Execution Report: John Satterwhite

John Thomas Satterwhite, 53, was executed by lethal injection on 16 August in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a convenience store clerk.

In March 1979, Satterwhite, then 32, and Sharon Renne Bell, 23, robbed a San Antonio convenience store at gunpoint. Satterwhite shot the clerk, Mary Francis Davis, after she gave the robbers $600 from the cash register and store vault. The next day, the two were pulled over for speeding. Officers found a gun in their car. Bell said it was hers and was arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon. Later, the gun was determined to be the murder weapon, and Bell fingered Satterwhite as the killer.

In court, Bell testified that as she was leaving the store, she saw Satterwhite hold the gun against Davis' head, she heard Davis plead for her life, then she heard two or three shots. Bell also testified that Davis had fully cooperated with the two, but Satterwhite told her he didn't want to leave any witnesses.

Satterwhite had eight prior arrests and four convictions. He was convicted of robbery in 1970 and given ten years on probation. He was convicted of armed robbery in 1974 and served three years of a six-year prison sentence. His other convictions were for burglary and petty larceny. Satterwhite and Bell were also believed by police to be responsible for a string of other robberies in San Antonio, including another where a clerk was killed.

It was further shown at trial that Satterwhite once burned a prison guard by throwing hot water on him, that he once shot his stepfather, and that three days after Davis' murder -- after Bell had already been arrested -- he was involved in another attempted armed robbery of a liquor store.

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