Slaughter Spree

this part of the story is covered for now His father was never around and his mother had severe mental health problems; for the first four years of his life she was in and out of institutions while an alcoholic stepfather beat him. When he was about four she was permanently committed to the Austin State Hospital with a psychoneurotic disorder, and he was sent to a state children's home in rural Texas, where he remained until he was sixteen. His older brother and sister were sent to the Corsicana State Home for Children. When he was fifteen, in about 1964, a psychiatrist, Dr Hodges, described him as paranoid, distant and deliberately unsmiling, extremely hostile to women, and concluded that he represented a sociopathic personality disturbance of the dissocial type with a poor long-term prognosis.

Rather than arrange therapy, the home encouraged him to join the Marine Corps, which he did at seventeen in late 1965. He served four years, including a tour in Vietnam as a machine gunner. While on leave he returned to find his fiancee in bed with another man, threatened to kill them both, and in the ensuing fight accidentally stabbed himself in the right thigh. details of the account remain covered until revealed He was discharged honourably but not recommended for reenlistment, and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder.

In 1970 he met Pam Woolley, married her quickly, adopted her young daughter Charlene and had two children with her, including a son, Gordon, who became known as GW. By 1974 he was beating Pam mercilessly: open-handed slaps that knocked her to the floor, a baseball bat to the back that sent her to hospital, a broken nose from punching her while sitting on her chest, sledgehammer blows, and black eyes that lasted six weeks. She filed for divorce in 1975 but he talked her into returning. In 1979, aged thirty, he raped his fifteen-year-old cousin, molested his fifteen-year-old niece and threw a five-dollar bill at her after forcing a kiss, and beat Pam again when she said she wanted a divorce. They divorced in 1980.

In 1981, aged thirty-five, he met eighteen-year-old Candy Ryan, who worked at a take-out chicken restaurant in Robinson, Texas, near his welding shop. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it She eventually escaped with her last pay packet and money her father had been keeping for her, and they divorced in December 1987.

In 1987 he met Karen Vicka again at a Waco night club. They had known each other as teenagers, and in July 1988 they married. Karen was thirty-four, twice divorced, with three daughters aged sixteen, fourteen and ten. She worked at a jewellery store while he worked at a local drive-in movie theatre. Within six months she noticed his personality switches and his interest in watching young girls. this part of the story is covered for now Karen confronted him; he denied it, and she decided on an uncontested divorce. He threatened to destroy her 1968 Mustang, called her at work and turned up there unannounced.

On 20 August 1989 Karen went to a bar with a girlfriend. details of the account remain covered until revealed He held the knife to her ribs and made her drive to a field, where he said, "If I can't have you, then no one else can," and produced a roll of black electrical tape. Karen talked to him for about two hours, convinced him she would reconsider the divorce, and he let her go. She called her brother, Bobby Vicka, a Waco police sergeant with eighteen years' service, who told her to report the kidnapping. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In the police car he stared at Head in a way that made the officer's hair stand up, and said, "They're gonna be sorry."

this part of the story is covered for now He began throwing away his possessions and talking incessantly about Vietnam, and his family thought he was suicidal. On the morning of 29 August 1989 he threw his truck keys at his older sister and said that if anything happened the truck was hers, then left.

That afternoon he let himself into Karen's trailer and waited. Her three daughters came home from school on the bus with Bobby's eleven-year-old son, J.R., who often went there after school. details of the account remain covered until revealed He cut the telephone lines, tied the children to the corners of Anne Marie's bed and taped their mouths shut, telling the girls that he wished he had blown them away as he intended and that they should say goodbye to their mother.

Bobby Vicka came home from his shift and began work around his property. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He went back to Karen's trailer to boast to the bound children that he was going to be on America's Most Wanted, then crossed the road to Robert and Zelda Vicka's house. He shot Robert, sixty-four, twice in the back of the head in his kitchen. When Zelda, sixty, came home from work that evening he shot her in the left side of the face in her garage.

details of the account remain covered until revealed He told her he had killed her mother, father and brother, showed her Bobby's revolver, her father's pickup truck behind the house and a thousand dollars in cash taken from Zelda, and told her she was lucky he had not molested her daughters. He made her kiss her bound children goodbye and drove off with her in her Mustang, saying he would torture her for weeks before killing her. In the car she got one hand free, grabbed a gun that would not fire, and forced the car into a ditch. He pistol-whipped her until she could not see. A passing woman shouted at him, and he drove off, blaming Karen for getting blood on his clothes. He then drove to a deserted field in Bosque County while assaulting her, waiting for darkness.

Bobby's girlfriend arrived at Karen's trailer, saw Karen handcuffed inside, drove to Bobby's house, found blood outside and called the sheriff. Police found Robert, Zelda and Bobby dead and the four children tied up but alive. Karen was gone.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it A sheriff's patrol spotted the distinctive 1968 Mustang and gave chase. this part of the story is covered for now Both survived. details of the account remain covered until revealed Karen was hospitalised with stab wounds and facial lacerations and survived.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now In the punishment phase the defence called psychiatrists including Dr Stephen Mark and Dr Grigson, while the state called Dr Richard Koons. details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In 2005 an ineffective-assistance claim was rejected. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now In February 2019 the Supreme Court declined to hear a claim about his original lawyers. details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Karen, who had driven from San Antonio, stayed in the support room and did not witness the death. J.R. later became a McClellan County prosecutor, and a stretch of U.S. Highway 84 near Axtell was renamed the Sergeant Bobby Vicha Memorial Highway.