Texas executes 2nd man in death of major - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Texas executes 2nd man in death of major

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A South Dakota parolee condemned for killing an Army officer during a robbery and beating in Texas was put to death Thursday, a day after his former cellmate was executed for the same crime.

Billy Galloway had a long, violent history culminating in the slaying of David Logie, 37, in September 1998. The Army major from Fayetteville, N.C., was bludgeoned with a hammer and a tree limb behind a building in Greenville, about 50 miles northeast of Dallas.

It was one of two slayings blamed on Galloway and Kevin Varga during a weeklong cross-country crime spree.

Varga, 41, received lethal injection Wednesday night. Twenty-four hours later, Galloway, also 41, was belted to the same gurney, had needles inserted into his heavily tattooed arms and became the ninth prisoner executed this year in the nation’s most active death penalty state.

“If I can go back and change the past, I would,” Galloway said, looking at Logie’s father and widow, who were among people watching through a window. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”

He looked toward another window, where his father and stepmother stood in an adjacent room with a friend. He told the friend that he loved her.

“That’s it,” Galloway said.

He gasped slightly, then began snoring quietly. Ten minutes later, at 6:19 p.m. Central time, as his pale skin turned purple, he was pronounced dead.

“If our beloved David had to die, we are glad it was in Texas where justice is their main goal,” Logie’s widow, Diann, said. “His death left a void in our lives and hearts that can never be filled. Our lives will never be the same for as long as we live.”

Logie’s father, Jack, dismissed Galloway’s apology and Varga’s more extensive but similar comments from the death house Wednesday.

“I cannot forgive,” he said.

Galloway’s appeals to the courts were exhausted and no last-day legal actions were filed.

“I guess I’ve come to the realization that this is it,” Galloway recently told The Associated Press.

Galloway and Varga met in prison in South Dakota. Varga was paroled in May 1998 after serving about half of a 10-year term for grand theft. Galloway, originally from Onondaga, N.Y., was paroled a month later. He served time for theft, parole violation and attempted robbery.

Galloway credited his charisma and what he called his “Manson complex” for being able to persuade his girlfriend, Deannee Bayless, Varga and Varga’s 17-year-old girlfriend, Venus Joy Anderson, to make a road trip from South Dakota to Mexico.

Anderson testified that Varga proposed they would finance the trip using a scam in which the women offered sex to men along the way. Then, Galloway and Varga would ambush and rob the victims.

Their first target was David McCoy, 48, in Wichita, Kan. McCoy’s body was found wrapped in sheets in Galloway’s SUV abandoned a few blocks from where he was beaten to death. The group wasn’t tried for his slaying.

A day later, they robbed and killed Logie, an aviation analyst at Fort Bragg, N.C., who was in Texas on business.

Testimony showed Anderson and Bayless propositioned Logie at a Holiday Inn bar in Greenville. When they went to a deserted area behind a building, Galloway and Varga showed up. Police said a hammer and bloody tree limb were found near Logie’s battered body, which the four dragged into some woods and set on fire.

“A pretty violent son of a gun, a nasty dude,” prosecutor Keith Willeford, a former Hunt County district attorney, said of Galloway. “These were brutal, horrible murders, just absolutely disgusting.”

Authorities eventually arrested the four in San Antonio after a routine police license check showed their car was stolen.

Anderson, from Revillo, S.D., served a reduced seven-year prison term in exchange for her testimony. Bayless, from Sioux Falls, is serving 40 years for murder. She’s not eligible for parole until 2018.

While awaiting trial, Galloway escaped from the county jail. He was captured about 90 minutes later. During the break, Willeford said Galloway stabbed an officer numerous times with a shank but that the officer’s bulletproof vest prevented serious injury.

“People are trying to make me a monster,” Galloway said. “I’m not a monster. I made some bad decisions in my life.”

Related reading

• Man executed in Texas in death of O-4