Melvin White was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of nine year old Jennifer Lee Gravell
According to court documents Melvin White would abduct Jennifer Lee Gravell who was sexually assaulted and murdered.
Melvin White would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Melvin White would be executed by lethal injection on November 3 2005
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When Was Melvin White Executed
Melvin White was executed on November 3 2005
Melvin White Case
Melvin White, convicted for the 1997 abduction, sexual assault and murder of a 9-year-old girl, was executed Thursday night inside the Huntsville “Walls” Unit.
In his final statement, White apologized to Beth Gravell, the mother of his young victim, Jennifer. “Tell Beth and them I am sorry, truly sorry for the pain that I caused your family,” he said. “I truly mean that, too. She was a friend of mine and I betrayed her trust.” White then recited the 23rd Psalm and the Lords Prayer before saying, “All right, warden. Let’s give them what they want.” As the drugs began to take effect, White said, “I can taste it.” Moments later he sputtered and gasped several times before falling silent. He was pronounced dead nine minutes later at 6:21 p.m.
White confessed to the slaying of Jennifer Gravell, blaming a lifelong drinking problem for his attack on the young girl whose family lived two houses away from him in Ozona, a town of about 3,500 people about 200 miles west of San Antonio. Prosecutors insisted White was a pedophile who used the alcohol explanation as a convenient excuse for his actions.
Beth Gravell did not attend Thursday’s execution, but Shannon Flanigan, who was an assistant prosecutor in Crockett County at the time of White’s trial, spoke with reporters after witnessing the execution. “Actions have consequences, and no consequence really pays all the debt for such a monstrous act,” added Flanigan, now an assistant district attorney in Brazos County. “The accounting taken by the state of Texas against this animal has been kind, kind because today we protect all the other Jennifer Gravells in our towns.”
Melvin White attended a neighborhood barbecue the evening of Aug. 7, 1997, and went home after downing several drinks. Jennifer also attended with her family, then was noticed missing later in the evening. Evidence and testimony showed White took her in his pickup to a roadside rest area outside Ozona where she was bound with black electrical tape, had a sock stuffed into her mouth and was sexually assaulted with a screwdriver. Then she was hit repeatedly with a tire iron before her body was dumped behind a water tank.
Authorities found in a trash can in White’s house the girl’s underpants, sandals and a ball of tape with her hair on it. White confessed to a Texas Ranger and told where the body could be found. A witness had told authorities, after the girl was reported missing, that he saw White in his truck with what he believed was a blond person. The victim had blond hair.
“I don’t remember much about it because I was drinking,” White said last week, saying he’d been a drinker since he was 13 or 14. At his trial, prosecutors showed White had assaulted an underage daughter, forced her to perform oral sex, raped her and offered to pay her $50 a week to perform sexual favors. He also had been accused of fondling a female cousin and teenage girl who had been visiting his home.
In May 2003, Charlie Gravell, Jennifer’s father, shot himself to death, a suicide Dottie Elrod, the slain girl’s grandmother, blamed on the loss of his daughter. “He just couldn’t handle it,” Elrod told the San Angelo Standard-Times this week.
White’s lethal injection was the 16th of the year in Texas, the nation’s most active death penalty state. Three more convicted killers are set to die over the next two weeks.
http://itemonline.com/articles/2005/11/03/news/local/news3.txt
