Girl's life began where her father's may end

Her mother, then a security guard, conceived her with an inmate who is on death row
By ANDREW TILGHMAN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle



Five-year-old Gabriela Green has never hugged her father. She knows his voice only through the telephone of a death row visitors' stall. And one day soon, she may see him, barricaded behind a Plexiglas window, for the last time.



Brett Coomer / For the Chronicle
WIFE: Tameika East-Green, shown with her daughter, Gabriela Green, was a correctional officer when she met Edward Green III, a death row inmate.


"Gabbie," as her family calls her, does not know it yet, but her father, 30-year-old Edward Green III, has spent nearly 12 years on death row and is scheduled for lethal injection on Oct. 5.


A bright-eyed girl with braided hair and a nose that crinkles when she smiles, Gabbie Green is not the only child in Texas who has a father on death row.


But she may be the only one who was conceived there.


"People always want to know, 'How can you have a 5-year-old-child with a man who has been incarcerated for 12 years?' " said Tameika East-Green, the condemned inmate's wife.


"I tell them I used to work at the prison."


The genesis of this unusual family began in September 1998, when Tameika East was a correctional officer at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Ellis Unit in Huntsville, which then housed the state's more than 400 death row inmates.


Edward Green had been on death row for five years, appealing a capital murder conviction for his role in the 1992 deaths of Edward Perry Haden, 72, and Helen O'Sullivan, 63, who were shot as they sat in a car at a stop sign in Houston.


East-Green, 26, says she immediately was drawn to the articulate young man with a boyish face and engaging smile who had grown deeply religious, introspective and remorseful about his past.


"I just fell in love with him," she said in a recent interview. "He didn't hide his feelings like most men."



Their courtship
As their courtship progressed, she said, she often traded daily assignments with other correctional officers so she could work in the death row wing and visit with Green.



"We talked about everything. He has a very positive attitude. He never lets his situation get him down," she said. "He's not the same person that he was. I would not have fallen in love with that person."


When asked about the circumstances of her becoming pregnant in such a restrictive environment, she looked down and said, "That's personal."


Edward Green also declined to elaborate on their relationship.


"We just got real close," he said recently. "One thing led to another, and we had our daughter."


It's unlikely that such a scenario could be repeated today.


In 1999, death row inmates housed at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville had much more freedom of movement than they do today at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. They could participate in work programs, move about the hallways, eat, socialize and attend church together.


Since death row was moved to Livingston in 2000, its inmates are confined to their cells 23 hours a day and are escorted by at least two guards when they leave the cells for exercise, showers, medical attention or visits.


While still working at the prison, Tameika East learned she was pregnant. She gave it some thought, then told Green she wanted to get married.


"He was like, 'Are you serious?' " she recalled. "I said, 'Yes, I'm positive.'


"My thing was, this is the man I'd fallen in love with. This is the man I wanted to be my husband. No one has intrigued me like Edward has."


Her family pleaded with her to change her mind.


"I thought, 'What's the matter with her? Is she crazy, with him being locked up and everything?' " said her 46-year-old sister, Christine Santee. "What if she met somebody else? You know she'd look back on that and say it was a mistake."


East gave Edward Green documents to sign, clearing the way for a marriage by proxy. She took the documents to the Austin County courthouse, where the two were legally married in Edward's absence in April 1999.


At about the same time, her supervisors learned of the relationship after finding love letters. Given a choice of quitting immediately or being fired, she quit.


She was devastated, she said ? not because she lost her job, but because she was then relegated to the same non-contact visits as the rest of the public.


Although having sex with a prison inmate was made a felony punishable by up to two years in a state jail in 1997, East-Green was not charged.


For the past few years, East-Green has lived in Hempstead, working the overnight shift at a Wal-Mart. She says she "got saved" about two years ago and now attends the Straitway Ministry Church in Hempstead every week.


She visits Edward Green on death row as often as possible, given his restriction to one visitor per week.


"We've really reconnected lately," she said. "We're so in tune; I know what he's thinking. It's like we finish each other's sentences."


She usually brings their daughter along on the visits.


"She always hogs the phone," East-Green said. "And she'll just stop the conversation and say, 'Daddy, I love you.' "


She watches her husband, who once asked if his daughter was heavy to hold, try to savor the moments with his child.


"He will just stare at her, every move she makes," East-Green said. "It's like he's in a daze."


Edward Green considers his daughter a divine gift.


"She's a miracle," he said. "To me, it's like a point to let me know that God is good ? that even in a situation like this, good things happen to all people."


Initially, the child had no concept of prison.


"She used to say, 'Daddy, is this your house?' And he'd say, 'Yes, this is where I live,' " East-Green said.


Gabbie now understands that her father is in prison, but does not know why, or the nature of his sentence.



'You can get Daddy out'
She once overheard a conversation about an uncle who was arrested and released after posting bail.



"She was like, 'Mama, if you get enough money, you can get Daddy out like Aunt Linda.' "


As the execution date nears, East-Green says, she frequently prays for a stay. She dreads looking at a calendar but says she worries most about her daughter.


"What am I supposed to tell her? One day her father's here, and the next ... ," she said, unable to finish the sentence. "I think Edward is going to tell her. He said he wants to be the one to tell her.


"I know she's going to have a lot of questions; not so much now, but when she gets older. I'm sure she's going to want to know how she came to be."

[This message was edited by John Bradley on 09-24-04 at .]