AUSTIN (February 9, 2012)--The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied an appeal from Central Texas death row inmate Billy Wayne Coble, 63, clearing the way for a district court judge to set an execution date.
Coble was convicted of capital murder in 1990 for the 1989 shooting deaths of his estranged wife’s parents Robert and Zelda Vicha and their son Bobby Vicha, who at the time was a Waco police sergeant.
In June 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the capital murder convictions against Coble and has upheld his death sentences.
An appeals court upheld that conviction in 2007 but sent the case back to district court for re-trial on the death sentence.
In September 2008 a Waco district court jury deliberated for about three hours before deciding to send Coble, back to death row.
In August 1989, Coble handcuffed and tied up his estranged wife’s three children and one of their cousins, cut the phone lines and then went down the street to the home of his brother-in-law, Waco Police Sgt. Bobby Vicha, whom Coble shot in the neck after a struggle.
Next, Coble went to the home of his wife's parents and shot both of them to death.
Then, when his estranged wife Karen Vicha arrived home, he handcuffed her, put her in her car, and drove off, assaulting her during the drive.
He was arrested that night after a major manhunt and a brief high-speed chase that ended when the car Coble was driving crashed into a parked vehicle in Bosque County.
