Two boys
talked their mother's estranged husband out of killing them Monday evening, but only after he stabbed their mother to death, killed their 6-year-old sister and showed the boys the bodies, Dallas police say.
Then he
"told the children he would allow them to live" and left, according to police documents.
Gary Green, 38, faces a charge of capital murder and was being held Tuesday in lieu of $1 million bail.
His wife,
Lovetta Armstead, 32, had hesitated to break things off with him, though it was clear he wasn't good to her, family members say.
[...]
Armstead and Green married in June but had begun living together a year or two earlier, family members say.
Green was paroled in 2000 after 10 years in prison for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. He spent time in jail last year, accused of failing to pay child support. Armstead, who worked part time for the Dallas ISD, knew of his past. None of her three children, who have different fathers, are his.
"He wouldn't work," said Brooks, 83.
"About three or four weeks ago, she didn't have no money to pay the rent with, and he didn't help her," he said.
On Sept. 10, she filed to have their marriage annulled, checking two boxes on a form to explain her reasons: "One or both of the parties" were "under duress, fraudulently induced or forced to marry" and "did not possess the mental capacity to enter into marriage."
Family members say he moved out but told Armstead that his parole officer was going to check on him at the home Monday. He persuaded her to let him spend the day at the brick house in the 3800 block of Morning Springs Trail.
"That was his game to get into the door," says her sister, Jenette Brooks, 15.
"I never thought he'd stoop that low and actually kill. He had put his hands on her a couple of times," she said.
About 5:30 p.m., Armstead dropped her two sons, 9 and 12, off at church for the evening. Dallas police say after she returned home, he stabbed her to death. Police say he also killed her daughter,
Jazzmen Montgomery, but they did not say how.
About 8 p.m., Green returned to the church, picked up the two boys and brought them home. He
stabbed the 9-year-old in the torso, then forced both boys to a rear bedroom where he showed them the bodies of their mother and sister, according to police documents.
"The two boys were able, we believe, to talk Mr. Green out of killing them," Police Chief David Kunkle said. They called 911 and ran to a neighbor's house for help.
[...]
Afterward, Green fled in his wife's car,
tried to kill himself with an overdose of pills and called his mother, he later told detectives.
"His mother then encouraged him and had him surrender at our southeast patrol station," Kunkle said.
He voluntarily gave detectives a videotaped statement admitting the murders, police documents say. Police say he may face more charges.
[...]
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