Eusebio Martinez was polite — even happy — as he entered the
death chamber that August night in Huntsville in 1960. He may not have
understood his time was up.
A few years earlier, Martinez had been convicted of
murdering an infant girl whose parents had left her sleeping in their
car while they visited a Midland nightclub. He’d been ruled
“feeble-minded” by multiple psychiatrists and had to be shown how to get
into the electric chair.
As he was strapped in, a priest leaned in and coached him to
say “gracias” and a simple prayer. Just before the first bolt knifed
through his brain, Martinez grinned and waved at the young Houston
doctor who would declare him dead a few minutes later.
That doctor was my grandfather.
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