It was denied that same day, and prison staff in Huntsville readied a slate of lethal-injection drugs to kill the 70-year-old.

Coble left a long, baffling trail of wreckage over the killings and the kidnapping of his estranged wife, Karen Vicha, whose three daughters and nephew he tied up in their home before the abduction. On Thursday evening, he was asked if wanted to provide any last words, the Associated Press reported.

AD

AD

He did.

“That’ll be $5,” Coble said, a possible reference to his nickname, Five Dollar Bill.

He told gathered family that he loved them. “That’ll be $5,” he repeated and nodded, adding: “take care.” He began to gasp and snore, the AP reported.

The cryptic words still hung in the air when chaos overtook the chamber observation room.

Coble’s son Gordon pounded on the observation glass window, cursing and shouting “No!” the Houston Chronicle reported, and soon after, his son Dalton joined in the fray, along with a woman the AP described as a daughter-in-law.

The three were “yelling obscenities, throwing fists and kicking at others” before they were moved to a courtyard and handcuffed by police, the AP reported.

AD

“Why are you doing this?” the woman asked police. “They just killed his daddy.”

As the scuffle continued outside the chamber, a single dose of pentobarbital hit Coble’s bloodstream, the AP reported. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later at 6:24 p.m., becoming the oldest prisoner Texas has executed since it resumed the death penalty in 1982.

Gordon and Dalton Coble were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, Walker County Jail records show.

The fracas was an exclamation point at the end of a 30-year legal odyssey for a man who one former prosecutor said had a “heart full of scorpions.”

AD

Coble, distraught over a coming divorce, kidnapped his estranged wife before he was arrested and freed on bond, the AP reported. But nine days later, he arrived at Vicha’s home, where he handcuffed and tied up her three daughters and nephew, J.R. Vicha.

AD

Then Coble drove to the Axtell, Tex., home of her parents, Robert Vicha, 64, and Zelda Vicha, 60. He fatally shot them, along with their son, Bobby Vicha, 39, at his home near his parents.

He returned to Karen Vicha’s home to wait for her return, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing court records.

“Karen, I’ve killed your momma and your daddy and your brother,” he told her upon arrival, the paper reported. “They are all dead, and nobody is going to come help you now.”

He allowed her to kiss her children goodbye before he kidnapped her again, drove her to a deserted field and threatened to rape her. The commotion got the attention of a sheriff, who followed in a patrol car. Coble stabbed Vicha in the chin and face as he drove and crashed into a parked car in an effort to kill himself to avoid prison, the paper reported.

AD

AD

He was arrested at the scene and sentenced to death by a jury decision in a McLennan County court the next year.

In 2007, an appeals court ordered a new trial on his punishment, but a second jury convened and handed down a death sentence the following year, the AP reported.

Crawford Long, a former first assistant district attorney in McLennan County who helped in the second trial, described Coble as a man with a “heart full of scorpions,” according to the AP.

Coble’s attorneys criticized the outcome of the second trial, citing the state’s reliance on a witness who said Coble posed a threat despite good behavior while on death row, the Chronicle reported. Earlier this year, they pleaded with the state to take him off death row because of his age.

“He is now 70 years old, in poor health, and has an almost blemish-free prison record for the past 30 years,” attorney Richard Ellis wrote, according to the Chronicle. “His execution would serve no valid purpose.”

AD

AD

Some family members of the victims disagreed with that notion. J.R. Vicha was 11 when he was tied up and threatened by Coble, alongside his cousins. He told the AP the execution brought a sense of relief.

“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,” Vicha said.

Vicha later became a prosecutor, inspired by his police-officer father, who was killed by Coble. He operates a private law practice now, and has worked to get a stretch of highway near Waco renamed after 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 told the AP.