A 64-year-old man is scheduled to be put
to death in Texas on Wednesday, 15 years after authorities say
he fatally shot his estranged wife who told her friends she did
not expect to get out of the abusive marriage alive.
John Gardner is set to be executed by lethal injection at 6
p.m. CDT (2300 GMT) at the state's death chamber in Huntsville
for the murder of his wife Tammy Gardner, 41, in 2005.
Gardner, who a jury found guilty and sentenced to death in
November 2006, would be the first inmate in the United States to
be executed in 2020. Texas has executed more prisoners than any
other state since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty
in 1976.
Soon after Tammy and John Gardner got married in 1999, she
began showing signs of physical abuse that included bruising,
headaches, sleeplessness, anxiety and depression, prosecutors
said.
Her friends told authorities that at one point Tammy had a
black eye after John shoved her into a book case and, in other
instance, she suffered from a large bruise across her face after
he hit her with a hammer, court documents said.
On many occasions, she told friends she would not get out of
her marriage alive, prosecutors wrote in a court document
submitted during a recent appeal.
On Jan. 23, 2005, about a month after she filed for divorce,
Tammy Gardner asked a co-worker to help her "disappear" so no
one could track her. That night, John went to Tammy's home and
shot her once in the head, prosecutors said. She died two days
later at a hospital.
The next day, Gardner turned himself in to police in
Mississippi. Investigators matched evidence from the crime scene
to evidence they found in the truck that he had borrowed from
his brother-in-law, court papers showed.
Prosecutors said Gardner also used his brother-in-law's .44
magnum, which his brother-in-law kept fully loaded with live
bullets under his mattress. When the gun was found back under
the mattress after the crime, it had one spent shell.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Gardner's request to
halt the execution so he could go forward with an appeal on the
grounds that he did not receive adequate representation from his
legal team.