Execution Report: Melvin White

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White had no prior felony convictions. However, at his punishment hearing, the jury was told that White had sexually assaulted his daughter when she was twelve, that he forced her to perform sex acts on him, and that he offered to pay her $50 per week to perform sexual favors for him on demand. The jury was also told that he allowed teenagers to have parties at his house where alcohol was served, and during one party, he grabbed the breast of a teenage girl. The jury was also told that White had beaten his ex-wife on at least two occasions. White also had several misdemeanor arrests and convictions for driving while intoxicated, public intoxication, and making a false report.

"I don't remember much about it because I was drinking," White told a reporter in an interview from death row the week before his execution. White said that he had been drinking since the age of 13 or 14. "I always bought vodka in half gallons," he said. "I'd drink one of those every three days, and that doesn't count when I'd go to the bar ... At the rate I was drinking, if I hadn't come to prison, I'd probably killed myself, drink myself to death."

"I messed up, that's all there is to it," White said.

White said that he did not want to die, but that the state would be doing him a favor by executing him. "I look at it as relief, just to get out of here," he said. "If they put me to death, it's going to be the easy way out. The hard way would be to have me live here with that."

In May 2003, Charlie Gravell, Jennifer's father, shot himself to death. Jennifer's grandmother, Dottie Elrod, blamed the suicide on Jennifer's murder. "He just couldn't handle it," Elrod told a reporter.

In his last statement, White apologized to Beth Gravell, the victim's mother, who did not attend the execution. "Tell Beth and them I am sorry, truly sorry for the pain I caused your family," White told his victim's mother in his last statement. "I truly mean that, too. She was a friend of mine, and I betrayed her trust." White then expressed love to his friends and family. After reciting the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer from the Bible, White said, "All right warden, let's give them what they want." The lethal injection was started. White said, "I can taste it." He was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m.

By David Carson. Posted on 4 November 2005.
Sources: Texas Attorney General's office, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Associated Press.