Kevin Varga and Billy Galloway were executed by the State of Texas for the murder of David Logie
According to court documents Kevin Varga and Billy Galloway along with their two girlfriends would pick up David Logie at a local bar. The group would later beat to death Logie. Earlier in the same month Kevin would beat to death another man in Kansas
Kevin Varga and Billy Galloway would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kevin Varga would be executed on May 12 2010
Billy Galloway would be executed on May 13 2010
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Kevin Varga FAQ
When Was Kevin Varga Executed
Kevin Varga was executed on May 12 2010
When Was Billy Galloway Executed
Billy Galloway was executed on May 13 2010
Kevin Varga Case
A South Dakota parolee convicted of helping fatally beat and rob an Army officer before setting fire to his body 12 years ago was executed Wednesday in Texas
Kevin Varga, 41, was upbeat and smiling as the lethal drugs were delivered into his arms.
“I know I took someone very precious to you,” he told the parents and friends of David Logie as they watched through a window. “I wish what was torn from you was not.”
He said he loved them, asked them for forgiveness but said he didn’t require it “because God has forgiven me.”
“I hope you find peace,” he said.
He turned his head toward his mother, who watched through a window in an adjacent room, and told her he would “go to sleep and wake up with Jesus.”
“This is the only way God could save me, Mom,” he said.
After thanking the warden, a chaplain and God, he uttered a loud sigh as the drugs began taking effect.
“Oooh! Thank you Jesus,” he said. “I’m going, Mom.”
He was pronounced dead seven minutes later, at 6:19 p.m.
Varga’s lethal injection was carried out after his court appeals were exhausted and a clemency request rejected by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
“We took our best shot,” said his lawyer, Robin Norris
Billy Galloway, 41, Varga’s former cellmate in South Dakota and his partner in Logie’s 1998 slaying was set to die Thursday in the same chamber. Like Varga, Galloway’s appeals were exhausted.
Prosecutors said weeks after their parole from a South Dakota prison, Varga and Galloway and their two girlfriends drove south from Sioux Falls on Sept. 1, 1998. Over the next week, the group robbed and killed a man in Wichita, Kan., before doing the same to Logie, 37, an Army major from Fayetteville, N.C., behind a building in Greenville, about 50 miles east of Dallas.
Varga and Galloway were convicted of capital murder in Logie’s death, and none of the four were tried in the slaying of the Kansas man, 48-year-old David McCoy. Venus Joy Anderson, Varga’s 17-year-old girlfriend at the time of the killings, served a reduced seven-year prison term in Texas in exchange for her testimony. Deannee Bayless, Galloway’s then-30-year-old girlfriend, is serving 40 years for Logie’s murder and isn’t eligible for parole until 2018.
Varga, a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., had been paroled from South Dakota 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 after his cellmate. He’d served time for theft, parole violation and attempted robbery.
Anderson testified Varga concocted a plan where she and Bayless would offer men sex then blackmail them. As part of the scheme, Varga and Galloway would come out of hiding, ambush their victim and rob him, she said.
Anderson testified Varga beat McCoy with a metal pole and kicked him, and that he and Galloway were disappointed their victim was carrying only $80. McCoy’s body was found wrapped in sheets in Galloway’s SUV, which was abandoned a few blocks from where the slaying occurred.
The four took McCoy’s car to Texas, where they planned a similar attack, Anderson said. She and Bayless propositioned Logie, who was in town on business, 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.
The four took Logie’s car to San Antonio, where they were arrested.
Attorney Toby Wilkinson tried convincing a jury at a trial in 2000 Varga was not a participant because there was little blood on him.
“There’s no doubt he was there,” Wilkinson said. “If Kevin helped in the beating, there would have been blood everywhere. But when he participates in the Wichita murder, and he stays with these people, then I think your average person says he deserves what he got because he knew what they were going to do and didn’t leave.
“That’s kind of what we were facing. Had we not had that first murder, the jury might have been more acceptable.”
Varga’s lethal injection was the eighth this year in the nation’s most active capital punishment state. He and Galloway were among at least 10 Texas inmates with execution dates in the coming weeks.
