A 61-year-old American, sentenced to death for multiple murders, was executed Tuesday in Texas, the prison administration of this southern state announced in the evening.
This is the 19e in the United States since the beginning of the year, all carried out by lethal injection with the exception of two in Alabama (south) by nitrogen inhalation, a method denounced by the UN which compared it to a form of “torture”.
Garcia Glen White was sentenced to death for the 1989 stabbing murders of teenage twins, Annette and Bernette Edwards, and their mother, Bonita Edwards, in Houston.
This triple murder remained unsolved until his arrest in 1995 for beating to death Hai Pham, a supermarket employee who had recently immigrated from Vietnam. One of his relatives then informed the police that Garcia Glen White had confided in the murder of the family.
These suspicions were confirmed by DNA analyzes corresponding to 99.99% of traces found on one of the victims as well as by his confessions. He had also confessed to previously beating to death, also in 1989, a young woman, Greta Williams.
In January 2015, the Texas Supreme Court stayed the execution of Garcia Glen White after an appeal by his lawyers citing new scientific studies on the effect of cocaine use on the brain.
The career of this promising young American football player, holder of a university scholarship, was cut short by a knee injury. He dropped out of college while his girlfriend was pregnant, then fell into drug addiction after a serious work accident, according to court documents.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 American states. Six others (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee) observe a moratorium on executions by decision of the governor.
