Chaos erupted outside Texas’ death chamber when the son of the inmate pounded on the chamber windows, shouted obscenities and threw fists after his father spoke his final words, the Associated Press reports. Billie Wayne Coble, a Vietnam War veteran who killed his estranged wife’s parents and brother in 1989, told five witnesses he selected to attend his night execution that he loved them. Coble then nodded on Thursday as they watched from a witness room, saying: “Take care.” When he finished speaking, his son, grandson and daughter-in-law became emotional, and the men swung and kicked at others in the death chamber witness area. Both were handcuffed and arrested.
As the men were being subdued, a single dose of pentobarbital was injected into Coble. He gasped several times and began snoring as the lethal dose of drug was being administered at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later, at 6:24 p.m. His son and grandson, later identified as Gordon Wayne Coble, 45, and Dalton Coble, 21, were arrested on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. Billie Wayne Coble, 70, was the oldest inmate executed by Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. He was convicted in 1990 for the shooting deaths of Robert and Zelda Vicha, and their son, Bobby Vicha. An appeals court ordered a new trial on punishment in 2007, but a second jury also sentenced him to death.