By Joseph Brown
The Huntsville Item
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A man linked to a 1993 murder through DNA evidence is scheduled to be the last inmate executed by the state of Texas in 2018.
Alvin Braziel Jr., 43, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at the Huntsville “Walls” Unit. He would be the 13th inmate put to death by the state this year.
Braziel has been incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston since 2001 for the murder of 27-year-old Douglas White.
Court testimony states that, on Sept. 21, 1993, Douglas and his newlywed wife, Lora, were walking along a jogging trail at Eastfield College in Mesquite. While walking along the trail, a man, later identified as Braziel, stepped out from behind the bushes and pointed a gun at from behind the bushes and pointed a gun at them.
According to court records, the man demanded money from the young couple. Lori testified that she and her husband prayed during the robbery. “Where’s your God at now?” Braziel asked before shooting Douglas twice.
Braziel would then drag Lora behind some bushes and sexually assault her before running off. Douglas died from his injuries and Lora survived to report the incident to law enforcement.
The case went unsolved for years, until DNA evidence taken from the female victim linked Braziel to the crime. At the time Braziel was serving a five-year sentence in TDCJ custody for sexual assault of a child. During his trial, Braziel maintained that he did not kill Douglas.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Braziel’s last round of appeals in 2016. As of Saturday afternoon, there were no pending appeals in the Supreme Court.