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A death row inmate convicted of fatally stabbing his estranged wife and drowning her six-year-old daughter in a bathtub apologized and begged their family for forgiveness in his final statement before execution.

Gary Green, 51, received a lethal injection at the Texas state penitentiary in Huntsville after being sentenced for double murder in 2009, as the victims' relatives watched on.

Lovetta Armstead, 32, and her daughter, Jazzmen Montgomery, were murdered by Green at their Dallas home in the same year. 

Lovetta had that day written her killer a letter saying she no longer wanted to be with him, to which Green responded with a terrifying message that he would kill her along with her three children and himself.

In the moments before his death, Green told Lovetta and Jazzmen's family who watched through a window close by: 'We ate together, we laughed and cried together as a family. I'm sorry I failed you.'

Gary Green, 51, received a lethal injection at the Texas state penitentiary in Huntsville after being sentenced for double murder in 2009

Green's sentence was carried out at the Polunsky Unit on Tuesday, where death row inmates in Texas are held.

Before he was administered with a lethal injection, a Buddhist spiritual adviser chosen by Green stood beside the death chamber gurney at the inmate's feet and said a brief prayer.

Green then apologized to Lovetta and Jazzmen's family when asked by the warden if he had a final statement, saying he had 'failed' them and pleading that they forgive him.

'I apologize for all the harm I have caused you and your family', he told them. 

He said he took 'two people that we all loved, and I had to live that while I was here.'

'We were all one and I broke that bond,' he continued. 'I ask that you forgive me, not for me but for y'all. 

'I'm fixing to go home and y'all are going to be here. I want to make sure you don't suffer. 

'You have to forgive me and heal and move on... I'm not the man I used to be.'

Lovetta Armstead, 32, and her daughter, Jazzmen Montgomery, six, were murdered at their Dallas home in 2014

Green's attorneys did not file any appeals seeking to stop the execution.

He was not offered a final as Texas has now banned the traditional rite.

Instead of inserting the IV needles in each arm, prison technicians had to use a vein in Green's right arm and a vein on the top of his left hand.

This delayed the injection briefly for Green, who was listed on prison records as weighing 365 pounds.

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began, Green was thanking prison administrators, chaplains and 'all the beautiful human beings at the Polunsky Unit.'

Then he took several quick breaths, which evolved into snores. After nine snores, all movement ceased. Several of the victims' relatives hugged and briefly cried.

Murderer's death bed apology to family 

'I apologize for all the harm I have caused you and your family,' Green said, looking at relatives of his victims who watched through a window close by. 

'We ate together, we laughed and cried together as a family. I'm sorry I failed you.'

He said he took 'two people that we all loved, and I had to live that while I was here.'

'We were all one and I broke that bond.

 'I ask that you forgive me, not for me but for y'all. I'm fixing to go home and y'all are going to be here. I want to make sure you don't suffer. 

'You have to forgive me and heal and move on... I'm not the man I used to be.'

He was pronounced dead 33 minutes later, at 7.07 pm local time.

Ray Montgomery, Jazzmen's father and one of the witnesses, said recently that he wasn't cheering for Green's execution but saw it as the justice system at work.

'It's justice for the way my daughter was tortured. It's justice for the way that Lovetta was murdered,' said Montgomery, 43. 

He and other witnesses did not speak with reporters afterward.

In prior appeals, Green's attorneys had claimed he was intellectually disabled and had a lifelong history of psychiatric disorders. 

Those appeals were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower appeals courts.

The high court has prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.

Authorities said Green committed the killings after Armstead sought to annul their marriage. 

On the day of the killings, Armstead had written two letters to Green, telling him that although she loved him, she had 'to do what's best for me.' 

In his own letter, which was angry and rambling, Green expressed the belief Armstead and her children were involved in a plot against him.

'You asked to see the monster so here he is the monster you made me... They will be 5 lives taken today me being the 5th,' Green wrote.

Armstead was stabbed more than two dozen times, and Green drowned Jazzmen in the home's bathtub.

Authorities said Green also intended to kill Armstead's two other children, then 9-year-old Jerrett and 12-year-old Jerome, but both boys survived.  

Six-year-old Jazzmen Montgomery sits next to her father, Ray Montgomery, in 2009

Armstead had dropped the boys off at a church activity at around 5.30pm on the night of her murder, a police report shows.

Green left Armstead's home, then picked the children up around 9.30pm and brought them back to their home. 

Shortly afterwards, the report reads, suspect Green grabbed nine-year-old Jerrett stabbed him once in the torso in front of his brother.

'Suspect Green then forced the two children to a rear bedroom where she showed them the deceased bodies of their mother and 6-year-old sister, and admitted to causing their deaths,' it said.

Lovetta Armstead pictured with her three children, Jazzmen, Jarrett and Jerome. The two little boys survived after one talked Green out of killing them

One of the boys then bravely persuaded Green not to kill them, saying 'we're too little to die and we won't tell anybody about it.'

The two boys then called 911 after Green was gone. Armstead and Montgomery were declared dead at the scene, while the boys were transported to Dallas Children's Hospital for treatment.

Green had planned to take his own life by taking large doses of Tylenol and Benadryl, but when his attempt failed he turned himself in to police and confessed to the murders.

Josh Healy, one of the prosecutors with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office that convicted Green, said the boys were incredibly brave.

Green, he said, 'was an evil guy. It was one of the worst cases I've ever been a part of'.

Green was one of six Texas death row inmates participating in a lawsuit seeking to stop the state's prison system from using what they allege are expired and unsafe execution drugs. Pictured: File image of 'death chamber' at the Huntsville Unit

Jazzmen's father said he still has a close relationship with Armstead's two sons. He said both lead productive lives and Jerome Armstead has a daughter who looks like Jazzmen.

'They still suffer a lot, I think,' said Montgomery, who is a special education English teacher.

Green's execution was the first of two scheduled in Texas this week. Inmate Arthur Brown Jr. is set to be executed Thursday.

Green was the eighth inmate in the US put to death this year.

He was one of six Texas death row inmates participating in a lawsuit seeking to stop the state's prison system from using what they allege are expired and unsafe execution drugs. 

Despite a civil court judge in Austin preliminarily agreeing with the claims, four of the Texas inmates including Green have been executed this year.

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