Billy Frank Vickers
Posted on 01/28/2004 7:44:20 PM PST by BenLurkin
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - A death row inmate confessed to over a dozen killings just before he was executed Wednesday night, about a month after his punishment was postponed while courts considered an appeal. After he was strapped to the death chamber gurney, Billy Frank Vickers, 58, admitted for the first time that he shot grocery store owner Phillip Kinslow during a botched robbery in 1993. He was being executed for that crime.
"It was nothing personal, I was just trying to make a living," Vickers said.
Vickers also took credit Wednesday for more than a dozen other killings. He said there were "several more that I had done or that I had been a part of, and I'm sorry but I am not sure how many. There must be a dozen or 14, I believe, all total."
He mentioned no names, except in the case of a former Texas oil millionaire who was accused and later acquitted of killing his stepdaughter in 1976.
"One I would like to clear up is Cullen Davis - where he was charged with shooting his wife," Vickers said, without elaborating or taking clear responsibility for the slaying.
Cullen Davis was accused of killing his second wife's 12-year-old daughter at his Fort Worth mansion. Priscilla Davis, his second wife, was wounded and her boyfriend was killed. Cullen Davis was later acquitted of murder-for-hire charges in a separate case.
Jack Strickland, a former prosecutor who worked on the Davis case, said Wednesday night that he had never heard of Vickers and doubted that he was involved in the shooting.
"For some perverse reason known only to him (Vickers), he once again screwed with the system. I certainly don't put any stock in it, not the slightest bit," Strickland said.
Vickers also referred to an inmate serving a life term for a murder, but said the inmate's father was responsible for the crime. "I did not do it, but I was with his daddy when it was done," he said.
Vickers also expressed remorse.
"I wish to say to my family, I'm sorry for all the grief I've put you through," he said.
He died at 6:21 p.m., six minutes after lethal dose began. It was his second visit to the death house in about seven weeks.
On Dec. 9, Vickers spent about 10 hours in a small holding cell just outside the death chamber while courts considered an appeal challenging the constitutionality of the lethal drug combination used in executions.
When the appeal was not resolved by midnight, six hours after he was scheduled to die, the execution warrant expired and Vickers was returned to death row.
It marked the first time since Texas resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982 that a condemned inmate's death warrant expired without a reprieve or without his death.
A similar appeal failed Wednesday, with the Supreme Court ruling about 30 minutes before Vickers was taken to the death house.
Billy Frank Vickers
yeah, thanks, see ya!
what a waste of life this guy was. i just can't imagine.
I'm surprised some pansy-assed judge didn't let him go since it wasn't personal
The problem with lie detetors and such is, among other things, that they only work on people with a conscience (or who believe in and fear the lie detector). A guy like this would probably pass without effort. I've know a number of them in my life, sometimes they serve a usefull purpose if you can keep them under control, but you can never believe anything they say and have to watch everything they do.
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