turn around as a result.

Loretta was tragically killed by a drunk driver in 1998. Gonzales' substance abuse and suicide attempts reached crisis levels in the wake of her death.

"Everything that happened to me in my past had some influence in my life. Responsibility means, you know what, that doesn't matter, because I have to take sole responsibility for what I did," Gonzales says in the video.

People close to Gonzales have testified to his genuine remorse and his leading role in providing emotional and spiritual support to others on death row.

Gonzales has apologized for taking Townsend's life.

"I know my apologies cannot even begin to bring you peace of mind and healing, but I feel that I should still tell you how sorry I am for all the pain and anguish you have suffered because of my actions," he wrote in a letter to Townsend's family in 2022, according to Huff Post.

"I am sorry, deeply sorry, that I took what was so precious to you and I know there’s nothing I can do or say to make it better."

Gonzales has devoted his life to Christianity after embracing the faith behind bars. He closed his clemency video with a reference to the Bible: "I'm on death row, but I still have faith, I still have hope, and I can still love everybody around me."

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied Gonzales' clemency petition. His lethal injection is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.