Johnny Frank Garrett

Ellis Unit, where Garrett was held on death row

Huntsville Unit, where Garrett was put to death

Johnny Frank Garrett (December 24, 1963 – February 11, 1992) was a death row prisoner executed by the state of Texas.^[1]

The state of Texas accused Garrett of committing a murder on October 31, 1981, when he was 17 years old,^[1] According to the prosecution, that morning, Garrett raped, strangled, and killed 76-year-old Sister Tadea Benz in the St. Francis Convent. On November 9, 1981, Garrett, who lived across the street from the convent, was arrested. He was tried and convicted for the crime.^[2]

He was held at Ellis Unit, north of Huntsville, Texas, which at the time held men on the State of Texas's death row.^[3] 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. After Richards's pardon 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 ultimately executed at age 28 at Huntsville Unit, by lethal injection,^[4] on February 11, 1992.^[1]

Director Jesse Quackenbush, a man from Albany, New York who graduated from the University of Houston Law School in 1987 and, that year, moved to Amarillo, made the documentary The Last Word which argues that Garrett was in fact innocent of the crime. He argued that Garrett was the victim of overzealous prosecutors and poor defense attorneys.^[2] It was adapted into the semifictional horror film Johnny Frank Garrett's Last Word.^[5]

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