On November 30, 1989, 16-year-old African American female Bernette Edwards was found murdered in her Houston, Texas apartment alongside her identical twin sister, Annette Edwards, and their mother, Bonita Edwards. The crime scene was discovered by Bonita’s boyfriend, King Solomon, after several days of failed attempts to contact the family. Upon entering the apartment with the help of a maintenance worker, Solomon found all three victims dead.
Houston police arrived shortly after and documented a gruesome scene: Bernette Edwards had been gagged with a towel wrapped around her neck and suffered multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest. Her sister, Annette, was found semi-nude with signs of sexual assault, and their mother, Bonita, was also stabbed to death. Blood was found throughout the apartment, including on the walls, in the bathtub, and in the kitchen sink. There were no signs of forced entry, but the bedroom door had been broken open and the phone was off the hook.
The murders remained unsolved for nearly six years. In July 1995, during an investigation into an unrelated homicide, police received a tip from Tecumseh Manuel, a close associate of Garcia Glen White. Manuel reported that White had confessed to killing the Edwards family. White was arrested the following day. Initially denying involvement, he later admitted to the murders after being shown part of Manuel’s interview. In his videotaped confession, White claimed that he and another man, Terrence Moore, had gone to the apartment to use drugs and have sex with Bonita Edwards. He alleged that Moore stabbed Bonita after a dispute and then attacked the girls. White admitted to fondling one of the girls and ejaculating. However, further investigation revealed that Moore had died four months before the murders, prompting White to revise his statement and confess to acting alone.
DNA evidence supported White’s confession. Semen found on a bedsheet matched White’s DNA, and blood on the same sheet was consistent with either Annette or Bernette Edwards. Bernette, the 16-year-old African American female victim, had a pink shirt wrapped around her neck and through her mouth as a gag, and strong evidence indicated she had been sexually assaulted. White was indicted for the capital murders of the twin sisters in May 1996 and convicted in July of that year. He was sentenced to death and executed in Texas on January 28, 2015. His execution marked the end of a decades-long legal process that included multiple appeals and habeas corpus petitions.
