Rapist-Murderer Is 31st to Be Executed in Texas This Year
A man who raped and murdered two women who had just been released from mental hospitals was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday in the 31st execution this year in Texas, the nation’s leader in capital punishment.
David Gibbs, 39, apologized for the 1985 crime as he lay strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber.
“I have wronged you and your family and for that I am truly sorry. . . . Death is but a brief moment’s slumber and a short journey home. I’ll see you when you get there,” he said.
Gibbs, a former nursing assistant, was condemned for the July 1, 1985, murder of 29-year-old Marietta Bryant at an apartment in the Houston suburb of Conroe. He raped Bryant, then slit her throat with a butcher knife.
Gibbs confessed to also raping and killing Bryant’s roommate, Carol Ackland, 46, but was not tried for the crime.
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