Defendant testifies at murder trial
Billy Joel Tracy says he didn’t mean to kill prison guard and claims victim owed him a phone
NEW BOSTON, Texas— Closing arguments are expected to begin Friday morning in the capital murder trial of Billy Joel Tracy, a Texas prison inmate accused of beating a correctional officer to death in 2015 at the Barry Telford Unit in New Boston.
After the state and defense rested Thursday afternoon, 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart released the jury for the evening with instructions to return in the morning to hear final arguments from both sides.
Tracy, 39, took the stand in his own defense Thursday and said he did not mean to kill Officer Timothy Davison when he attacked him July 15, 2015, and beat him with a metal tray slot bar. Davison, 47, suffered skull fractures so severe that pieces of bone penetrated his brain, medical experts testified.
Tracy claimed, under questioning from Texarkana lawyer Jeff Harrelson, that he only meant to beat Davison up and alleged he did so because Davison accepted $500 cash from him for a cellphone he never delivered.
Davison, 47, had worked for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for seven months at the time of his death and witnesses testified that no evidence exists to support Tracy’s claim.
Inmates are not permitted to possess currency, and visitors and prison staff are not allowed to carry more than $25, multiple witnesses testified. Tracy claimed a pen pal mailed him the money in a parcel marked legal mail and that the cash was hidden between sheets of paper glued together.
Tracy gave a variety of explanations for assaults on other officers, including the stabbing of a female correctional officer in 2005 for which Tracy received an additional 45-year term. Tracy’s description of the officer as a “horrible person, horrible lady,” brought an objection from Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp.
During her cross examination,
Crisp displayed a photo of the woman Tracy gravely wounded in 2005, which showed her on a gurney.
“Is that what she looked like the last time you saw her when you left her bleeding on the floor?” Crisp asked.
Under questioning from Harrelson, Tracy admitted that since being incarcerated in 1998, he has had no fewer than 104 major disciplinary writeups while in the prison system. When speaking about the 16-year-old girl he assaulted in Rockwall County in 1998, Tracy said he felt bad about it.
Under cross examination, Tracy struggled to explain statements he made in letters to his mother and others in which he disparaged the young Rockwall County victim and admitted he intended to bury her alive.
Tracy gave a long narrative under questioning by Harrelson about his childhood and life in prison. Among the ways Tracy spent time in prison was to write a book titled “How to survive and thrive in prison.” Tracy said he has “changed his thinking” since penning the manual for inmates.
Crisp asked Tracy about his writing, noting that it includes an opinion that since he is already serving life sentences, he can “do anything I want.”
Tracy continued to speak of himself as if his violent behavior was long in his past.
When Crisp questioned Tracy about attacking Davison, Tracy continued to maintain that Davison brought it on himself.
“So you’re the judge, jury and executioner?” Crisp asked.
Crisp asked Tracy about letters he wrote to friends in which he claimed Davison attacked him, that he had to defend himself and that Davison ultimately perished from injuries he sustained falling down the stairs.
“That was before you had the video?” Crisp asked.
The video shows Tracy walking with his hands behind his back as Davison escorts him up the stairs and stops in front of cell 66, opening the cell door seconds before the officer is punched in the side of his head and knocked to the floor. Crisp asked Tracy about the need for an extraction team to enter his cell and forcibly remove him following the assault on Davison.
“I had every intention of coming out,” Tracy claimed. “That’s just Telford for you.”
At the end of her cross examination, Crisp asked Tracy if he appeared to be committing intentional murder in the video surveillance played for the jury earlier in the trial.
“Yeah, it does look like that,” Tracy said.
Crisp displayed a picture of the new pair of white New Balance tennis shoes collected from Tracy’s cell following the attack, which a crime lab analyst testified were dotted with Davison’s blood. Next, Crisp displayed a photo of Davison’s empty black sneakers, stretched to accommodate the owner’s foot shape and bearing the signs of extended wear.
“Those are the shoes of a working man,” Crisp said. “Did you know he was a father of two?”
After hearing closing arguments Friday morning, the jury will begin deliberations. If they find Tracy guilty of capital murder, they will return to court Nov. 1 to begin hearing testimony meant to help them decide if Tracy should be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole or death by lethal injection.