David Gibbs

David Earl Gibbs, 39, was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, 23 August, in Huntsville, Texas, for the murder of two mentally ill women in their apartment.

In July 1985, Gibbs, then 24, barged into the Conroe apartment of Marietta Bryant, 29, and Carol Ackland, 46. Both women had mental and emotional health problems and had recently been released from a mental hospital. Bryant was depicted in court testimony as having the emotional maturity of an adolescent. Some reports say that Gibbs, who lived in the same apartment complex, was a nursing aide who worked with mentally ill people. By other reports, he was employed as a maintenance man at the apartments. Gibbs got into an argument with Ackland and forced her to have sex with him. Then, in the words of his written statement to police, "While I was having sex with her, I cut her throat. I don't know why I did it." Next, he raped Bryant and slashed her throat with a butcher knife, and ransacked the place to make it look like the women were killed in a burglary.

The women's bodies were discovered two weeks later by their caseworker, who went to the apartment after becoming concerned that they had not reported to their jobs. Gibbs' fingerprints were found on the entrance the apartment,as well as inside. Police searched Gibbs' apartment and found a pack of cigarettes that matched the brand of a butt found at the murder scene. A radio belonging to one of the dead women was found at Gibbs' girlfirend's home.

Gibbs was arrested at the home of a friend in Cleveland, Texas a month after the killings, and gave police a voluntary statement. He was found guilty of killing Marietta Bryant and sent to death row without being tried for killing Carol Ackland.

Gibbs had been in prison in Michigan from 1978 to 1980 for auto theft. In March 1981, he began serving three years of a five-year sentence in Texas for robbery and theft. He was paroled in January 1984.

In an interview several years ago, Gibbs described himself as a "country gentleman." "This is a blow to everything I believe in," he said. "I don't believe in hitting women. But for me to turn around and rape and murder two women ... the point is, I did it."

In 1990, Gibbs was involved in the death of a fellow death-row inmate. Calvin Williams was strangled with a rope in a recreation yard. Gibbs told investigators he helped Williams commit suicide. One report says he was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter; another says he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. In any case, he received another 20-year sentence.

At his execution, Gibbs told Mickey Bryant, Marietta's brother, "I have wronged you and your family, and for that I am truly sorry. I forgive and have been forgiven." He was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.

Afterwards, Mickey Bryant told a reporter, "the apology doesn't cover the crime that he committed. He needed to die for that crime. But, I did appreciate the statement and the fact that in his mind, he has been forgiven as best as I understood it and I hope that's the case. The Lord will judge in the end, and whether or not he truly repented as was forgiven, in my mind, he paid the price he needed to pay. I guess if I was a vindictive person, I would think that he should die in the way that he murdered Marietta ... (but) we live in a humane society and that's the humane way to do it."