“Mr. Bryant, I have wronged you and your family and for that I am truly sorry. I forgive and I have been forgiven. Death is but a brief moment’s slumber and a short journey home. I’ll see you when you get there. I am done, warden.”

— David Gibbs, convicted of murder, lethal injection,Texas.
Executed August 23, 2000

Gibbs, a self-described country gentleman, confessed to the rape and murders of two mentally handicapped women. In the end, he expressed regret, apologizing to Mickey Bryant, brother of one of the victims. “I don’t believe in hitting women,” Gibbs insisted before he was executed.

“There is no man that is free from all evil, nor any man that is so evil to be worth nothing.”

— David Castillo, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed August 23, 1998

Castillo, an Illinoisan, served time in prison for aggravated robbery and was released on a bench warrant before being convicted for stabbing a liquor store cashier, fifty-nine-year-old Clarencio Champion, during a robbery. After Castillo demanded cash, the clerk resisted, and Castillo stabbed him in the chest and abdomen and slashed him across the face. The victim died a week later.

“I’m an African warrior, born to breathe and born to die.
[After a pause:] I feel the poison running now.”

— Carl Kelly, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed August 20, 1993

Kelly, initially sentenced to prison for robbery, was released before the end of his term but couldn’t maintain his good behavior on the outside. Within the year, he was wanted for robbery and multiple murders. Kelly was convicted of capital murder for shooting a convenience store clerk and another man, then throwing their bodies off a cliff. His accomplice received a life sentence for murder with a deadly weapon.