Kenneth Granviel

After several delays and stays of executions, Granviel was executed via lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit on February 27, 1996. He declined to make a final statement.

His sentence was automatically appealed, but subsequently upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals the following year. With his initial execution date set for September 14, 1977, Granviel was scheduled to be the first inmate to be executed under Texas' new lethal injection protocol. This motion was challenged by his attorneys, who argued that this was unconstitutional, as they considered it "even more cruel" than the previous method of electrocution. Eventually, they succeeded in granting him a stay of execution, allowing him to remain on death row for more than 20 years.

On February 8, 1975, feeling the urge to kill again, Granviel lured a friend of his, 24-year-old Betty Williams, into his apartment on the pretense of giving her a package of cigarettes. While she was browsing through the drawers in his bedroom, Granviel crept up behind her and turned her upside down, temporarily dizzying her. He then took off her clothes and began raping her, but he was interrupted by his friend, 21-year-old Vera Hill, who had come to ask him about some income tax. Before she could enter the apartment, Granviel managed to get to the kitchen and grab a knife, then lunged at her, stabbing the woman in the chest. He then continued to stab her in the chest, stomach and back until she fell to the ground, before going back to the bedroom, where he continued his assault on Williams, whom he also beat and stabbed.

On October 8, 1974, Granviel was driving around the Riverside Village apartment complex when he got the sudden urge to have sex with one of the McClendon sisters, 21-year-old Laura. He drove to the apartment, knocked on the front door and was let in to have a glass of water. At the time, the apartment was occupied by Laura, her 19-year-old sister Linda, 24-year-old cousin Martha, and two children, Steven and Natasha, both 2-year-olds. He went to the kitchen, where Laura and Steven were, grabbed a steak knife and ordered the pair into the bedroom, where he told Laura to tie up her son with a telephone cord. After the other family members came in to investigate, they were all tied up and gagged.

On March 22, 1967, Granviel entered his mother's bedroom, where he grabbed her by the throat and attempted to rape her. During their scuffle, he managed to come back to his senses, before Granviel stumbled to the front porch and collapsed onto the yard. Soon after the incident, his mother called the police who took the 16-year-old into custody. Due to his odd behavior, he was temporarily interned at the John Peter Smith Hospital, where he remained for ten days. After being temporarily released, Granviel attempted to sexually assault his brother. As a result, he was sent to the Gatesville State School, where he spent the next two and a half years.

As part of a routine investigation, Granviel was investigated as a potential suspect in other killings committed in the Texas area, including the then-unsolved murder of Carla Walker. While he was ruled out in several, he was considered a credible suspect in two: the 1967 murder of 18-year-old Mildred May, whose nude and battered body was found along the I-35W near Fort Worth, since he had already been questioned in the death at the time. The other was the 1974 murder of 18-year-old Cheryl Callaway, who was stabbed 47 times with an ice pick at a parking lot in Arlington. However, he was never charged in either murder, both of which remain unsolved.

Kenneth Granviel (August 4, 1950 – February 27, 1996) was an American serial killer and rapist who was responsible for the sexually-motivated murders of seven people in Fort Worth, Texas from 1974 to 1975, most notably the mass murder of three women and two children. After willingly admitting to the crimes, he was convicted, sentenced to death and executed in 1996, after several delays and challenges to his sentence.

Kenneth Granviel was born on August 4, 1950, in Fort Worth. He, along with his half-brother Anthony Jones, were raised solely by his mother Willie Mae Jones in a small house on Charlotte Street. From an early age, Granviel was considered an odd, reclusive child who was often by himself, had few friends and almost never interacted with girls.