Killer apologizes to victim’s family
                           By Yvonne Mintz - The Facts    Published August 21, 2002

       HUNTSVILLE — A Freeport parolee who betrayed the woman who gave
       him a second chance by killing her daughter apologized to the family and
       blew kisses to his wife before his execution Tuesday.

       The lethal injection ended Gary Wayne Etheridge’s 12-year stint on Texas
       Death Row for the Feb. 2, 1990, sexual assault and murder of
       15-year-old Christie Chauviere in her Tamarind Woods home near
       Richwood.

       “To the victim’s family, I’m sorry for what was taken from you; I hope
       you find peace,” Etheridge said, looking toward the room where Christie
       Chauviere’s sisters and uncle stood with law enforcement officials who
       worked the case.

       Wearing a blue shirt and pants, Etheridge had needles in both arms and
       straps across his arms and chest. His head was freshly shaved.

       He looked toward his wife, who he met and married while on Death Row.

       “To my sweet Claudia, I love you, stay strong, keep building and be
       careful,” Etheridge said. “That’s it.”

       Lethal drugs — sodium thiopental to sedate him, the muscle relaxant
       pancuronium bromide to collapse his diaphragm and lungs and potassium
       chloride to stop his heart beat — flowed through his body at 6:13 p.m.

       “I can feel it burning,” Etheridge said. “I’m getting real dizzy.”

       Etheridge took deep breaths, like snores, gasped a few times, and then
       went still. A doctor pronounced him dead at 6:22 p.m.

       Etheridge was the 22nd inmate to be executed in Texas this year.
       However, he was only the third inmate sentenced to death in Brazoria
       County to be executed since 1976. The last was in 1992.

       On Feb. 2, 1990, Etheridge was high on cocaine and looking for more
       drug money when he robbed the home of his employer, Gail Chauviere.
       He was convicted of stabbing and sexually assaulting Christie Chauviere,
       leaving her to die in the hallway of her home. Gail Chauviere was
       stabbed more than 30 times in the attack, but survived to testify against
       Etheridge.

       Gail Chauviere died a few years ago of liver disease she contracted
       through blood transfusions after the attack.

       Etheridge admitted, in a Death Row interview last week, that he “cut
       Gail’s throat and stabbed her three or four times with a little bitty knife.”
       But he claimed someone else, who he declined to name, stabbed Christie.

       Law enforcement officials have said there was no evidence of a second
       attacker. Eye-witnesses, fingerprints, DNA evidence and Etheridge’s own
       confessions overwhelmingly pointed to his guilt, prosecutors said.

       Christie’s sisters, Cynthia Brecht and Carolyn Barrett, and her uncle,
       Richard Chauviere, declined comment after the execution.

       In previous interviews, they have said lethal injection was too good for
       Etheridge. “He’s getting off easy,” Brecht said in June. “This will be
       like putting a dog to sleep. No pain or suffering like he caused.”

       Etheridge’s wife, a German woman who he met through pen-pal
       correspondence but never saw without Plexiglas between them, was his
       only family member attending the execution. Also on Etheridge’s side, a
       Catholic priest held a cross against the window to the death chamber.

       Etheridge was pleasant when prison officials spoke with him in a holding
       cell at the Huntsville Unit’s Death House before the execution, said
       Larry Fitzgerald, a prison spokesman.

       He ate most of his requested last meal of nachos, french fries, a
       cheeseburger, a fried chicken patty and a cinnamon roll with sides of
       cheese, ketchup and pickles, Fitzgerald said.

       Earlier Tuesday, Etheridge visited with his wife and spoke to his
       brother, Ellis Michael Etheridge, by phone, Fitzgerald said.
       Ellis Michael Etheridge is serving a 99-year sentence at another
       Huntsville prison for burglary of a building and injury to a child.

       In his last interview, last week, Etheridge said he was ready to die and
       that he had been saved.

       “I’m more than excited to get out of this tired, old, fat body,”
       Etheridge said. “They can’t kill the spirit.”

       Etheridge’s body will be taken to the east Texas town of Van for
       cremation, Fitzgerald said. His wife plans to take his ashes home with
       her to Germany.

       The execution proceeded after Etheridge’s attorney received word the
       U.S. Supreme Court had declined to review his case.

       Jim Marcus, who represented Etheridge for the nonprofit Texas Defender
       Service, had complained jurors were unable to consider Etheridge’s
       childhood abuse and drug addition when deciding between death and life
       in prison.

       Etheridge had been scheduled to die at least twice before. Reprieves
       postponed execution dates in 2000 and in June.

       By prison system statistics, Etheridge was an average inmate.

       His time at almost 12 years on Death Row is just above the 10.6 year
       average length of stay. He was 38, just below the average age of 39 for
       executed offenders.

       But his crime stood out in Brazoria County as one of the worst even
       experienced lawmen can remember. The bloody scene told of a massive
       struggle.

       Gail Chauviere had helped Etheridge, keeping him on as a maintenance
       worker at condominiums she owned in Surfside Beach after discovering
       he was on parole for stabbing an inmate while both were in prison.

       Etheridge had served less than half of his 10-year sentence when he was
       paroled in January 1990.

       Some in law enforcement have said Etheridge’s release was symptomatic
       of a dark time in Texas justice, when some inmates were released quickly
       to make room in prison for the most violent offenders.

       “That was during a period in our criminal justice system where we had a
       revolving door going on,” said Sweeny Police Chief Gary Stroud, who
       worked the case for the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department and was
       present at the execution. “I’m not sure he should have been walking
       around anywhere.”

       On Tuesday, law enforcement officials in Brazoria County expressed
       relief but not joy.

       “The cycle of the justice system in this particular case has been
       completed,” said Chief Deputy Charles Wagner of the Brazoria County
       Sheriff’s Department. “There’s not a feeling of satisfaction. There’s a
       feeling that it’s finally all over with.”

                                            From The Facts: http://www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?wcd=4607

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A man convicted of sexually abusing and killing a 15-year-old girl in a 1990 attack was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday in a Texas state prison.

 Gary Etheridge, 38, was the 22nd person put to death this year in Texas, the nation's leader in capital punishment.

Etheridge was condemned for stabbing to death Christi Chauviere on Feb. 2, 1990, while also stabbing her mother at their home near Surfside, south of Houston, and stealing money.

Police said the girl was sexually assaulted with a knife during the attack. Her mother, Gail Chauviere, was stabbed repeatedly, but lived to testify against Etheridge.

He originally was set to die in June, but the execution date was canceled because Etheridge's lawyers complained that the judge who signed his death warrant called their client "a piece of trash." The case was transferred to another judge who rescheduled the execution.

In a final statement while strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber, Etheridge said: "To the victim's family, I'm sorry for what was taken from you. I hope you find peace."

He also addressed his wife, Claudia, who witnessed the execution, saying: "To my sweet Claudia, I love you, stay strong ... be careful. I love you. I'm through."

For his final meal, Etheridge requested nachos with cheese and peppers, crispy French fries, a cheeseburger, a fried chicken patty, a cinnamon roll and cheese, ketchup and pickles on the side.

He was the 278th person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court ( news - web sites) lifted a national death penalty ban.

Killer of Brazoria County girl executed
Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE -- Convicted killer Gary Wayne Etheridge was executed in the
Texas death chamber this evening for the fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old
Brazoria County girl more than a dozen years ago while the then-paroled
burglar said he was high on drugs.

Etheridge, 38, acknowledged knifing the girl's mother, who hired him as
a maintenance worker despite knowing his criminal past, but said he
wasn't responsible for killing Christie Chauviere at her Brazoria County
home.

Etheridge was the 22nd Texas inmate put to death this year and the
fourth this month. Last year, 17 prisoners were executed in Texas. A
record 40 were put to death in 2000.

"I've been a criminal all my life," Etheridge said from death row. "I
was there. I done wrong and I feel responsible but I did not kill the
girl."

The U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, refused today to stop the
punishment. His appeals attorneys had argued in appeals that earlier
lawyers did not provide him competent help.

It was the second time in recent months the former maintenance man
prepared for death.

A day before Etheridge was scheduled to die in June, the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals halted the punishment after his attorneys complained
the judge who signed his death warrant once called him "a piece of
trash" and was biased against Etheridge.

A new judge was assigned to his case and reset the execution date for
Tuesday.

Etheridge, with a history of theft and burglary convictions, was on
parole for about six weeks after serving part of a 10-year term for
burglary when he showed up at the home of Gail Chauviere.

Chauviere had given him a job at a condominium she managed near
Surfside, about 60 miles south of Houston. Etheridge said he demanded
money "to fill a hole for drugs" and he knew the woman carried in a bag
some cash received from tenants.

When Chauviere resisted, she was stabbed. Her daughter, Christie, also
was assaulted and fatally stabbed with a knife.

"I never intended to hurt everyone," Etheridge said. "I cut and stabbed
Gail with a little bitty pocket knife."

Etheridge, who started using cocaine at age 17, said he probably was
high on drugs at the time and she fought as he tried to put the woman in
a closet.

"She kicked me and it hurt," he said.

Etheridge drove off in the woman's car. A neighbor found Chauviere,
seriously wounded with at least 30 stab sounds, and her daughter. The
girl had been bound with a telephone cord and fatally stabbed several
times in the chest. The high school freshman also had been sexually
abused with an object.

Five days later, after wrecking the car in Mobile, Ala., Etheridge was
arrested while hitchhiking south of Houston. He told police he was
heading back to Brazoria County to turn himself in, apologized to the
arresting officer for killing the girl and gave a written statement that
he committed the murder.

In a death row interview, Etheridge blamed the slaying on a companion.

"I was not alone," he said. "I'm not an innocent person by any means,
but I did not kill Christie."

At his trial, however, Gail Chauviere identified him as the lone
attacker.

"We were very fortunate to have a surviving eyewitness," said Jim Mapel,
who prosecuted Etheridge. "This little girl's mother was cut to
ribbons."

Authorities said Etheridge discovered where the woman lived because a
week before the attack, Chauviere and her daughter called him over to
give him a puppy. Chauviere died years later of a liver disease believed
related to injuries suffered in the assault.

Another execution is set for next week. A Dallas man, Toronto Patterson,
was scheduled to die Aug. 28 for killing a 3-year-old Dallas girl in a
shooting rampage that also claimed the lives of the girl's mother and a
6-year-old sister. Patterson was 17 at the time of the crime.
 

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