Melvin White

Melvin Wayne White, 55, was executed by lethal injection on 3 November 2005 in Huntsville, Texas for the kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder of a 9-year-old girl.

On 4 August 1997, White, then 47, was attending a neighborhood barbecue in Ozona. He consumed several alcoholic drinks, then went home between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. Around this time, Jennifer Gravell, who lived two houses away and was also at the party, came over to his house. White then abducted Gravell and drove her in his truck to a roadside rest area north of town. There, he took her behind a water tower, bound her hands behind her back with electrical tape, stuffed a sock in her mouth, and sexually assaulted her with an object - believed by investigators to be a screwdriver - and with his finger. He then hit her on the head six or seven times with a tire tool, crushing her skull.

Witnesses reported seeing White driving a truck with a young blonde girl in the passenger's seat shortly before midnight, and returning home alone after 1:00 a.m. White was arrested, and he confessed. He told police where they could find Gravell's body.

Shoe prints found at the crime scene matched shoes found in White's home. Blood on the shoes matched the victim's DNA. Blood on White's pickup also matched her DNA. Underwear and sandals belonging to the victim were found in a trash container inside White's house, along with a ball of electrical tape that had numerous blonde hairs stuck to it.

A jury convicted White of capital murder in June 1999 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in January 2001. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

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.