13-year-old says murder defendant made him view the dead bodies of his mother and baby sister

By Jennifer Emily - The Dallas Morning News

October 27, 2010

Two brothers tearfully recounted for a Dallas County jury Tuesday how their stepfather forced them to look at the dead bodies of their slain mother and little sister.

The boys' emotional testimony came in the capital murder trial of Gary Green, 39, where they also told jurors that they persuaded their mother's husband not to kill them, too. Green is accused of killing Lovetta Armstead and her 6-year-old daughter, Jazzmen Montgomery, at their south Oak Cliff home in September 2009.

As they see their mother lying on the floor, "we just fall on our knees and start crying," the older boy, now 13, told jurors.

Armstead was killed shortly after informing Green that she wanted to annul their marriage just months after the wedding, according to police. Green had moved out, but he persuaded Armstead to let him spend the day at the house.

If convicted, Green would face the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The attack on Armstead was so violent, said prosecutors Andy Beach, Heath Harris, Josh Healy and Jennifer Bennett, that one knife broke and Green grabbed another.

Armstead also grabbed a knife and stabbed Green twice behind his shoulder.

But her stab wounds were too much and she died "a slow, painful, agonizing death," Beach said.

Green then grabbed the girl and drowned her in the bathtub, prosecutors said. He would later tell police that "it was so bad, I had to turn away."

He showered in the same tub and went to pick his stepsons up from church. When they got home, he held the brothers at knifepoint and stabbed the youngest one in the abdomen.

Somehow, Beach said, the boys did what their mother could not and persuaded Green not to kill them. The youngest brother did all the talking. His older brother testified that he was too scared.

"We're too little to die," the younger brother, now 10, testified he told Green. "We won't tell anybody about it."

They also told Green that they loved him.

After Green told the boys he would spare their lives, he told them he had something to show them. He took them into the bedroom and showed them their dead mother.

"I killed your mom because I loved her to death," Beach said Green told the boys.

They then saw the body of their sister face down on the bloody floor of the bathroom. Her hands were bound behind her back with duct tape.

The older boy said Green ordered him to retrieve his pills, forcing him to walk through the blood that covered the bathroom floor.

Green then left, he said, after making the boys hug him and promise not to call the police until he was gone.

The boys testified Green told them he was going to kill himself.

"You know how I told you to say, 'See you later' and never 'Bye?' " the older quoted Green as saying.

"Well, this is goodbye."

Bursting into tears

The younger brother was seated at the witness stand during a break and smiled while talking to attorneys. But he burst into tears when Green entered the courtroom from a jail cell.

When prosecutors couldn't calm him, he was ushered from the courtroom. The boy returned minutes later, armed with pockets full of candy.

As the younger boy testified, he glanced constantly at Green, who sat quietly and stared ahead throughout the day's testimony. The boy said he once cared for Green, telling jurors, "I loved him to death."

'5 lives taken today'

Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors introduced three letters that the couple exchanged on the day of the murders.

In the first message, written on notebook paper, Armstead asked Green to move out of their home: "I know you love me and I love you but it's time we part."

In the second, she voiced regrets at allowing Green back into her life.

In the final letter, Green said he planned to kill Armstead, her three children and himself. The letter showed to jurors was typed. The original was covered in blood and found on Armstead's bed.

"You asked to see the monster so here is the monster you made me!" he wrote. There "will be 5 lives taken today me being the 5th!"

At one point in his final letter to Armstead, Green reflected on his fate.

"I pray that the Lord allows my soul to enter Heaven," he wrote. "If not I will burn in Hell forever."

In brief opening remarks, Green's defense attorneys, Paul Johnson, Kobby Warren and Brady Wyatt asked jurors not to make up their minds until they hear all the evidence.