Executed in Texas: Serial k!ller Danny Paul Bible’s Chilling Last Words & Final Meal
story we’re following tonight. Time is running out for a man trying to halt his execution for the murder of a Houston woman back in 1979. >> The 66-year-old Danny Bible became known as the ice pit k!ller for this crime. He’s fighting to stop tonight’s execution >> on June 27th, 2018 at exactly 6:32 p.m. A 66-year-old man took his last breath inside the death chamber at Huntsville, Texas. His name was Danny Paul Bible.
And as the lethal drugs coursed through his veins, his final words were not an apology or a prayer. Instead, he whispered something that would haunt everyone in that room. It’s burning. It hurts. This wasn’t just another execution. This was the end of a monster who had terrorized multiple states for decades, leaving behind a trail of bodies and broken lives.
They called him the ice pick k!ller and his story is one of the most disturbing cases in Texas criminal history. Danny Paul Bible didn’t look like a k!ller when they wheeled him into the execution chamber. Confined to a wheelchair, his body shaking uncontrollably from Parkinson’s disease. He appeared frail and broken. But appearances can be deceiving.
This elderly man sitting before witnesses that evening had committed unspeakable acts of violence that spanned for decades. Bible’s reign of terror began in 1979 and didn’t end until 1998. During those years, he was accused of four murders and at least nine rapes across multiple states. But the number of victims could be higher, much higher.
Some crimes were never reported. Some victims never came forward, and Bible himself took many secrets to his grave. The nickname ice pick!ller came from his first known murder, a crime so brutal that it haunted Houston detectives for nearly 20 years before they finally connected it to Bible. May 1979, Houston, Texas.
A young woman named Inz Deedon, just 20 years old, was found dead on a bayou bank. She had been raped and stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick. Inz was a friend of Bible’s cousin, someone who should have been safe around him. Instead, she became his first known murder victim. The case went cold almost immediately.
There were no witnesses, no solid leads, and forensic technology in 1979 was primitive compared to today. The murder of Inz Deon became just another unsolved case filed gathering dust in a Houston police station. But Bible wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot. Fast forward to May 1983, Weatherford, Texas. In a single day, Danny Bible committed an act so heinous that it defies comprehension.
He murdered three people. his 21-year-old sister-in-law, Tracy Powers, her four-month-old son, Justin, and Tracy’s roommate, Pamela Hudgens. Bible bludgeoned and stabbed these victims, then dumped their bodies in rural locations like they were garbage. The brutality was staggering. These weren’t crimes of passion or accidents gone wrong.
This was calculated violence from someone who saw human beings as objects to be destroyed. In early 1984, authorities finally arrested Bible. But here’s where the story takes an infuriating turn. They only had enough evidence to charge him with Pamela Hudgin’s murder. He pleaded guilty and received a 25-ear sentence. 25 years seemed like justice at the time, but Bible served only 7 years.
7 years for brutally murdering a young woman. In 1992, he walked out of prison on mandatory supervision, essentially parole. This decision would prove catastrophic. The system had failed, and Bible was about to make everyone pay for that failure. Freedom gave Bible exactly what he craved, more victims. He drifted through Montana, Texas, and Louisiana like a ghost, leaving devastation in his wake.
He raped an 11-year-old girl in Montana. He sexually assaulted five of his own nieces, young relatives who trusted their uncle. He committed armed assaults, robberies, and kidnappings. Think about the families who lost loved ones to Bible in the 1990s. Think about the victims who survived his attacks but would carry those scars forever.
Every single one of those crimes could have been prevented if Bible had served his full sentence. If the system hadn’t let him out after just 7 years in 1998, Bible’s luck finally ran out. He attacked and raped a woman named Terara Robinson in Louisiana. Unlike so many of his previous victims, Robinson survived. She went to the police.
She gave descriptions. She fought back in the only way she could by making sure authorities knew exactly who had hurt her. In December 1998, police arrested Bible in Florida. At first, they only connected him to the Louisiana rape. But during interrogation, something remarkable happened. Danny Bible started confessing.
He confessed to the Louisiana rape. Then he confessed to murdering Inz Deon 19 years earlier. Then he confessed to the 1983 triple murder in Texas. The confessions kept coming, connecting dots that investigators had been trying to connect for decades. The ice pick k!ller finally had a name and a face. Louisiana moved first.
Bible pleaded guilty to aggravated rape and received life in prison without parole. But Texas wanted him for capital murder and Texas had the death penalty. In 2003, Harris County prosecutors put Danny Bible on trial for the murder of Inz Deedon. They didn’t just present evidence about that single k!lling.
They laid out his entire criminal history for the jury, the other murders, the rape of an 11-year old child in Montana, the sexual assault of his own nieces, the decades of violence and terror. The jury heard it all. They saw who Danny Bible really was. And after deliberating for just 3 hours, they sentenced him to death. Harris County District Attorney Kim OG, who later became known for reducing the county’s use of capital punishment, had no hesitation about Bible’s case.
She called him the worst of the worst. Some crimes she believed demanded the ultimate penalty. Danny Bible’s crimes were among them. By 2018, Bible had been on death row for 15 years. He was now 66 years old, wheelchairbound, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and heart problems. His body was failing him. His veins were weak and compromised.
He shook uncontrollably from tremors. His attorneys saw an opportunity. They argued that executing Bible by lethal injection would be cruel and unusual punishment. Prison technicians might not be able to find a suitable vein for the IV line. Lying flat on the gurnie could cause breathing distress.
The execution could be botched, turning into a prolonged torture session. They cited cases from other states where execution teams had failed to find veins in sick inmates leading to aborted executions. They warned that Bible’s execution could turn into a nightmare. Then they made an unprecedented proposal.
Execute Bible by firing squad or nitrogen gas instead of lethal injection. These methods weren’t authorized under Texas law. But the defense argued they would be more humane given Bible’s condition. Texas prosecutors weren’t buying it. They insisted Bible’s health issues were being exaggerated as a delay tactic. Medical staff had drawn blood from him before without problems.
Texas had a long history of successful executions. This would be no different. The courts agreed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his appeal. The board of pardons and parrolles unanimously rejected clemency 2 days before the scheduled execution. On June 27th, 2018, Bible’s lawyers made one final desperate attempt, filing appeals all the way to the US Supreme Court.
About an hour before the execution was scheduled to begin, the Supreme Court rejected the final appeal. There would be no lastm minute stay, no reprieve. After nearly 40 years, Danny Bible was about to answer for what he had done. Prison policy in Texas changed in 2011, eliminating special last meal requests. So, Bible didn’t get to choose his final dinner.
Instead, he ate what every other inmate on the unit ate that day. breaded chicken patty, sweet potatoes, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, biscuits with country gravy, and a sugar cookie bar. He washed it down with whatever beverage was offered, probably iced tea or punch. It was ordinary food on an extraordinary day, the last meal he would ever eat.
As evening approached, witnesses began gathering. victims families arrived, including Larry Lance, brother of Pamela Hudgens. Media representatives took their positions behind the glass. Bible’s own family came too, his mother and several siblings there to watch their son and brother die. Outside the Huntsville unit, a small group of anti-death penalty protesters had assembled.
They shouted through megaphones, pleading for mercy, highlighting Bible’s age and failing health. Their voices echoed through the prison grounds, a last feudal attempt to stop what was about to happen. But inside the death chamber, preparations continued without pause. Because Bible couldn’t walk, prison staff wheeled him into the chamber in his wheelchair.
His body shook from Parkinson’s tremors, his head nodding involuntarily. They transferred him from the wheelchair to the gurnie, strapping him down carefully. Everyone watching knew what the defense attorneys had warned about. Would the execution team be able to find a vein? Would this turn into the botched execution Bible’s lawyers had predicted? The answer came within minutes.
The IV team worked quickly and efficiently, inserting needles into both of Bible’s hands rather than his arms. Within 10 minutes, they had both lines secured. The dire predictions had been wrong. At approximately 6:17 p.m., the warden asked Bible if he had any final words. No, sir, Bible replied simply. No apology to the families watching behind the glass.
No expression of remorse for the lives he had destroyed. No acknowledgement of the decades of pain he had caused. Just two words, “No, sir.” The lethal dose of pentobarbatl began flowing through the IV lines. Almost immediately, Bible’s demeanor changed. His eyes widened. His breathing became rapid and shallow. Then came the words that no one in that room would forget. It’s burning.
His voice quavered, barely above a whisper, but clearly audible in the silent chamber. It hurts. The drugs continued to flow. Bible groaned softly, then his eyes closed. Some witnesses said he snored briefly, a strange and unsettling sound. His chest rose and fell rapidly at first, then slower, then slower still. Within a minute, all movement stopped.
The tremors that had shaken his body for years finally ceased. Danny Paul Bible, the ice pick!ller, lay perfectly still on the gurnie. At 6:32 p.m., exactly 15 minutes after the drugs began flowing, a doctor checked for vital signs and found none. Danny Paul Bible was pronounced dead.
As Bible’s body lay on the gurnie, Larry Lance stepped forward to speak on behalf of the victim’s families. His words were harsh, unforgiving, and absolutely clear. Danny Paul Bible is as vile and evil a person as has ever drawn breath. We are glad to have witnessed him draw his last breath. I know he will burn in hell for eternity.
There was no sadness in his voice, no sympathy for the elderly man who had just died, only relief that Bible could never hurt anyone again, and satisfaction that justice had finally been served. Bible’s own family, who had watched everything unfold, said nothing to the media. They left the prison in silence, keeping their grief private.
Whatever they felt about losing their son and brother, they chose not to share it with the world. The execution had proceeded more smoothly than anyone expected. Despite all the warnings about Bible’s failing health, despite the legal battles over execution methods, despite the predictions of a botch procedure, it was over in 15 minutes.
No prolonged suffering beyond those initial moments. No technical difficulties, no drama. Danny Paul Bible was the seventh person executed in Texas in 2018. His death closed cases that had remained open for decades. Families who had waited nearly 40 years for justice finally got it, though the wait must have felt endless.
The execution also highlighted uncomfortable questions about the criminal justice system. Bible had been released from prison in 1992 after serving just 7 years for murder. If he had served his full sentence, how many lives would have been saved? How many rapes would never have happened? How many children would have been spared his attacks? There’s also the question of executing elderly, severely ill inmates.
Bible was 66, wheelchairbound, shaking from Parkinson’s disease. Some argued that executing him was cruel regardless of his crimes. Others countered that his victims, including a 4-month-old baby, never got to grow old at all. Bible lived decades longer than the lives he cut short. Harris County District Attorney Kimog, who had moved away from seeking the death penalty in most cases, made an exception for Bible.
She called him the worst of the worst. And few would argue with that assessment. And for the families who watched him take his last breath, that was enough. The ice pick!ller is dead. His victims are not forgotten. And his story serves as a grim reminder of how much damage one person can inflict and how long the road to justice can
