Gary Etheridge

 On February 2nd, 1990 Christie Chauviere and Gail Chauviere were robbed and stabbed at their home in Richwood, Texas. Gary Etheridge worked at the condominiums that Gail managed. Gary was the maintenance worker.

  Gary refused to name who was with him at the crime because under Texas law all offenders at the scene of the crime can get a death sentence. For this reason, Gary gave the police several versions of the events of the crime and demanded that the police release Gary’s former wife, Teresa, from jail as she had also been charged with the crime. The police had taken Gary’s infant daughter (9 months) and hid her away from everyone. Gary signed a statement about the crime that the police wrote to fit what they needed Gary to admit to. This was done in a deal to release Teresa and give Brittany, their daughter, back to Teresa. Gary refused to name the other offender at the scene of the crime. The written statement did not include that Gary killed a girl. Gary did not confess at any time that he killed Christie Chauviere. He confessed and always referred to the robbing and stabbing of Gail Chauviere, but he never, at any time, touched Christie, Gail’s daughter.

 A few days after the crime, Gary had heard that the police wanted him for murder charges, so Gary was on the way back to turn himself in to the police and explain that he did not kill Christie, but that he did stab and rob Gail. The Houston SWAT police caught Gary walking down the highway and picked him up. The police demanded his name and were very aggressive. This frightened Gary. As a consequence, he lied and said his name was other than Gary.

 The SWAT police put handcuffs on Gary and began demanding answers to their questions. Gary told them he did not ever touch the girl, Christie, but, that he did stab Gail and was on his way to report this to the police. The police were not satisfied with Gary’s answers, so they took him to the woods and began slapping and beating him until he agreed to answer in a satisfactory manner. After several minutes of being beaten and hit, Gary agreed to answer in whatever way they wanted, but continued to ask for a lawyer. The police did not respond to this request.

 Police officers had married into the Chauviere family. Gail’s two older daughters are / were married to police officers who worked for the sheriff‘s office where the SWAT police delivered Gary. Inside the police station family members of the victim who were police officers themselves were being physically restrained. However, they used foul language and threatened to get a hold of Gary. The police used this intimidating situation to force Gary to endure another four hours of police harassment to force him to answer questions. In his answers Gary again and again tried to explain that he did not stab Christie and that he was not alone at the robbery at the Chauviere home. The police interrogated him about the other criminal, but Gary refused to say the name and the police put all blame on Gary alone.

This was when Gary signed the statement that the police wrote to get Teresa out of jail and get Brittany handed back to her. Teresa was also pregnant with Gary’s second daughter.

The reason that the police suspected Gary in this crime was because of the fact that they found the car, which Gary had been driving, in the driveway of the Chauviere home, . The car was owned by Teresa’s brother. When the police questioned him about his part in the crime (they thought he had done it), he told them that he knew Christie and went to school with her but that he did not do the crime. He told them that Gary and Teresa Etheridge had bought the car from him.

Gary has always taken responsibility for his part of the crime - robbing and stabbing Gail Chauviere. Gail is Christie’s mom. Gail testified at the trial that Gary stabbed and robbed her but that she never saw Gary stab Christie. Gail also testified that, when she came home after a few minutes after Gary‘s arrival at her home, that she saw his car in the driveway and that both doors were open. This is also a clue that a second person was at the crime scene.

Gail was stabbed with Gary’s small folding pocketknife in a rear room of the house. Christie was stabbed to death with a very large knife in the front room of the house.

Gary passed a lie detector test saying that he did not stab or kill Christie Chauviere and that he only stabbed and robbed Gail Chauviere.

Because there was no evidence at all to convict Gary, the police produced a drop of Gary’s blood that they claim was found on Christie’s shirt and used this to support their accusation that Gary stabbed Christie and Gail at the same time in the same room with the same knife. The drop of blood was found on Christie’s shirt, which was soaked with her blood to a point that to single out one small drop of blood is impossible. Strangely this one small drop of blood was the only drop of Gary’s blood found near Christie and no other blood drops were tested!

A proper DNA test will prove that Gary did not leave his blood on Christie and was not bleeding until he went outside to start the car. It did not start. So while the other suspect  tried starting the car, Gary went into the garage and got jumper cables and cut his finger while cutting the strap off the cable binders. Gary’s blood is in the garage and on the cables.

Because there is no evidence at all to blame Gary for the murder of Christie, the police developed a theory. They claim that everything happened in the front room but the crime photo’s and blood splatters and Gail herself prove that Gail was in the back of the house and Christie was in the front part of the house. It is not possible for one to stab two women at the same time with two different knives in two separate rooms .

 The judge in this trial has always hated Gary since he was a kid. He called Gary all sorts of names when he pronounced the death sentence. The judge even stood up and incited the jury and spectators to clap and cheer when he said that Gary was going to die because he is nothing but trash.

 That judge put lawyers on Gary’s case to cheat Gary out of an effective defense. He wanted the lawyers to rush the case through very fast and keep Gary from telling his part of the actual events. Gary cussed and made a scene when the lawyers refused to allow him to take the witness stand and tell what really happened. Gary wanted to tell the jury what happened - that the blood drop is not his and that the police beat him and forced him to sign a confession that they had written.

 The judge appointed these particular lawyers to keep Gary quiet, rush the case, forfeit Gary’s rights and allow the judge and prosecution to get away with all sorts of improper behavior and cheating and lying ways. Poor with no money and no help at all, Gary was totally alone against the entire state of Texas.

 After the trial the same judge forced Gary to have the same two-faced lawyers to make his first appeal. It was rushed and ruined as well.

 On the second appeal the judge appointed a young two-faced, incompetent and inexperienced lawyer (it was his first death penalty case after final examination) on the case. Gary resisted, filed complaints and fought for his rights because the second appeal is the state habeas corpus and ALL PROOF AND ALL CLAIMS must be made at the second appeal. The judge put this moron lawyer on Gary’s case to again rush and keep Gary from developing the truth in the case. This state habeas appeal was rushed, nothing at all was developed and the court ruled against Gary quickly.

 The judge attempted to appoint the same lawyer for Gary’s federal appeal. Gary flatly refused, filed a complaint and managed to find the help of a friend in Luxembourg. The friend hired a very good lawyer to make a fair and fully developed appeal for Gary in federal court. This new lawyer did develop everything and is the one that gave Gary the lie detector test, which Gary passed.

This new lawyer also proved how the state cheated and lied about the drop of blood they claim was Gary’s blood, how they kept Gary from telling the full story and how the police had lied, cheated and forced Gary to sign the a confession they had written.

The federal court acknowledges that all of these things the new lawyer developed were reasonable and should have been developed by the first and second appeal lawyers. But because they were not raised sooner the court is not allowed to consider them due to new federal laws that push death cases through the court very fast and limits what a convict can claim. If the claims were not made at trial, nor at the first and second appeals, then they are lost forever. The judge knew this and that‘s why he put the two-faced lawyers on Gary’s case in the first place to cheat Gary out of a fair trial.

Because of those special federal limits, Gary’s case was rushed through federal court and never allowed to be properly developed or recognized.

Gary was 40 hours from being strapped on a table and killed by lethal injections on November 8th, 2000. In the 11 years on death row Gary has had very little help and no contact with family or his former wife. Teresa married after a couple of years and is doing fine. Their daughters, Brittany and Brandi, are doing very well and that is what is important to Gary.

Gary has also remarried. Claudia and Gary fell in love, are recently married and are doing fine under the circumstances. They share as many visits as possible but since Claudia still lives in Germany, it is difficult at times.

Since all other lawyers had abandoned Gary after court refused to hear his case, Claudia is the one that managed to save Gary’s life at the last possible moment by finding a new lawyer to file and stop the execution . Claudia made a frantic move that got a good lawyer who saved Gary’s life by filing new appeals to the state court about his claims. The state court stopped Gary’s execution and is now considering whether or not to grant Gary a new and fair second state appeal, which is the state habeas corpus.

The former lawyers ruined the first state habeas corpus. The new lawyer has asked the court to allow Gary a fair state habeas appeal in order to develop all of Gary’s proof and claims. This lawyer cannot continue as Gary’s lawyer for free. When Gary gets the new state habeas corpus, he and Claudia will need to be ready to hire a competent and professional lawyer to handle the state habeas corpus.

The proper state habeas corpus will result in a new trial and a new trial will result in Gary being punished and sentenced for what he actually did to Gail rather than for what he did not do to Christie.

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