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.