Under the glare of television lights in their northeast Houston living room, tearful relatives of Debra Gardner - murdered 16 years ago - shared their anguish Friday over what they considered unwarranted sympathy for Duane Buck, the woman's killer. "Debra wasn't a 'person,' " said her older sister, Accie Smith. "She was a mother. She was a sister. She had children. She had a life. … Now, sister's gone. Mother can't come back." Smith and the victim's other sister, Doris Gardner, until now silent on the controversy surrounding Buck's case, went public with their grief one day after the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Buck's execution to consider whether to review his case. Attorneys for the 48-year-old former auto mechanic contend that testimony in the punishment phase of Buck's 1997 trial was tainted with
lacoste hat inappropriate racial testimony by a defense psychologist. Buck was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die for the killing of Debra Gardner, a 32-year-old mother of two, and her friend, Kenneth Butler. Buck also shot his sister, Phyllis Taylor, in the chest at point-blank range, but she survived. Smith said she is not advocating for Buck's ultimate execution. "Let God's will be done," she said. But, she added, she believes the Supreme Court should consider the "big picture," including the brutality of the murders and their impact on surviving family members. "I have flashbacks," said Debra Gardner's daughter, Shennel Gardner, who was 14 at the time of the killings. "I jumped on his back," she said of the July 30, 1995, attack. "I
new era mlb was begging Duane not to kill her. Duane knew what he was doing." Gardner's daughter said she had considered Buck a "father figure." His violence left her with an emotional void still unfilled. "I don't hate him," she said, adding that she was pained to see the unbridled joy of Buck's relatives upon learning of the Supreme Court stay. Debra Gardner's sisters said they thought media accounts of the legal dueling between prosecutors and Buck's attorneys gave short shrift to the true horror of the crime and the pain they felt. "It victimized us all over again," Smith said. Visited home twice Authorities said Buck visited the home of Gardner, his former girlfriend, twice on the fateful evening. On the second visit, he unleashed a hail of bullets. Gardner's 11-year-old son, Devon, hid as the gunman accosted Butler and accused him of sleeping with his girlfriend. Police reported Buck laughed about the killings as he was arrested and, using a vulgar term, said his ex-girlfriend deserved to die. At the Friday news conference, Doris Gardner accused the media of incompletely reporting the legal battles surrounding Buck's execution. As did state's attorneys, she contended that Buck's
rock star hat case was unlike five other capital cases that former Texas Attorney General John Cornyn red-flagged 11 years ago as racially tainted. In their filings supporting Buck's death sentence, prosecutors argued that five of the identified cases involved racial testimony from psychologist Walter Quijano as a state's witness. Only in Buck's case, they said, was the psychologist a defense witness. Buck's lawyers, in their successful effort to gain their client a stay, countered that two of the five cases were identical to Buck's. Gov. Rick Perry said Friday that he respected the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to block the execution of Buck, who would be the 236th person put to death on his watch. Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and Texas judges have refused to grant requests for a reprieve from Buck. Perry: He's guilty "Whether or not he is guilty is not in question," Perry told reporters while campaigning at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in rural western Iowa. "Clearly he was guilty of murdering two people in the state of Texas. Whether or not the jury process was tainted will be decided by the Supreme Court, and we will respect that." The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
allan.turner@chron.com
Buck's reprieve angers slain victim's family - Houston Chronicle
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