NEW BOSTON, Texas-Texas prison inmate Billy Joel Tracy said he repeatedly stabbed and stomped a female correctional officer in 2005 because he was tired of prison rules, in a recorded interview played for a Bowie County jury Friday.
Tracy, 39, was found guilty of capital murder last week in the July 15, 2015, beating death of Correctional Officer Timothy Davison at the Barry Telford Unit in New Boston. On Wednesday, the jury began hearing from witnesses for the state regarding Tracy's long history of violence both in and out of prison. Testimony during the sentencing phase of trial is meant to assist the jury in determining what punishment Tracy should receive: life without the possibility of parole or death by lethal injection.
Correctional Officer Katie Stanley testified under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp that she was working on the unit floor in I pod of the Clements Unit in Amarillo, Texas, the evening of Nov. 20, 2005. Stanley said she normally worked in the prison's central control center but was working among the inmates that day because of staffing needs. She testified that as she passed by a "fidgety" inmate she later learned was Tracy, she thought he might be "off his meds."
Moments later Stanley was attacked from behind. Tracy shoved a homemade knife into her seven times before kicking and stomping her head, face and body and attempting to throw her over the third-floor railing. Stanley suffered from a collapsed lung that required her to be on a ventilator for three days; broken bones in her arms, which still trouble her; and constant bouts of vertigo caused by a head injury.
Tracy pleaded guilty to assaulting Stanley and received an additional 45-year term. He was already serving two life sentences plus 20 years for viciously attacking a 16-year-old girl.
"He had kind of a blank expression. It was more like he was conducting business at the office. There was no great emotion," Stanley said. "I'm thinking, 'I'm going to die.'"
In an interview with retired Office of Inspector General investigator Carl Heitel recorded after the assault, Tracy explains his actions.
"It was a little bit of payback," Tracy said. "Friday was the second time I had all of my property confiscated."
Tracy continues by complaining that items, such as a tube of toothpaste, which he has purchased from the commissary, are taken up after 60 days, before he had fully used it.
"Nothing's free. Somebody's always gotta pay for it," Tracy said.
Tracy was immediately transferred to the Allred Unit near Wichita Falls, Texas, after assaulting Stanley. An interview recorded at Allred with OIG Commander David Mayo was played for the jury Friday.
"You can't use a tube of toothpaste in 60 days," Tracy told Mayo.
When asked if he believes his assault on Stanley solved anything, Tracy quickly responds, "No. I hope some other inmates do the same thing."
"They (the correctional officers) walk around here without any fear at all in their heart. I'm the one they should fear," Tracy said.
During the interview, Tracy tells Mayo of the offenses for which he is serving two life sentences and a 20-year term. He was assessed the terms by a Rockwall County, Texas, jury in 1998 for a brutal attack on a 16-year-old girl, an assault on a police officer and residential burglary.
"I was in the process of killing someone when a cop rolled up on me," Tracy said to Mayo in the interview. "It was this broad that I was in the process of burying."
After climbing into Kasey Kuhn's bedroom in Garland, Texas, beating her into unconsciousness, burning her with cigarettes and placing her in his car, Tracy drove to a park in Rockwall, witnesses testified Wednesday. A rookie police officer who thought he'd come across a drunken driver confronted Tracy, who had just dragged Kuhn's body into a wooded area.
The jury was placed in a weekend recess Friday by 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart, with instructions to return to Bowie County Courthouse Monday morning. The state is expected to rest sometime next week.
Once the state has rested, defense lawyers Mac Cobb of Mount Pleasant and Jeff Harrelson of Texarkana will begin calling witnesses to testify in support of the position that Tracy should receive a term of life without parole rather than the death sentence the state is seeking.