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#Post#: 296--------------------------------------------------
~ Billy Coble, 28Feb19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: February 1, 2019, 10:00 pm
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Execution date set for local man who killed 3 over failing
marriage--
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
[IMG]
HTML http://media.graytvinc.com/images/810*454/Billie-Wayne-Coble1.jpg[/img]
WACO, Texas (KWTX) Eight days after the U.S. Supreme Court
rejected what could be his final appeal, a Waco state district
judge set an execution date Wednesday afternoon for a Central
Texas man who killed three members of his estranged wife’s
family in 1989.
Billy Wayne Coble, 70, initially refused to enter the courtroom
for the sentencing hearing Wednesday afternoon after his
appellate attorney failed to show up.
Waco lawyer Russ Hunt, Jr. was appointed to represent him in the
hearing and State District Judge Matt Johnson set a Feb. 28,
2019 execution date.
“Justice for these families has been a long time coming. I’m
glad that with today’s hearing we are one step closer to
fulfilling the jury’s verdict," McLennan County District
Attorney Abel Reyna said in a statement.
Coble was convicted in 1990 of killing his in-laws, Robert and
Zelda Vicha, and their son, Waco police Sgt. Bobby Vicha, at the
family’s Axtell home
After shooting the three, Coble kidnapped his estranged wife,
Karen Vicha, threatened to sexually assault and kill her, but
was injured when he crashed his vehicle during a police chase in
Bosque County.
Coble has a list of appeals, the only one successful filed in
2007 with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that resulted
in the dismissal of the death sentence and an order for re-trial
on punishment after the court’s opinion stated Coble’s jury
faced two questions that were unconstitutional.
The punishment re-trial ended with the same result, a death
sentence.
A retired police officer who worked on the Coble case and a
current district judge who back then was a prosecutor and who
took Coble to trial on the capital murder case for the first
time were among a few dozen people who crowded into the 54th
District Courtroom on Wednesday to watch the hearing.
After a few minutes the judge asked one of the bailiffs why
Coble wasn’t in the courtroom and the bailiff said he was
refusing to leave the holding cell.
Johnson sent a squad of bailiffs to retrieve Coble, but they
reported he refused to come to the courtroom, after which
Johnson called the case, read the preliminary documents
concerning the appeals Coble has filed since his conviction, and
then set the date.
Truman Simons, a former police officer, sheriff’s deputy and now
a private investigator, worked on the Coble case back in 1989.
“He killed his (father-in-law) first and wrapped him up in a
rug,” Simons said.
“Then he tied up the two kids and shot Bobby Vicha.
“Then he ...waited in the garage where he killed Zelda (Vicha)
and kidnapped (his estranged wife) Karen,” Simons said.
Former McLennan County Assistant District Attorney J.R. Vicha,
one of the two children Coble tied up that day, was only
11-years-old at the time his family was murdered.
The boy, along with two of his cousins, were tied up inside the
home while the killings took place.
During the 2008 punishment re-trial trial, prosecuted by retired
Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long, Long told the jury
that Coble “has a heart filled with scorpions.”
8)
#Post#: 299--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Billy Coble, 28Feb19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: February 28, 2019, 5:08 am
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Texas to execute man convicted of 1989 murder of three in-laws--
Thursday, February 28th, 2019
Texas plans to execute a man on Thursday who was convicted of
murdering three relatives of his estranged wife in 1989, with
his lawyers arguing he should not be put to death because he
received an inadequate defense at trial.
Billie Wayne Coble, 70, is scheduled to be executed by lethal
injection in the state's death chamber in Huntsville at 6 p.m.
local time.
If the execution goes ahead, it will be the third this year in
the United States and the second in Texas, which has put more
prisoners to death than any state since the U.S. Supreme Court
reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
Coble, a Vietnam War veteran and electrician, was convicted in
1990 of murdering his estranged wife's parents, Robert and Zelda
Vicha, and her brother John "Bobby" Vicha, who was a police
sergeant. Coble's wife had sought a divorce.
Coble ambushed the three victims and shot them at their home in
Axtell, a small community 100 miles (160 km) north of the state
capital Austin, authorities said in court papers.
He then kidnapped his estranged wife and drove off with her.
He was chased by police and, while driving, stabbed at her with
a knife. He eventually crashed into a parked car and was
arrested. His wife was wounded but survived.
"The public's interest is not advanced by staying Coble's
execution to consider a procedurally defaulted and meritless
claim based on a decision handed down three decades after Coble
terrorized and murdered his ex-wife's entire family," Texas
assistant attorney general Gwendolyn Vindell wrote.
#Post#: 300--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Billy Coble, 28Feb19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: February 28, 2019, 8:47 pm
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Man executed in Texas for killing estranged wife's family--
Thursday, February 28, 2019
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Texas inmate was executed Thursday evening
for the killings nearly 30 years ago of his estranged wife's
parents and her brother, who was a police officer.
Billie Wayne Coble received lethal injection at the state
penitentiary in Huntsville for the August 1989 shooting deaths
of Robert and Zelda Vicha and their son, Bobby Vicha, at
separate homes in Axtell, northeast of Waco.
Coble, 70, once described by a prosecutor as having "a heart
full of scorpions," was the oldest inmate executed by Texas
since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982.
Asked to make a final statement, Coble replied: "That'll be $5."
He told the five witnesses he selected to be in attendance that
he loved them, then again said: "That'll be $5." Coble nodded to
the witnesses and added, "take care."
He gasped several times and began snoring.
As Coble was finishing his statement, his son, a friend and a
daughter-in-law became emotional and violent. They were yelling
obscenities, throwing fists and kicking at others in the death
chamber witness area.
Officers stepped in and the witnesses continued to resist. They
were eventually moved to a courtyard and the two men were
handcuffed.
"Why are you doing this?" the woman asked. "They just killed his
daddy."
While the witnesses were being subdued outside, the single dose
of pentobarbital was being administered to Coble. He was
pronounced dead 11 minutes later at 6:24 p.m.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel said
the two men were arrested on a charge of resisting arrest and
taken to the Walker County Jail.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Thursday turned down Coble's
request to delay his execution.
A state appeals court had previously rejected Coble's request to
delay Thursday's execution and the Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles turned down his request for a commutation.
Coble was the third inmate put to death this year in the U.S.
and the second in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment
state.
"This is not a happy night," McLennan County District Attorney
Barry Johnson said. "This is the end of a horror story for the
Vicha family."
J.R. Vicha, Bobby Vicha's son, said it would be a relief knowing
the execution finally took place after years of delays.
"Still, the way they do it is more humane than what he did to my
family. It's not what he deserves but it will be good to know we
got as much justice as allowed by the law," said J.R. Vicha, who
was 11 when he was tied up and threatened by Coble during the
killings.
Prosecutors said Coble, distraught over his pending divorce,
kidnapped his wife, Karen Vicha. He was arrested and later freed
on bond.
Nine days after the kidnapping, Coble went to Karen Vicha's
home, where he handcuffed and tied up her three daughters and
J.R. Vicha. He then went to the homes of Robert and Zelda Vicha,
64 and 60 respectively, and Bobby Vicha, 39, who lived nearby,
and fatally shot them. After Karen Vicha returned home, Coble
abducted her and drove off, assaulting her and threatening to
rape and kill her. He was arrested after wrecking in neighboring
Bosque County following a police chase.
Coble was convicted of capital murder in 1990. In 2007, the 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial on punishment.
On retrial in 2008, a second jury sentenced him to death.
Crawford Long, the former first assistant district attorney in
McLennan County who helped retry Coble in 2008, said his "heart
full of scorpions" description of Coble was fitting.
"He had no remorse at all," said Long, who retired in 2010.
J.R. Vicha, 40, still lives in the Waco area. He eventually
became a prosecutor for eight years, a career choice inspired in
part by his father, who was a police sergeant in Waco when he
was killed. His grandfather was a retired plumber and his
grandmother worked for a foot doctor.
Vicha, now a private practice lawyer, is working to get a
portion of a highway near his home renamed in honor of his
father.
"Every time I run into somebody that knew (his father and
grandparents), it's a good feeling. And when I hear stories
about them, it still makes it feel like they're kinda still
here," Vicha said.
HTML http://www.foxnews.com/us/man-executed-in-texas-for-killing-estranged-wifes-family
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