Robert White was executed by the State of Texas for a triple murder
According to court documents Robert White stole a machine gun the day before and would murder the man. White would go into a gas station where he would open fire killing the owner Preston Broyle as well as two teenage customers: Gary Coker and Billy St. John
White would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert White was executed by lethal injection on March 30 1999
Robert White Photos
Robert White Case
An inmate who had been on death row since Aug. 26, 1974, was executed by injection today for using a stolen machine gun to kill a rural grocery store owner, one of four people slain during a crime spree almost 25 years ago.
The inmate, Robert Excell White, 61, had been on death row longer than any of the 452 condemned men and women in Texas. Of about 3,600 prisoners awaiting execution in the United States, only three other men — two in Georgia and one in Florida — have been on death row longer.
Mr. White spent so many years on death row because his first conviction was thrown out on the ground that he had not been warned that information he gave state psychiatrists could be used against him. He was convicted again in 1987, and the appeals process, which averages about 10 years, began anew.
Mr. White’s final words were, ”Send me to my maker, warden.” Minutes earlier, he told a prison official, ”Well, you finally got me.”
Robert White killed a 73-year-old grocer and two 18-year-old customers in May 1974. The day before, he fatally stabbed a gun collector.
