62nd murderer executed in U.S. in 2000
660th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
31st murderer executed in Texas in 2000
230th murderer executed in Texas since 1976
(Race/Sex/Age at Murder-Execution) |
Birth |
(Race/Sex/Age at Murder) |
Murder |
Murder |
to Murderer |
Sentence |
||||
| David Earl Gibbs W / M / 24 - 39 |
Marietta Bryant W / F / 29 Carol Ackland |
at DOC 03-21-86 | ||||||||
Summary:
David Earl Gibbs was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 1985 murder of 29 year-old Marietta Bryant. Gibbs raped and murdered Bryant and her roommate, Carol Ackland. Gibbs worked and lived at the Conroe, Texas apartment complex where Bryant and Ackland lived. Both women were outpatients of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. Gibbs confessed after his fingerprints were found at the scene and human blood found on his boots. In his statement, Gibbs stated:"While I was having sex with her, I cut her throat. I don't know why I did it." Next, he raped Bryant and slashed her throat with a butcher knife, and ransacked the place to make it look like the women were killed in a burglary. Gibbs was previously convicted of theft robbery and burglary, and on parole after arly release at the time of the murders. In 1990, while in jail for Ms. Bryant's rape and murder, Gibbs was also convicted of voluntary manslaughter for killing another death row inmate, Calvin Williams. Gibbs received a 20 year sentence for that homicide.
Citations:
Gibbs v. State, 819 S.W.2d 821 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (Direct Appeal).
Gibbs v. Johnson, 154 F.3d 253 (5th Cir. 1998) (Habeas).
Internet Sources:
Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Executed Offenders (David Earl Gibbs)
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
MEDIA ADVISORY - David Earl Gibbs Scheduled to be Executed
AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General John Cornyn offers the following information on David Earl Gibbs who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m., Wednesday, August 23:
David Earl Gibbs was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 1985 murder of 29 year-old Marietta Bryant. Gibbs raped and murdered Bryant and her roommate, Carol Ackland. Gibbs worked and lived at the Conroe, Texas apartment complex where Bryant and Ackland lived. Both women were outpatients of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (MHMR). The MHMR caseworker assigned to Bryant and Ackland alerted police after he had been informed that neither of the women had shown up at work for several days. When police, the caseworker and family members of Bryant arrived at the women's apartment, they found Bryant and Ackland dead inside. Their bodies were in an advanced stage of decomposition. Both women's throats were cut. Forensic evidence connected Gibbs to the murders and he was arrested soon thereafter.
EVIDENCE
Gibbs was arrested after police searched his apartment and found a pack of cigarettes that were the same brand as the cigarette butt found at the murder scene. Police went to the residence of Wanda McNeil, a friend of Gibbs. There they found a radio that belonged to Bryant. Gibbs gave a written statement to police admitting to the rape and murder of Marietta Bryant and her roommate Carol Ackland. Gibbs' fingerprints were found on the inside of the front entrance of the door to Bryant and Ackland's apartment. His fingerprints were also found on a band-aid box taken from the crime scene. Police found a pair of boots in Gibbs' apartment with human blood on them. Police interviewed a friend of Gibbs who had been with him the night of the murders. Gibbs' friend told police that Gibbs was wearing boots that night and that Gibbs left the bar around midnight. The friend told police that when Gibbs returned, he was wearing different clothes and shoes.
APPEALS TIME-LINE
June 19, 1991- Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Gibbs' conviction and death sentence.
Feb. 12, 1992 - Supreme Court denied his petition for writ of certiorari.
Mar. 16, 1992 - Trial court set an execution date of April 20, 1992.
April 16, 1992 - Gibbs filed his first application for state writ of habeas corpus.
April 16, 1992 - The trial court modified Gibbs' execution date to June 2, 1992.
May 27, 1992 - Trial court stayed Gibbs' execution pending resolution of state habeas.
Aug. 1, 1994 - Trial court recommends that relief be denied.
Oct. 12, 1994 - Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief by written order.
Jan. 17, 1995 - Trial court set Gibbs' execution date for July 18, 1995.
July 5, 1995 - Gibbs files his second state habeas application.
July 14, 1995 - Trial court recommends that relief be denied.
July 15, 1995 - Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief and denied stay of execution.
July 17, 1995 - Gibbs filed a federal petition for writ of habeas corpus. Execution stayed.
May 15, 1997 - District court entered final judgment denying habeas relief.
July 29, 1997 - District court denied permission to appeal.
Sept. 8, 1998 - Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied permission to appeal.
Jan. 25, 1999 - Gibbs filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court which was denied on April 26, 1999. Gibbs then filed his third state habeas application.
April 5, 1999 - Court of Criminal Appeals found that the application was properly filed and remanded to the trial court. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing and recommended on Feb. 8, 2000 that relief be denied.
April 5, 2000 - Court of Appeals denied Gibbs' subsequent habeas application as abuse of writ.
July 5, 2000 - Gibbs filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. Gibbs also sought permission to file a second federal habeas writ from the Fifth Circuit on June 28, 2000. Both cases are currently pending.
CRIMINAL HISTORY
Gibbs was previously convicted of theft of a motor vehicle, auto theft, robbery and burglary. He was jailed in Michigan for the theft of a motor vehicle charge and was jailed in Texas for the robbery conviction. In 1990, while in jail for Ms. Bryant's rape and murder, Gibbs was also convicted of voluntary manslaughter for killing another death row inmate. Gibbs received a 20 year sentence for that homicide.
David Earl Gibbs is on death row for the July 1, 1985, slayings of Marietta Bryant, 29, and Carol Ackland, 46, in Conroe. The women's throats were cut by a butcher knife. Fingerprints linked Gibbs, a maintenance worker at the women's apartment complex, to the crime. Gibbs later pleaded guilty to killing black death row inmate Calvin Williams, 30, whom Gibbs said he strangled in a recreation yard as an "initiation hit" into a racist prison gang. These murders were committed a year and a half after Gibbs was paroled after serving only nine months of a five year sentence for robbery and theft.
Texas Execution Information Center
David Gibbs David Earl Gibbs, 39, was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, 23 August, in Huntsville, Texas, for the murder of two mentally ill women in their apartment. In July 1985, Gibbs, then 24, barged into the Conroe apartment of Marietta Bryant, 29, and Carol Ackland, 46. Both women had mental and emotional health problems and had recently been released from a mental hospital. Bryant was depicted in court testimony as having the emotional maturity of an adolescent. Some reports say that Gibbs, who lived in the same apartment complex, was a nursing aide who worked with mentally ill people. By other reports, he was employed as a maintenance man at the apartments. Gibbs got into an argument with Ackland and forced her to have sex with him. Then, in the words of his written statement to police, "While I was having sex with her, I cut her throat. I don't know why I did it." Next, he raped Bryant and slashed her throat with a butcher knife, and ransacked the place to make it look like the women were killed in a burglary.The women's bodies were discovered two weeks later by their caseworker, who went to the apartment after becoming concerned that they had not reported to their jobs. Gibbs' fingerprints were found on the entrance the apartment,as well as inside. Police searched Gibbs' apartment and found a pack of cigarettes that matched the brand of a butt found at the murder scene. A radio belonging to one of the dead women was found at Gibbs' girlfirend's home.
Gibbs was arrested at the home of a friend in Cleveland, Texas a month after the killings, and gave police a voluntary statement. He was found guilty of killing Marietta Bryant and sent to death row without being tried for killing Carol Ackland.
Gibbs had been in prison in Michigan from 1978 to 1980 for auto theft. In March 1981, he began serving three years of a five-year sentence in Texas for robbery and theft. He was paroled in January 1984.
In an interview several years ago, Gibbs described himself as a "country gentleman." "This is a blow to everything I believe in," he said. "I don't believe in hitting women. But for me to turn around and rape and murder two women ... the point is, I did it."
In 1990, Gibbs was involved in the death of a fellow death-row inmate. Calvin Williams was strangled with a rope in a recreation yard. Gibbs told investigators he helped Williams commit suicide. One report says he was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter; another says he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. In any case, he received another 20-year sentence.
At his execution, Gibbs told Mickey Bryant, Marietta's brother, "I have wronged you and your family, and for that I am truly sorry. I forgive and have been forgiven." He was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.
Afterwards, Mickey Bryant told a reporter, "the apology doesn't cover the crime that he committed. He needed to die for that crime. But, I did appreciate the statement and the fact that in his mind, he has been forgiven as best as I understood it and I hope that's the case. The Lord will judge in the end, and whether or not he truly repented as was forgiven, in my mind, he paid the price he needed to pay. I guess if I was a vindictive person, I would think that he should die in the way that he murdered Marietta ... (but) we live in a humane society and that's the humane way to do it."
David Earl Gibbs has been on death row in Texas for the past twelve years following his conviction by a jury for raping and cutting the throat of Marietta Bryant in the course of a burglary of her apartment in Conroe, Texas, on the night of July 1, 1985. Gibbs also raped and killed Carol Ackland, Ms. Bryant's roommate that evening in the apartment, but the state charged only the assault and death of Marietta Bryant.
Gibbs petitions the federal courts to set aside his conviction and sentences contending the State of Texas violated his constitutional rights in two ways: the prosecution failed to disclose evidence relevant to the jury's sentencing decision, and the state trial judge admitted evidence of an offense for which he had been found innocent. Gibbs also urges that the federal district court denied Gibbs the opportunity to conduct discovery in support of his federal habeas petition. The United States District Court denied relief and refused a certificate of probable cause. After briefing and oral argument we also refuse the certificate.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Gibbs's conviction and sentence on direct appeal, Gibbs v. State, 819 S.W.2d 821 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991), and the Supreme Court denied his petition for writ of certiorari on February 24, 1995. Judge Olen Underwood of the 284th District Court, Montgomery County, Texas, recommended denial of Gibbs's Second Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus on July 14, 1995, and Gibbs filed his federal petition three days later. The federal district court denied relief on May 15, 1997, and refused to issue a certificate of probable cause, but left its stay of execution in place. Gibbs filed his Application for Certificate of Probable Cause on November 24, 1997. Briefing was completed on April 20, 1998, and we heard argument on August 17, 1998.
"Former Nursing Aide Set to Die for Rape-Slayings," by Michael Graczyk. (Associated Prss)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Convicted killer David Earl Gibbs headed to the Texas death chamber Wednesday evening for raping and slitting the throat of a Conroe woman, slain along with her roommate 15 years ago.
Prosecutors described him as a cold, cunning killer who smoked a cigarette over one of the bodies. Police called the rampage one of the worst crimes in Conroe's history. Marietta Bryant, 29, and her roommate, Carol Ackland, 46, were killed in similar fashion July 1, 1985. Gibbs, 39, was condemned for the Bryant murder and was not tried for Ackland's death. Both women had been released recently from hospitals after treatment for mental health and emotional problems. Court documents describe Bryant of having the maturity of an adolescent. They lived in the same apartment complex as Gibbs, who worked as a nursing aide with mentally ill people. While on death row, Gibbs pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and picked up an additional 20-year sentence for killing another condemned murderer.
Gibbs would be the 31st Texas prisoner put to death this year, the fifth this month and second in as many days. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Gibbs' final appeals Wednesday afternoon. Another convicted murderer, Richard Wayne Jones, was executed Tuesday evening for the abduction and stabbing death of Tammy Livingston, a 27-year-old Tarrant County woman, 14 years ago. Neither of the executions attracted the attention given to condemned killer Gary Graham, whose claims of innocence and an unfair trial put the focus on Texas as the nation's most active capital punishment state and support of the death penalty by Gov. George W. Bush, now the Republican presidential nominee.
The women's caseworker, concerned after they had not reported for their jobs on a highway litter cleanup crew, went to their apartment and discovered the bodies nearly two weeks after they had been killed. Gibbs was arrested after police searched his apartment and found a pack of cigarettes that matched the brand of a cigarette butt found at the murder scene. His fingerprints also were found at the victims' apartment and a radio belonging to one of the dead women was discovered at the home of Gibbs' girlfriend. After his arrest, he gave police a statement acknowledging barging into the apartment, getting into an argument and forcing Ackland to have sex with him. “While I was having sex with her, I cut her throat,” he wrote. “I don't know why I did it.”
Then he killed Bryant, he said, and ransacked the place to make it look like a burglary had occurred. “This is a blow to everything I believe in,” Gibbs, who declined to speak with reporters in the weeks leading up to his execution date, said in an interview with The Associated Press several years ago. “I don't believe in hitting women. But for me to turn around and rape and murder two women ... The point is I did it. “We can blame it on my past, but that doesn't take away what I did,” said Gibbs, who described himself as a “country gentleman.”
After his release from a Michigan prison in 1980 on a two-year sentence for auto theft, the 10th-grade dropout from Florida was sentenced the following year in Texas for robbery and theft in Galveston County. He was freed after serving less than three years of a five-year term. In the prison slaying, death row inmate Calvin Williams was strangled with a rope in a recreation yard in 1990.
At least eight other prisoners have execution dates through the end of the year, including Jeffrey Caldwell, set to die Aug. 30 for the 1988 hammer slayings of his father, mother and sister at their home in Dallas. If all nine, including Gibbs, are put to death, the number of executions this year would top the record 37 that were carried in 1997.