Garcia White was executed by the State of Texas for the murders of twin girls Annette and Bernette Edwards in 1989
According to court documents Garcia White would go to a home where he would beat to death sixteen year old Annette and Bernette Edwards. Along with the twins the mother was also murdered
The murders would go unsolved until Garcia White became a suspect in the murder of store worker. Garcia would ultimately confess to five murders
Garcia White would be convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of Annette and Bernette Edwards. He was not charged in the other murders
White would be executed on October 1 2024 by lethal injection
Garcia White Execution
A Texas man has been put to death by lethal injection for the murders of teenage twin sisters, prison officials have said, the sixth death row inmate to be executed in the United States in the past 12 days.
Before he was put to death in the state penitentiary in the city of Huntsville, Garcia White, 61, apologised to his victims’ family. He was pronounced dead at 6.56pm (11.56pm Irish time) local time.
A former high school football star, White was convicted in 1996 of stabbing 16-year-olds Annette and Bernette Edwards to death in December 1989.
According to court and prison records, White killed the girls’ mother Bonita Edwards following an argument at their Houston home and then murdered the two sisters.
White was not tried for the death of Bonita Edwards or for two other murders he confessed to committing, one in 1989 and another in 1995.
White’s lawyers had filed a last-minute request for a stay of execution with the US Supreme Court, arguing that he was intellectually disabled and therefore not eligible for the death penalty.
“I would like to apologise for all the wrong I have done, and for pain I’ve caused to the Edwards family,” White said before the execution, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement. “I regret, I apologise, and I pray that you can find peace.”
Texas has carried out four executions this year at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and another inmate, Robert Roberson, 57, is scheduled to be put to death on 17 October, despite questions about his guilt.
Politicians in Texas, medical experts and the best-selling novelist John Grisham are among those seeking to halt the execution of Roberson, who was convicted of the 2002 death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki.
Roberson, who is autistic, took the girl to a hospital with severe head trauma and the child died the next day.
Roberson’s lawyers and advocates have argued that the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, made at the hospital where little girl died, was erroneous.
In a letter to Texas officials, 34 doctors said the cause of death was in fact severe pneumonia, aggravated by Nikki being prescribed the wrong medication.
Roberson’s autism, which was not diagnosed until 2018, was misconstrued at the time as showing indifference to the death of the toddler and this perception weighed heavily in his conviction, according to his lawyers.
Four executions were carried out in the United States last week and one the week before, bringing the total this year to 18.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while six others – Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee – have moratoriums in place.