Texas death row inmate who killed wife before drowning her child in bathtub set to be executed today

A Texas inmate who stabbed his ex-wife to death and drowned his six-year-old daughter in a bathtub more than a decade ago will be executed tonight.

Gary Green, 51, will receive a lethal injection in the September 2009 death of 32-year-old Lovetta Armstead and her daughter, Jazzman Montgomery, who were killed in their Dallas home.

In previous appeals, Green’s lawyers had claimed that he was intellectually disabled and had a lifelong history of psychiatric disorders.

As of Monday night, no appeals had been filed to stop his execution, which is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. local time at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.

“These deficiencies likely rendered (Green) incapable of forming the necessary intent to commit capital murder,” Green’s lawyers wrote in 2018.

Those appeals were rejected by the US Supreme Court and lower appellate courts.

The high court has banned the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.

The girl’s father, Ray Montgomery, said he is not rooting for Green’s execution, but sees it as the justice system at work.

‘It is justice for the way my daughter was tortured. It’s justice for the way Lovetta was killed,” Montgomery said.

Authorities said Green killed the two after Armstead tried to have their marriage annulled.

On the day of the murders, Armstead had written two letters to Green, telling him that although he loved him, he had to “do what’s best for me.”

In his own letter, which was angry and rambling, Green expressed the belief that Armstead and his sons were involved in a plot against him.

“You asked to see the monster so here is the monster you created for me… 5 lives taken today, I’m 5th,” Green wrote.

Armstead was stabbed more than two dozen times while Green drowned Jazzman in the home’s bathtub.

Authorities said Green also intended to kill Armstead’s two other children, then ages 9 and 12. Green stabbed the younger boy, but both survived.

“I told (Green) because we are too young to die and we won’t tell anyone,” the 9-year-old told jurors in his testimony about how he convinced Green to spare their lives.

Josh Healy, one of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office prosecutors who convicted Green, said the boys were incredibly brave.

Lovetta Armstead, 32, (left) was stabbed to death, and her daughter, Jazzman Montgomery, (right) drowned in the bathtub of their Dallas home in 2009.

Green was a mean guy. It was one of the worst cases I’ve ever been a part of,” said Healy, who is now a defense attorney in Dallas.

Montgomery said he still has a close relationship with Armstead’s two sons. She said they both lead productive lives and one has a daughter who looks just like Jazzman.

“They’re still suffering a lot, I think,” said Montgomery, who is a special education English teacher.

Montgomery, who is a deacon at his church in Dallas, said he continued to live his life as if his daughter were still here, even throwing a party for her every birthday. He also organized a high school prom for her, including a parade at her grave and a backyard barbecue with her family.

‘That was my way of dealing with it, to make it feel like she’s still here. I prayed over her grave one day and told her that she would never let her name go out,” Montgomery said.

Green’s execution is the first of two scheduled in Texas this week. Another inmate, Arthur Brown Jr., will be executed on Thursday.

It would be the fourth inmate in Texas and the eighth in the United States to be executed this year.

Green is one of six Texas death row inmates who are part of a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s prison system from using what they say are expired and unsafe execution drugs.

Although a civil court judge in Austin preliminarily agreed with the claims, three of the inmates were executed this year.