Man faces execution for death of ex-wife and daughter in Dallas

Gary Green will be given a lethal injection in connection with the death in September 2009 of 32-year-old Lovette Armstead and her daughter, Jazmine Montgomery.

HOUSTON. A Texas prisoner faces scheduled execution Tuesday night for stabbing his ex-wife and drowning her 6-year-old daughter in a bathtub almost 14 years ago.

Gary Green, 51, will receive a lethal injection in connection with the September 2009 death of 32-year-old Lovette Armstead and her daughter Jazmine Montgomery at their Dallas home.

The girl’s father, Ray Montgomery, said he does not support Greene’s execution, but sees the justice system at work in it.

“This is justice for the way my daughter was tortured. This is justice for the way Lovett was killed,” Montgomery said.

By the end of Monday, Green’s lawyers had not filed an appeal to stop his execution, which was scheduled for Tuesday evening at the State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.

In previous appeals, Green’s lawyers have said he is mentally handicapped and suffers from a lifelong mental health problem.

“These violations likely rendered (Green) unable to form the intent necessary to commit murder,” Greene’s lawyers wrote in 2018.

These appeals were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower appellate courts.

The High Court banned the death penalty for the mentally handicapped, but not for people with serious mental illness.

Authorities said Green killed the two after Armstead attempted to have their marriage annulled.

On the day of the murders, Armstead wrote two letters to Green telling him that although she loved him, she should “do what is best for me”.

In his own letter, which was angry and incoherent, Green expressed his belief that Armstead and his sons were involved in a conspiracy against him.

“You asked to show the monster, here it is, the monster you made me… 5 lives will be taken today, I am the fifth,” wrote Green.

Armstead was stabbed over two dozen when Greene drowned the jazzmen in the bathtub at home.

Authorities said Green also intended to kill Armstead’s other two sons, then aged 9 and 12. Green stabbed the younger boy, but both survived.

“Said[Green]because we are too young to die and we won’t tell anyone,” the 9-year-old boy told the jury as evidence about how he convinced Green to keep them alive.

Josh Healy, one of the Dallas County District Attorney’s attorneys who convicted Greene, said the boys were incredibly brave.

Green “was an angry boy. It was one of the worst cases he’s ever been involved in,” said Healy, who is now a lawyer in Dallas.

Montgomery said he still has a close relationship with Armstead’s two sons. He said they both lead productive lives and one of them has a jazz-like daughter.

“I think they are still in a lot of pain,” said Montgomery, a special education English teacher.

Montgomery, who is a deacon at his church in Dallas, said he continues to live like his daughter is still here, even throwing parties for her every birthday. He also planned a graduation party for her, including a parade at her grave and a barbecue in the backyard with her family.

“It was my way of dealing with it, to make her feel like she was still there. I once prayed at her grave and told her that I would never let her name die,” Montgomery said.

Green’s execution is the first of two executions scheduled in Texas this week. Another prisoner, Arthur Brown Jr., will be executed on Thursday.

Greene will be the fourth prisoner in Texas and the eighth in the US to be executed this year.

Green is one of six Texas death row inmates involved in a lawsuit aimed at preventing the state’s prison system from using obsolete and dangerous drugs for executions. Although an Austin civil court judge tentatively agreed to the claims, three prisoners were executed this year.

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