A Texas man named Garcia Glenn White, expressed deep remorse before his execution by lethal injection on Tuesday, 35 years after he murdered 16-year-old identical twins in Houston.
61-year-old White was executed at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, becoming the sixth death row inmate put to death in the past two weeks.
White had confessed to killing five people over a six-year period during the late 1980s and early 1990s, yet prosecutors only charged him for the murders of Annette and Bernette Edwards, the teenage sisters he killed back in 1989.
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White was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m., according to USA Today.
“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 hurt,” White told his victims’ family as he lay strapped to the execution table. “I’m sorry for all the pain I have caused.”
White was the fifth man executed in Texas this year. His attorney, Patrick McCann, who represented him for 26 years, described White’s final moments as “devastating for his family.”
White had the option to have five loved ones present at his execution but asked that they not attend, McCann said. “I think he was trying to spare them the pain of watching him die,” he added.
In his final words, White addressed prison guards and fellow inmates, and urged them to “keep pushing forward, and keep loving one another.”
He also thanked the guards “for treating him like a human being” and expressed gratitude to his family and friends for their support throughout his journey. He then sang before his death a song he called “I Trust in God.”
White’s life got difficult after a series of injuries derailed his football career, and left him unable to support his six siblings. By the time he turned to crack cocaine, he had already birthed three children and was struggling to make ends meet.
His killing spree began back in 1989, yet he only admitted to the crimes years later.
White’s first victim was Greta Williams, a 27-year-old woman he beat to death shortly after moving to Houston from Chicago.
It was in that same year White killed Bonita Edwards and her twin daughters, Annette and Bernette, in their Houston apartment. Sadly, the knife killings occurred a day after the twins’ 16th birthday, just weeks before Christmas.
Forensic evidence showed that the twins’ bodies had multiple stab wounds, and investigators suspected a sexual motive after finding their bodies also partially clothed.
The murders went on unresolved for six years, until White killed Hai Pham, a man who worked at a convenience store who was also a father of seven.
White’s confession to the Edwards murders only came after a close friend of his revealed to the police that he was involved in the incident.
DNA evidence later confirmed the confession, with semen found on Bernette which matched White’s DNA with 99.9% certainty.
White told police he had been smoking crack cocaine with Bonita Edwards when a fight broke out. “She reached for a knife, and I took the knife and stabbed her,” White said, according to court records. “Some kids came out. I went into the bedroom after them. … I stabbed one in the bedroom and one in the living room.”
White was however only charged with the murders of Annette and Bernette. “Two dead 16-year-old girls kind of speak for themselves in terms of the savageness of these crimes,” Harris County prosecutor Josh Reiss told USA Today.
White’s execution came after that of Missouri inmate Marcellus Williams, 55, who was also convicted in the 1998 stabbing death of Felicia Gayle, a social worker and former reporter.
Williams’ attorneys argued that procedural errors and mishandling of evidence warranted a stay, but the Missouri Supreme Court and Governor. Mike Parson denied those requests.
Williams maintained his innocence and had faced a possible execution twice before, but his case remained unresolved until last week, when his execution proceeded.
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Since September 20, six men have been executed across Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, and South Carolina, with White being the last of them.
