Was The Right Man Executed For Sister M. Tadea's Death? Or Was Johnny Frank Garrett Innocent?

Sister M. Tadea 

Martina Benz

She was born in Switzerland on September 21st, 1905.
She was a Roman Catholic nun at the St. Francis Convent in Amarillo, Texas.
On October 31st, 1981, Sister Angela Martinez noticed 76 year old Sister M. Tadea's absence at 6:30 a.m. mass and went to check on her, because she seldom missed chapel.
About 7:00 a.m., Sister Martinez went to Sister Tadea's room on the second floor and found the door closed.
This was unusual, because Tadea was hard of hearing and always left the door ajar to hear the morning buzzer.
Martinez found Tadea's nude body on the floor with her arms outstretched and her face bloody.
Four other nuns wrapped Sister Tadea's body in a sheet, believing she had died in a fall, and cleaned up spots of blood on the floor near her body.

The nuns had the body transported to the funeral home.

An hour later Sister Florantine discovered a broken window unlatched and open, in the community room located on the first floor of the convent.
She realized a break-in had occurred and  called police.
When police arrived at 9 a.m. to investigate the break-in, officers overheard the nuns' conversation about the Tadea's death and decided to investigate.

They recovered bed linens, the victim's night clothes, and a kitchen knife under the bed. 

Fingerprints and palm prints were lifted from the knife blade and handle and from the bed headboard. 

The cut window screen and a second knife, a steak knife, were found in the driveway.

The police recovered her body from the funeral home.

It had been partially cleansed and arterial embalming completed. The autopsy revealed contusions to the head, stab wounds to the chest, and excoriation and abrasive injuries to the front and back of the neck. 

The pathologist, Dr. Erdmann, determined that death was caused by manual strangulation.

The autopsy also revealed evidence of forcible rape. 

There were signs of external bleeding and internal trauma in the vaginal area. 

Tests of vaginal contents revealed the presence of sperm and prostate secretions. 

No test was conducted from the vaginal contents designed to determine the assailant's blood type.

Pubic hairs recovered from the scene.

Prints found on the handle and blade of the kitchen knife recovered from under the victim's bed and prints from the bed headboard matched Johnny Garrett's.

Sister M. Tadea was laid to rest in the Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, Randall County, Texas on November 2, 1981.

Johnny Frank Garrett

He was born on December 24th, 1963 in Oklahoma to Charlotte Jo Cameron.

When as a little boy, Garrett was raped by his stepfather, who then hired him to another man for sex. 

From the age of 14 he was forced to perform bizarre sexual acts and participate in pornographic homosexual films. 

He was first introduced to alcohol and other drugs by members of his family at the age of ten and subsequently indulged in serious substance abuse involving brain-damaging substances such as paint-thinner and amphetamines. 

Garrett was regularly beaten and on one occasion was put upon the burner of a stove, resulting in severe scarring.

On November 9, 1981, Garrett was 17 years old and living across the street from the convent, when he was arrested for Sister Tadea's murder.

Garrett adamantly  denied committing such a horrendous act.

However, his fingerprints were those found on Sister Tadea's headboard and their was a witness claiming to have seen Garrett running away from the convent on the night of the murder.

Authorities also stated that they believed the pubic hairs looked like they came from Garret.
A steak knife found at Garrett's home was similar to the weapon found in the driveway of the convent. 

The police said that he wrote a confession, which he never signed,  saying that he Sister Tadea and choked her to death.

He also told police that she recited the Lord's Prayer during the attack.

Later Garrett said that he was in the convent, but it was 12 hours before the murder.

He stated that he was trying to find something to steal.

Garrett's abusive upbringing and mental health problems were not made available to the jury. 

According to three mental health experts who examined him  was extremely mentally impaired, chronically psychotic and brain-damaged as the result of several severe head injuries he sustained as a child. 

He suffered from paranoid delusions.

One of the experts described Garrett's case as 

"one of the most virulent histories of abuse and neglect...I have encountered in over 28 years of practice."

Garrett was convicted of killing Sister Tadea and was held at Ellis Unit, north of Huntsville, Texas and received the death penalty.

He was originally scheduled to be executed on January 6, 1992, but after Pope John Paul II asked for clemency, Governor of Texas Ann Richards gave him a temporary reprieve.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles held a hearing on whether Garrett should receive a commutation to life in prison but the death sentence was retained by a 17 to nothing vote.

He was executed at age 28 at Huntsville Unit on February 11, 1992 by lethal injection.

Supposedly he left behind a letter, cursing those who wronged him.

HERE ARE SOME OF HIS LETTERS FROM DEATHROW

Jesse Quackenbush

Jesse Quackenbush was hired by Garrett's family and questions whether evidence was ignored, the authenticity of the confession and the handling of DNA evidence.

He points out comparisons between Tadea's slaying and that of Narnie Box Bryson, 77. 

The two were slain three months apart in a similar manner in the same part of town.

In 2004, DNA evidence linked Leoncio Perez Rueda, a Cuban immigrant to the crime the murder of Sister Tadea.

Rueda admitted to sexually assaulting a "nun" four months prior to the rape and murder of another elderly woman, 

Narnie Box Bryson, for which Rueda was convicted. 

Physical evidence also linked Rueda to the crime, such as hairs found at the scene and on a white T-shirt formerly said to be that of Garrett's.

He has never been charged in Sister Tadea's death.