TDCJ to execute two men next week, both claim mental illness
Mar. 3—Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has two executions set for the week with Gary Green on March 7 and Arthur Brown on March 9 at the Huntsville Unit.
Gary Green
Green was sentenced death for killing his wife Lovetta Armstead and her daughter in 2009. According to court records, Green was a general laborer when he stabbed his victim to death and drowned her 6-year-old daughter.
Armstead's two other sons, then 9 and 12 years old, told authorities they persuaded Green not to kill them, though he did stab the younger one in the abdomen, records show.
He had previously been convicted of possession of a controlled substance — cocaine in 1989, receiving four years probation, and aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon in 1990 when hen stabbed his high school girlfriend, receiving a 20 year sentence.
Green's attorneys have argued that was mentally ill and was abused by his father and mother.
Arthur Brown Jr.
Arthur Brown Jr. was convicted of an execution-style slaying of four people inside a Houston home.
According to court records, police said Brown had been buying drugs from Jose Tovar and his wife and that the murders were related to a drug transaction. The victims included Tovar, his 19-year-old pregnant daughter-in-law Jessica Quinones, the neighbor Audrey Brown, and Frank Farias. Two other victim's survived the murder attempt.
Authorities alleged that Brown had two co-defendants in the murders, with his arrest taking place four months later in possession of a loaded 9 mm pistol.
Brown's attorney, Benjamin Wolff alleged in a clemency application in February 2023 that "no jury nor court has ever heard about Mr. Brown's horrific childhood, rife with violence and poverty, or about how before being charged and convicted of this crime, Mr. Brown was on his way to quietly living life with the mother of his children and being the father to them that he never had."
