Texas man’s deep regret before execution by lethal injection for murdering teenage identical twins

Garcia Glenn White showed remorse before he was executed by lethal injection in Texas on Tuesday, 35 years after he brutally murdered 16-year-old identical twin sisters.

White, 61, was put to death at a state prison in Huntsville, Texas, marking the sixth execution of a death row inmate in just under two weeks.

White confessed to killing five people over a six-year period in the late 1980s and 1990s. However, prosecutors have only charged him in the deaths of teenage victims Annette and Bernette Edwards.

He was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m. USA today reported.

“I apologize, and I pray that you can find peace, comfort and closure in your hearts for the wrong I have done and the pain I have caused you and everyone I have hurt,” White told some of his victims. relatives as he was strapped to the execution table. “I’m sorry for all the pain I caused.”

White was the fifth man executed in Texas this year.

Patrick McCann, White’s attorney for 26 years, said he was “devastated by this loss, but at the same time it is even more devastating for Glenn’s family.”

White was allowed to have five loved ones in the room during the execution, but asked them not to come, McCann said.

“I think he was trying to spare people the pain of watching them die,” McCann said.

White spoke to prison guards and his fellow inmates during his final words.

“To all my brothers and sisters who are incarcerated, you all keep going and loving each other,” he said. “Once again to the administration and to the guards: thank you for treating us like human beings.”

He thanked his family and friends “for all the love and comfort” before singing “I Trust in God.”

White had six siblings and was once a football star. Injuries derailed his life and cost him his football career and later a full-time job.

By the time he discovered crack cocaine, he had three children to support. The drug eventually took over his life.

The crime wave that would land him on death row began in 1989, although he would not admit everything to the police until years later.

His first victim was Greta Williams, a 27-year-old woman who was beaten to death just a few months after moving from Chicago to Houston.

That same year, White murdered Bonita Edwards and her identical twin daughters, Annette and Bernette, in their Houston apartment.

The knife murders happened just a day after the twins’ 16th birthday and a few weeks before Christmas.

Their bodies showed numerous stab wounds and all were found partially clothed, leading investigators to suspect a sexual motive, court records show.

Their murders remained unsolved for six years.

White then killed Hai Pham, a father of seven who worked at a convenience store.

While being held for Pham’s murder, one of White’s close friends told police that White admitted to killing the Edwards family.

White’s confession was confirmed when semen found on Bernette was a 99.9999 percent match to his DNA, court records showed.

White told police he was smoking crack cocaine with Edwards when a fight broke out between the two.

“She grabbed a knife, and I grabbed the knife and stabbed her,” he said, according to court records. “Some kids come out. I went into the bedroom after them. …I stabbed one in the bedroom and one in the living room.”

Prosecutors filed charges only in the Edwards case, and White was convicted of the murders of Annette and Bernette.

“Two dead 16-year-old girls pretty much speak for themselves when it comes to the brutality of these crimes,” Harris County Prosecutor Josh Reiss told USA Today.

The last man executed before White was 55-year-old Marcellus Williams, a Missouri inmate convicted in 1998 of stabbing to death Felicia Gayle, a social worker and former newspaper reporter.

Williams’ attorneys argued Monday that the Supreme Court should halt his execution because of alleged procedural errors in jury selection and the prosecutor’s alleged misuse of the murder weapon.

But the state Supreme Court rejected those arguments, and Governor Mike Parson denied Williams’ clemency request, clearing the way for his execution to go ahead.

Williams, 55, has maintained his innocence and Tuesday marks the third time Williams has been executed. He was less than a week away from execution in January 2015 when the Supreme Court called off the execution, giving his lawyers time to conduct additional DNA testing.

He was just hours away from execution in August 2017, when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a reprieve and appointed a panel of retired judges to investigate the case. But that panel never reached a conclusion.

Williams was executed last Tuesday, even though prosecutors had raised doubts about his guilt.

Since September 20, six men have been executed in Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri and South Carolina.