Texas completes execution for murders committed 35 years ago

As reported in this AP article, a "Texas man convicted of fatally stabbing twin 16-year-old girls more than three decades ago was executed on Tuesday evening."  Here is more:

Garcia Glenn White was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m. CDT following a chemical injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned 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.

White, 61, was the sixth inmate put to death in the U.S. in the last 11 days.  His execution took place shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, rejected three last-ditch appeals....

He said he took responsibility for the slayings, regretted his actions and was praying for prison officials, officers and “for my brothers and sisters behind these walls.”...

Testimony showed that 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 happened, White attacked them. Evidence showed White broke down the locked door of the girls’ bedroom.  Authorities said he was later tied to the deaths of a grocery store owner and another woman.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who witnessed White’s death, lamented that it took some 30 years to carry out the jury’s death verdict as multiple appeals in White’s case worked through the courts.  “The suffering of surviving (victims’) family members is just unspeakable,” she said. “At least it’s over.”

White’s lawyers had unsuccessfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution after lower courts previously rejected 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....

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 connection with the July 1995 death of grocery store owner 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.