HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A former college football player linked to five Houston killings and convicted of fatally stabbing twin 16-year-old girls more than three decades ago was executed in Huntsville, Texas Tuesday night.
Garcia White was sentenced to death for the December 1989 killings of Annette and Bernette Edwards. The bodies of the twin girls and their mother, Bonita Edwards, were found in their Houston apartment.
When asked if he has any final words, Garcia apologized before receiving a lethal dose of drugs.
"First, I would like to apologize for all the wrong I have done, and for pain I’ve caused to the Edwards family. I regret, I apologize, and I pray that you can find peace, comfort and closure in your heart for the wrong I have done and the pain I have caused you, and anybody else I’ve caused pain to. I just want to apologize; I take responsibility for it. I regret, I hope you find closure. Also, I would like to thank my family and friends and loved ones. Thank you for all the love and comfort y’all have shown. I pray for the administration, all the guards and just pray for my brothers and sisters behind these walls, that y’all continue to help each other and lift each other up in love. I pray for all the field ministers and life coaches, I just thank you for so many things father, I just pray that y’all have peace on this earth y’all just keep coming together and again I’m sorry for all the pain I caused to anyone I just ask you to please find comfort and closer in your heart. I would like to sing a song (sings “I trust in God”). I apologize and I’m sorry for all the pain I have caused again. To my family and friends and loved ones keep y’all’s heads up, stray strong. To all my brothers and sisters incarcerated, y’all just keep pushing forward, keep loving one another. To the administration again and to the guards, thank you for treating us like human beings. Thank you and I pray, that’s it Warden.”
White confessed to killing 5 people
The deaths of the twin girls and their mother went unsolved for about six years until White confessed to the killings after he was arrested in the July 1995 death of Hai Van Pham, who was fatally beaten during a robbery at his business. Police said White also confessed to fatally beating another woman, Greta Williams, in 1989.
Williams' sister, Dewanta Washington, said she and her siblings would be in Huntsville to witness the execution.
"It’s a long time coming,” Washington told KHOU 11. "Hopefully he’s made peace with his maker ... It’s time to go.”
White, 61, a former college football player who later worked as a fry cook, is the sixth inmate put to death in the U.S. in the last 11 days.
Testimony showed White went to the girls' Houston home to smoke crack with their mother, Bonita, who also was fatally stabbed. When the girls came out of their room to see what had happened, White attacked them. Evidence showed White broke down the locked door of the girls’ bedroom. He was later tied to the deaths of a grocery store owner and another woman.
“Garcia White committed five murders in three different transactions and two of his victims were teenage girls. This is the type of case that the death penalty was intended for,” said Josh Reiss, chief of the Post-Conviction Writs Division with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston.
White's attorneys appeal to U.S. Supreme Court
White’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution after lower courts previously rejected his petitions for a stay. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Friday denied White’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty or to grant him a 30-day reprieve.
His lawyers argued that Texas’ top criminal appeals court has refused “to accept medical evidence and strong factual backing” showing White is intellectually disabled.
The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. However, it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities. Justices have wrestled with how much discretion to allow.
White’s lawyers also accused the Texas appeals court of not allowing his defense team to present evidence that could spare him a death sentence, including DNA evidence that another man also was at the crime scene and scientific evidence that would show White was “likely suffering from a cocaine-induced psychotic break during his actions.”
White’s lawyers also argued he is entitled to a new review of his death sentence, alleging the Texas appeals court has created a new scheme for sentencing in capital punishment cases after a recent Supreme Court ruling in another Texas death row case.
“Mr. White’s case illustrates everything wrong with the current death penalty in Texas -– he has evidence that he is intellectually disabled which the (Texas appeals court) refuses to permit him to develop. He has significant evidence that could result in a sentence other than death at punishment but cannot present it or develop it,” White’s attorneys said in their petition to the high court.
In a filing to the Supreme Court, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said White has not presented evidence to support his claim he is intellectually disabled. The filing also said White's claims of evidence of another person at the crime scene and that cocaine use affected his actions have previously been rejected by the courts.
“White presents no reason to delay his execution date any longer. The Edwards family — and the victims of White’s other murders … deserve justice for his decades-old crimes,” the attorney general’s office said.
White is the fifth inmate put to death this year in Texas and the 19th in the U.S.