Houston, United States:

A Texas man accused of killing twin teenage sisters was executed by lethal injection Tuesday evening, prison officials said, making it the sixth death row inmate in the United States in the past 12 days. .

Before he was executed at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, 61-year-old Garcia White apologized to the family of his victims. He was pronounced dead at 6:56 pm local time.

A former high school football star, White was convicted in 1996 of the December 1989 stabbings of Annette and Burnett Edwards.

According to court and jail records, White killed the girls’ 16-year-old mother, Bonita Edwards, and then killed the two sisters after an argument at their Houston home.

White was not tried for the death of Bonita Edwards or for two other murders to which he confessed, one in 1989 and the other in 1995.

White’s lawyers filed a last-minute petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution, arguing that he is mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.

“I want to apologize for all the mistakes I’ve made, and I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused the Edwards family,” White said in a statement. said before the execution. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I pray you find peace.”

Texas has carried out four executions this year at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, and another inmate, Robert Roberson, 57, will be executed on Oct. 17, despite questions about his guilt.

Texas lawmakers, medical experts and best-selling novelist John Grisham are among those seeking to block the execution of Roberson, who was convicted in the 2002 death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki.

Roberson, who is autistic, took the girl to the hospital with severe head trauma and the child died the next day.

Attorneys and attorneys for Roberson have argued that the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, at the hospital where the baby died, was incorrect.

In a letter to Texas authorities, 34 doctors said the cause of death was actually severe pneumonia, which was exacerbated by the wrong medication being prescribed to the little girl.

Roberson’s autism, which was not diagnosed until 2018, was misinterpreted at the time as showing indifference to the child’s death and, according to his lawyers, that consideration weighed heavily in his conviction.

Four executions were carried out in the United States last week and the week before, bringing the total to 18 this year.

Twenty-three of the 50 US states have abolished the death penalty, while six others — Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — have a moratorium.

(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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