By Tommy Witherspoon

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Nineteen years of hatred for her ex-husband came pouring out of the witness stand Wednesday as Karen Vicha lashed out at Billie Wayne Coble for making her and her three daughters relive the horrifying ordeal in which Coble killed her parents and brother and threatened to torture her.

Karen Vicha was married to Coble for only 11 months, but she said he inflicted a lifetime of horror and grief on her and her family when he killed her parents, Robert and Zelda Vicha, and brother, Waco police Sgt. Bobby Vicha, at their homes in Axtell in August 1989.

Vicha told jurors in Waco’s 54th State District Court that Coble smirked his familiar, “evil” grin at her at times during her two-hour testimony Wednesday morning.

Toward the end of her emotional testimony, she was telling jurors how Coble described to her how he killed her brother after ambushing him in his garage. Then she paused, stared straight at Coble and said, “I hate you for making me go through all of this again with my kids.”

Judge Matt Johnson immediately called for a recess and later overruled a motion for mistrial from Coble’s attorneys, Russ Hunt Jr. and Alex Calhoun, because of the outburst.

Vicha’s three daughters and nephew, Bobby Vicha’s son, testified Tuesday that Coble threatened them with a gun, tied them up and told them that they would never see Karen Vicha again. He had already killed Karen Vicha’s family and then kidnapped her, pistol-whipped her and cut her face with a knife before wrecking her car in Bosque County when he was spotted by officers there.

Coble, 59, spent 17 years on death row before his death sentence was overturned and he was awarded a new punishment trial because of changes in the special issues posed to jurors when trying to determine whether the death penalty or a life sentence is more appropriate.

McLennan County District Attorney John Segrest and his top assistant, Crawford Long, who have called 20 witnesses since testimony started Monday, intend to call four more witnesses, including two psychiatrists, before resting their case today.

Karen Vicha told jurors she met Coble in high school shortly after he returned from serving in Vietnam and they dated a few times. She ran into him again in 1987 at a dance club and they started dating again. They married in July 1988, and at first, things went well, Karen said.

“To Bill, I was perfect,” she said. “I’m not perfect, and I can’t be perfect, and it was just strange the way he thought about me.”

Coble’s first two wives have testified that he controlled, manipulated and beat them until they managed to escape the horrible marriages.

Coble was frantic when Karen told him she wanted out, refusing to leave their house, sleeping in his car in her driveway and stalking her at work and when she went out to bars.

He hid in the trunk of her car in July 1989, crawled into the car through a fold-down back seat and stuck a knife in her ribs one night after she had been out with a friend, she said.

“He said if he couldn’t have me, nobody could have me,” Karen told jurors. “He said the divorce was all my fault, and I could not treat him that way.”

She finally managed to persuade him to let her go, but reported the incident to her brother the following day, she said. Coble was later indicted for kidnapping her.

After the kidnapping, her brother bought her a German shepherd for protection. She said she found the dog dead in her front yard less than a week later.

On the afternoon Coble killed her family, she got home from work and Coble emerged from her bedroom with a gun.

“He said, ‘I need to tell you that I’ve killed your mother and your father and your brother,’ ” Karen said.

Incredulous, she asked for proof, and Coble showed her that he was carrying her brother’s Waco police-issued .357-caliber revolver. Still not believing that he had killed her parents, she said Coble took her to the window and showed her that he was now driving her father’s red and white pickup truck.

“He said, ‘I really hated to do that to your mom, but when I told her what I had done, she just went crazy,’ ” she said, quoting Coble.

Coble told her to tell the restrained children goodbye because she wouldn’t see them again.

“I didn’t want to leave them but realized that the only way that they would be safe would be if I got him away from the house and away from the kids,” Karen said.

She told Coble to take her and go, but he hesitated, saying they needed to wait until it got dark. She asked what they would use for money and Coble said he had stolen $1,000 from her mother’s bedroom after he killed her.

Coble told her that he was going to torture her for “weeks,” she said.

She told the jury Coble said, “You know I am going to have to die for this, but this is something you are going to have to live with forever.”

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

757-5737