| Return to Brian Davis' Homepage |
Inmates on Texas' death
row leave behind immeasurable pain
and countless victims
- including their own families
On a recent August evening,
16-year-old T.J. Davis retreated to his room,
stretched his 6-foot
frame across his bed and stared silently at the
greeting card that lay
on a nearby end table. Finally, he picked it up,
propped it against one
of his textbooks and began to write. The A-and-B
Richland High School
student wished his father happy birthday, wrote of
having run well in the
previous weekend's cross-country meet, of the
sophomore classes in
which he was enrolled and of his church activities.
In a postscript, he recounted
a recent fishing trip with his grandfather.
It was a card he didn't think he'd ever send.
Just weeks earlier, his
dad, a man who's never played pitch with him,
who's never taken him
fishing or to a ball game, had been scheduled to
make the 45-minute trip
from the Texas prison system's death row to The
Walls unit in Huntsville,
where he was to be executed as punishment for
the brutal stabbing murder
of an Humble man 11 years ago.
The date, as fate would
have it, coincided with the 1st day of the new
school year his son had
been eagerly anticipating. Yet young Davis,
wishing to join other
family members in a final goodbye visit, had
already made arrangements
for an excused absence. Then, just days before
the execution was scheduled,
inmate Brian Edward Davis received a
stay--his second since
being sentenced to die by lethal injection--when
the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals ordered his trial court to conduct a
hearing to determine
whether he is, as his lawyers claim, mentally
retarded. Earlier in
the year, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that
executing the mentally
retarded violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on
cruel and unusual punishment.
And just a week before Davis' scheduled
execution date, Curtis
Moore, convicted in Fort Worth of 3 1995
homicides, had been granted
a stay for the same reason.
So Davis would live to
see his 34th birthday and receive the card sent by
a son whose own life
would, at least for the time being, return to a
semblance of adolescent
normalcy.
T.J., meanwhile, tries
not to think about the possibility that the day
will eventually come
when there will be no more postponements, no more
prison visits, no reason
to mail a birthday card. "What I do," the polite
teen-ager says, "is keep
my mind occupied with other things." He studies
hard in the evenings,
reports to school at 6:45 every morning for
pre-class practice with
his fellow cross-country runners, takes his
responsibilities as a
church youth group leader seriously and enjoys an
active social life.
He talks of college and
one day becoming a lawyer. Or perhaps a fireman.
But seldom of his incarcerated
father. Friends and classmates don't know
that his dad is a convicted
murderer. Nor do his teachers.
Recently, he sat mute
and angry as fellow students, asked to take a straw
vote on the death penalty,
voted overwhelmingly in favor of it. "I just
laid my head down on
my desk and didn't say anything," he recalls.
Though he has seen photographs
of his dad holding him as an infant and
heard his mother tell
stories of Brian changing his diapers and feeding
him late-night bottles,
T.J., only 3 when his father was first
incarcerated, has no
firsthand memory of a relationship that doesn't
involve a prison environment.
In the years since his 1st trip as an
11-year-old elementary-school
student with no real understanding of the
place or why his dad
was there, T.J. has become increasingly comfortable
with the routine. "I
look forward to going down there," he says. "I
always look forward to
seeing him."
They talk of the outside
world T.J. is growing up in, the father always
warning the son to avoid
the pitfalls of his own youth; they talk about
T.J.'s plans for the
future, about the Bible. They share jokes.
One of the things the
youngster notices as he looks around the visiting
area is the absence of
other teen-agers. "I see older people--mothers and
fathers and wives--and
a lot of small children," he says, "but hardly
ever is there anyone
my age." Is it because of the discomfort so many
feel inside a prison
visiting room? Are peer-conscious teen-agers
embarrassed to make such
trips? Or are they simply rebelling against a
person they feel has
shamed them?
"I don' t know," T.J.
says with a shrug. "All I know is that I love my
dad, and if the only
way I can spend time with him is to go where he is,
that's what I'll do."
He often makes the trip
with his grandfather, an ex-Marine who lives in
rural Tarrant County.
"Sometimes the visits are really difficult," says
54-year-old Jim Davis.
"From the drive down to the return home, you're
riding an emotional roller
coaster." Even before he arrives at the
Livingston prison, Davis
knows he'll not shake his son's hand or be
allowed to embrace him.
They'll be separated by glass, talking on phones
for a maximum of two
hours. In 11 years of twice-a-month visits, the
father and inmate son
have never touched. "You try to make it as good a
time as possible," Jim
Davis says, "but sometimes it's hard."
The pain he's seen on
his grandson's face always lingers with him as they
drive away from the prison.
Almost without exception,
Jim returns home mentally drained and
physically exhausted.
The worst, he says, came in May, on the day Brian
had first been scheduled
to die. There were tears and laughter, prayers
and painful goodbyes.
Brian talked at length with T.J., encouraging him
to continue his education
and make something of his life. "He was trying
so hard to be strong
for everyone," says Pam Davis, Jim's wife. "He was
doing his best to keep
us upbeat. A scene like that is difficult to
describe. Unless you've
been through it--waiting for someone you love, a
perfectly healthy person,
to be taken away to die--you have no idea what
it's like."
"No person should be put
through that kind of torture," her husband adds
angrily.
Watching as his son was
shackled and escorted to the van that would
transport him to the
Death House, the elder Davis admits, was worse than
any Vietnam combat situation
he ever experienced.
Then, just two hours before
the scheduled 6 p.m. execution, the U.S.
Supreme Court granted
a stay, ordering that the mental retardation issue
be reviewed. Greg Wiercicoch,
an attorney with the Austin-based Texas
Defender Service, which
files pro bono death sentence appeals, had
successfully argued that
Davis' I.Q. was within the clinically accepted
retardation range.
"I never suffered any
post-traumatic stress after 'Nam," Jim Davis says,
"but in the weeks after
that visit, I got a pretty good idea what it was
all about." Even now
he sleeps no more than a couple of hours at a time.
"I wake," he says, "and
think about Brian, about where he is, about the
possibility of what might
eventually happen to him. It's all so
barbaric." For a time
he sought therapeutic help.
Tracy Tucker, T.J.'s mother
and Brian Davis' ex-wife, says she completely
lost her voice for a
week after that tension-filled day. Her doctor told
her it was a result of
the stress; same with the severe chest pains she
suffered for several
days.
Today, Jim Davis still
searches his mind for something that might
magically remedy the
nightmarish situation but always comes to the
realization that there
is little he can do. He and Pam, whom he married
in 1988, have paid out
thousands in attorneys' fees, written letters to
high places, sought help
from anti-death penalty organizations. "In the
end," he admits, "what
you do is expect the worst and hope for the best."
T.J. and Jim Davis are
what some sociologists call the "other victims,"
innocent and unsuspecting
family members whose lives have been indelibly
scarred by a criminal
act. Traditionally, society focuses sympathetically
on the family and friends
of homicide victims but seldom addresses the
ripple effect on those
related to the person who committed the crime.
"There is an unjust stigma
attached to being related to someone who is in
prison for committing
a violent act," says Tina Church, a friend of the
Davises and an Indiana
private investigator who specializes in the
re-examination of death
penalty cases. "Society has adopted a
guilt-by-association
mind-set that is terribly unfair."
Houston's Dave Atwood,
founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty, agrees.
"Unfortunately, there's a long-standing tendency
to assume that the family
is somehow responsible for the criminal's
actions," he says. "Certainly,
there are a lot of people in prison who
are the products of dysfunctional
families, abuse and neglect, but not
always. I've met many
families of death row inmates who are wonderful
people, unjustly held
responsible for something they had absolutely no
part in."
It is for this reason
that Tucker advises T.J. to keep his father's past
a secret. "I know that
just as soon as others know what his dad has been
accused of, there will
be some parents who no longer want their sons and
daughters associating
with him. I don't want him exposed to cruel teasing
from his peers.
"It's a hard thing to
explain, and I'm not sure he fully understands it
yet, but that's just
how a lot of people are."
And so for years, the
sins of the father have remained a family
secret--even though Brian
Davis' father, his son and ex-wife are firmly
convinced he didn't commit
the crime that led him to death row.
"My dad has always said
he is innocent," T.J. says. "He wouldn't lie to
me about a thing like
that."
*******
The story of Brian and
Tracy began 18 years ago, filled with the warm
excitement of teen-age
romance. During the 1984 Thanksgiving holidays,
Brian Davis, a handsome,
green-eyed 16-year-old, traveled with his
parents from nearby Mineral
Wells to the Mid-Cities community of Richland
Hills and met a petite,
freckled blonde named Tracy Clark. Also 16, she
was immediately taken
by Davis' good looks, sense of humor and
country-boy charm. Never
mind that her parents expressed immediate
concern over her spending
time with a young man who already had a
troubled history of alcohol
and drug use, petty criminal behavior, an
openly rebellious attitude
toward school and authority and a questionable
I.Q. that had caused
some who knew him to label him "slow."
Today, even Tracy admits
that Davis may be retarded. "The truth is, he's
not very bright," she
says.
Still, back in her teen years, all the parental warnings fell on deaf ears.
From the moment Brian
Davis promised they would "be together forever,"
the teen-agers bonded
and launched on a reckless journey. Sitting at her
kitchen table, Tracy,
now 33, recalls the days and nights of her youth in
stark, candid detail:
how she evolved from being an occasional marijuana
smoker to "the white
stuff" (cocaine), then hash and acid, dropping out
of school and living
with Davis on the streets of Fort Worth by day and
sleeping in one seedy
motel after another at night. Of a
spur-of-the-moment cross-country
trip to California in a car she only
learned had been stolen
when the driver who'd invited them along was
arrested, and of the
marriage proposal Davis made in a letter he mailed
to her while in jail
for a probation violation.
At a time when her high
school friends were sending out graduation
invitations, Tracy remembers
sitting on the edge of her bed at 17, crying
uncontrollably as she
addressed birth announcements.
Their too-soon marriage
would last just two years. When she became
pregnant, Tracy had turned
away from the rudderless lifestyle, stopped
using drugs and urged
her husband to do the same. He couldn't. Her
father, who had given
Brian a job with his construction company, soon
wearied of his unreliable
son-in-law being a no-show and fired him. At
his next job in a pizza
joint, Brian returned home after only a few hours
on the job. When Tracy
asked what had happened, her husband explained
that he'd been fired
when he couldn't properly write down the phone-in
orders. Having dropped
out of school after completing the eighth grade,
Brian could barely read
and write.
Though too young and feckless
to realize it at the time, his life was
already spiraling in
the wrong direction. Too much Budweiser and Jack
Daniel's, too much time
spent prowling the streets in a drugged haze and
a multitude of ill-conceived
schemes to support his wife and newborn son
and finance his habits
took their toll.
In time, he was arrested
again and sentenced to 6 years in prison for
distributing marijuana.
Tracy thought it was time
for her and her infant son to move on. In the
fall of 1988, she filed
for divorce. "Back then," she says, "I can
remember seeing Brian
cry only 2 times. The first was when T.J. was born.
Those were tears of pure
joy. The other was when I told him I was filing
for divorce."
Recently, however, she
saw tears again. They came when she visited her
ex-husband as he awaited
his fast-approaching execution date.
Even though their lives
have taken drastically different courses, that
inexplicable bond, forged
as teen-agers, remains. Though married to her
third husband and the
mother of two, Tracy Tucker makes no secret of her
ongoing support of Davis.
They've never lost touch, corresponding
regularly, talking on
the phone and visiting through the Plexiglas on
Death Row more times
than she can recall. "We've always had a
relationship," she says.
"It's been that way since that first day we met
as kids."
Her current husband, Paul,
a heavy equipment mechanic, tries hard to
understand, to not allow
her feelings for her ex to damage their 4-year
marriage, but struggles
with it at times. He declined the Dallas
Observer's request for
an interview.
"He, like a lot of people,
has told me I need to let go of Brian, to move
on and just focus on
my life with him and the children," she admits. "I
know he's right, but
I just can't."
It's impossible for her
to explain, she says, but the passage of time and
traumatic events--even
the horrible crime for which Brian Davis was
convicted and sentenced
to die--have failed to dim her feelings.
**********
The death of 31-year-old Michael Foster had been ugly, violent and senseless.
According to a videotaped
confession given by Brian Davis, he and Tina
Louise McDonald, a woman
he'd married just two months earlier, had met
the mildly retarded Foster
in a Houston nightclub at the end of an
evening of drinking and
listening to punk-rock music.
Foster, who had suffered
brain damage at birth and had no drivers
license, routinely took
a bus to the city's glittery Montrose area from
nearby Humble to visit
clubs on the weekends. In the early-morning hours
of August 10, 1991, he'd
been offered a ride home by Davis and his wife.
According to his confession,
Davis had accompanied the victim into his
apartment, expecting
him to pay gas money for the trip. When Foster said
he had no cash, the drunken
Davis allegedly stabbed him 11 times, then,
with a ballpoint pen,
drew a swastika and the letters NSSH, the initials
of the National Socialist
Skin Heads, on his abdomen. Vulgar neo-Nazi
messages were also written
on the living-room wall near where Foster, who
was white, lay.
When the body was found
three days later, investigators saw that Foster's
nose had also been broken,
as if someone had kicked him in the face. The
pockets of his trousers
were turned inside out. Several personal items,
including a red leather
jacket he'd been wearing when last seen, were
missing.
Even as the Humble police
were still in the early stages of their
investigation, Davis
and his wife were already in the Harris County jail,
charged with yet another
offense--an aggravated robbery that had occurred
just days after the Foster
murder. Again, according to Houston police
records, the bar-prowling
couple had picked up another man, driven him to
a motel, then robbed
and stabbed him. This time, however, their victim
lived. A motel employee,
hearing screams, had interrupted the attack. In
short order, Davis and
McDonald were arrested.
Soon, members of a local
skinhead group and the owner of the bar who'd
seen Davis and his wife
leave with Foster on the night of his death
provided authorities
with enough information to charge the couple with
his murder.
It was in November of
1991 that Brian finally reached an agreement with
investigators, who'd
questioned him repeatedly about Foster's death. He
would confess, he said,
but only if his wife, whom he insisted had not
participated in the crime,
was not charged. Ultimately, it was agreed
that Tina McDonald would
receive immunity for any involvement she might
have had in Foster's
death. Davis, unaware that he'd become the target of
a death penalty prosecution,
assumed he would most likely receive a life
sentence that would require
him to actually serve no more than 15 years.
As he told his story,
Brian Davis--who once described himself to police
as "a time bomb waiting
to go off"--appeared at times to be confused
about critical details,
describing a two-edged dagger used to commit the
murder when, in fact,
the medical examiner's report indicated the fatal
wounds had been made
by a knife with only one sharp edge. His
recollection of the date
of the crime was almost 2 days later than it had
actually occurred. A
diagram he drew of the victim's apartment was
generally accurate except
that he'd placed the rooms opposite from where
they actually were.
Still, in June 1992, a
jury, after viewing his videotaped confession,
found Davis guilty of
capital murder, and he was sentenced to die. Tina
McDonald, meanwhile,
pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery in the other
crime and began serving
a 40-year prison sentence in Gatesville. In
accordance with the agreement
prosecutors made with her husband, she was
never charged in the
Foster murder.
Last fall, however, McDonald,
now divorced from Davis and no longer in
touch with him, gave
a detailed written confession in which she admitted
that she, in fact, had
killed Foster. Davis, she wrote, was not even
present at the time of
the murder. Before driving to Humble, she said,
she had dropped off her
intoxicated husband at the Houston motel where
they were living at the
time. Later, after they'd reached his apartment,
Foster began to make
sexual advances toward her. That, she said, was what
had prompted her to stab
him repeatedly.
Though McDonald would
later recant her confession, Davis' parents and
Tracy Tucker believe
there is ample evidence to support her confession.
"From the day I first
visited him in the Harris County jail soon after he
was charged," Jim Davis
says, "Brian has insisted that he didn't do it.
His story has never changed."
Strands of hair found clutched in the
victim's hand matched
the red-haired McDonald. The victim's jacket and
music tapes taken from
his apartment were recovered from her car, along
with a knife that had
only her fingerprints on it. Additionally, her
description of the crime
scene more closely matched what police initially
saw.
In a time before DNA became
an investigative tool, there was no physical
evidence that directly
linked Brian Davis to the crime. Fort Worth
attorney Scott Brown
has filed motions asking that the courts place Tina
McDonald on the stand.
"Have both sides question her," he suggests, "then
let a judge decide if
she's telling the truth or not." His requests have
been denied.
"There's no question that
Tina McDonald was a violent person, an avowed
skinhead with a reputation
for always carrying a knife," says
investigator Church.
"And she was by far the smarter and more aggressive
of the 2."
Harris County Assistant
District Attorney Kelly Siegler, who prosecuted
Davis, does not dispute
Church's observation but dismisses McDonald's
claim that she alone
murdered Foster. "She's always flip-flopped," says
Siegler, who is convinced
both Davis and McDonald participated in the
crime. "You couldn't
imagine a worse couple hooking up."
But why, if he didn't
commit the crime as he now claims, would Brian
Davis have confessed
to it? "He's always told me that he did it to
protect his wife," Tucker
says. "He says he would have done the same for me."
The version of events
that Davis told his ex-wife closely parallels what
McDonald described in
her confession. He was too drunk to drive, he told
Tucker, and got into
the backseat of McDonald's car after leaving the
club. Because he woke
the following morning unaware of how he got to the
motel, he could only
assume that she'd dropped him off there before
driving Foster on to
Humble. McDonald, whom he describes as a "wild
woman" who always dressed
in fatigues and fervently embraced the skinhead
philosophy, had never
mentioned what occurred that night.
Brian Davis had become
briefly involved with the local skinheads at
McDonald's urging. And
only when she confessed, Tucker says he'd
repeatedly told her,
was he aware that she had actually murdered Michael
Foster.
"At the time Brian confessed,
he had no idea they [prosecutors] would ask
for the death penalty,"
Tucker says. "He was willing to serve a long
prison term for something
he didn't do, just to protect his wife. But he
never expected to be
put to death for it."
But what of the second
crime, the attempted robbery and stabbing of yet
another victim? Davis
again explained away his involvement. The real
assailant, he told his
family, had barged into their motel room, stabbed
the visitor and safely
fled into the night.
Those family members who believe in him continue to take him at his word.
**************
Today, it appears that
Tracy Tucker's life is far removed from her
youthful involvement
with Brian Davis. The home she keeps is immaculate
and decorated with collectibles
and family pictures. Her husband, she
says, is a wonderful
provider and a good father. She admits that she
dotes on her children--T.J.
and his 9-year-old half-sister, Brooke--and
brags unabashedly of
their accomplishments. "Like any mother," she says,
"I worry a lot about
the choices they will make as they grow up." High on
her list of goals is
to do everything she can to see that they avoid the
mistakes she made.
Her other goal is to one
day see her 1st husband set free. It is an
obsession that has made
counseling and the use of anti-depressant
medication necessary
at times over the years. She stays in touch with
Davis' attorneys, investigator
Church and Davis' parents. And she looks
forward to her ex-husband's
rambling letters, filled with inaccurate
spelling and poor punctuation,
which always end with his promise to "love
you for every."
"During his trial," she
recalls, "he telephoned me from the courthouse
every day." And when
Brian Davis learned that an execution date had been
set, it was Tracy with
whom he first shared the news. At the time, she
was married to her second
husband and pregnant with her daughter.
In the years Davis has
resided on death row, Tucker has visited him at
least once a month, sometimes
even more often. At times she's made the
trip alone, sometimes
in the company of her son and Davis' family. She
has an album of smiling
photographs, each with the white jumpsuit-clad
Davis standing behind
glass while his visitors pose in the cramped
cubicle in front of him.
In some you can see the swastikas tattooed on
his chest and arm, a
reminder of his early prison days when he was a
member of a white supremacist
prison gang.
Occasionally her husband
will drive her to the prison, remaining in the
parking lot during the
2-hour visits. On Davis' first execution date, her
parents took her to Huntsville.
For a time she went weekly with the
Arlington mother of another
condemned inmate before he was executed.
Recently, she made the
trip with Dallas' Patricia Springer, the author of
several true crime books,
who occasionally visits one of Davis' fellow
prisoners.
"Tracy's an unusual woman,"
Springer says. "I think over the years she
has convinced herself
that if she'd not divorced Brian, if she'd stayed
with him, none of this
would have happened. She feels a lot of guilt,
convinced that she's
at least partially responsible for the situation
he's now in."
Guilt, justified or imagined,
is a common thread that binds Brian Davis'
supporters. "He was never
physically abused or anything like that as a
child," Jim Davis says,
"but I regret that he had so little continuity in
his life as he was growing
up." The elder Davis points to his nomadic
20-year career in the
Marines, with stops in Alaska, Virginia, North
Carolina, Washington
and Vietnam, and the fact that he and Brian's mother
married and divorced
each other 4 times.
Nor does he argue against
the claims that his son meets the legal
definition of mental
retardation. "He was loving and caring as a child,
but he didn't always
use good judgment and had great difficulty in
school," Davis recalls.
Brian, he says, was never able to read well, and
when he did attend school
he fared poorly, even in special education
classes. He was 16 when
his I.Q. was tested at 74.
The Davises, Tucker and
T.J., Springer says, are examples of the
victimization she's often
seen during the research she's done over the
years. "The public has
yet to understand that criminal acts create
victims on both sides,"
she says. "The justice system and society
rightfully show concern
for those whose loved one was wronged, while
condemning the families
and friends of the perpetrator. They're routinely
given little consideration
by prison officials when they go to visit.
Over and over I've seen
them treated shamelessly. It happens all the time."
Jim Davis puts it more bluntly: "You're treated like you're a criminal."
Still, while the Davises
and Tucker and her son agonize over the
state-ordered fate that
awaits Brian, the family of victim Michael Foster
sees things far differently.
"I can't wait until this guy is fried,"
Foster's older sister,
Pat Kupritz, told the Houston Chronicle shortly
before Davis' execution
was postponed in May.
And though she adamantly
opposes the death penalty, Tucker can understand
the lingering anger of
Foster's loved ones. She's been there. It was in
1985, in Carterville,
Georgia, that her older brother, a truck driver
with three small children,
was shot in the back of the head and killed
during a robbery. "I
was 15 at the time," she remembers, "and I had a
difficult time accepting
the fact that someone had done that to my
brother, to me, to our
family." The suspect later turned himself in,
pleaded guilty and served
only a brief sentence.
"I was angry about that
for a long time," she admits. Today, however, she
finds comfort in the
fact that the family of her brother's killer was
spared the deathwatch
she's lived with for a decade, and the nightmares
that still occasionally
wake her.
*******************
Last spring, when Davis'
family traveled to Huntsville, they assumed it
would be their final
visit. "It was the most horrible day I've ever
experienced," Tucker
says. "We were all convinced it was the last time we
would see Brian." Funeral
arrangements had already been made. Even before
they arrived, Davis had
made it clear that he wanted none of them to
remain and witness the
moment he was placed on the Death House gurney and
the needles inserted
into his arm. "He told us that he didn't want that
to be our last image
of him," Jim Davis says.
The stay of execution,
however, only bought Brian Davis and his family a
brief reprieve.
3 months later, as the
2nd execution date approached, T.J. stood in the
kitchen one evening as
his mother prepared dinner. "Do you think it is
really going to happen
this time?" he asked.
"I didn't know what to tell him," Tracy Tucker recalls.
And so the ordeal continues.
Too soon, Tucker fears, the day will come
when her son will ask
the question again.
(source: Dallas Observer)
| Return to Brian Davis' Homepage |
