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       #Post#: 415--------------------------------------------------
       ~ John Gardner, 15Jan20, (TX) ~
       By: BuzzC Date: January 16, 2020, 5:24 pm
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       Texas man executed for murdering wife in 2005--
       Thursday, January 16, 2020
       A Texas inmate apologized to his wife’s family for murdering her
       in 2005 before he was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.
       John Gardner, 64, received a lethal injection at the state
       penitentiary in Huntsville for the January 2005 fatal shooting
       of Tammy Gardner. Prosecutors said the couple was getting
       divorced when Gardner broke into his wife's North Texas home and
       shot her in the head as she lay sick in bed. She died two days
       later at a hospital.
       Asked if he had any last words, Gardner apologized to his wife's
       son, daughter and mother.
       "I would like to say sorry for your grief," he said. "I hope
       what I'm doing today will give you peace, joy, closure, whatever
       it takes to forgive. I am sorry. I know you cannot forgive me,
       but I hope one day you will."
       Gardner became the first inmate put to death this year in Texas
       and the U.S.,. Seven other executions are scheduled in the next
       few months in Texas.
       
       Prosecutors at trial described the marriage between John and
       Tammy Gardner as short but violent. She was Gardner's fifth
       wife. The couple married in 1999.
       "He was a classic abuser," said Curtis Howard, who was one of
       the prosecutors for the Collin County District Attorney's
       Office.
       Friends and family of Tammy Gardner, 41, testified that she
       lived in constant fear of John Gardner, who would hit and choke
       her and threaten her with a gun. She had wanted to divorce him
       but was afraid he would kill her if she left, they said.
       In December 2004, Tammy Gardner filed for divorce after
       borrowing money from her company to do so. But around midnight
       on Jan. 23, 2005, just 15 days before the divorce became final,
       John Gardner drove from Mississippi, broke into her home in
       Anna, Texas, and shot her in the head.
       Tammy Gardner called 911 and was hospitalized. She soon went
       into a coma and was taken off life support two days later.
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