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00:00In the United States of America, the world's most murderous prisoners are locked behind bars.
00:12The state with the highest number of inmates is Texas, and one of them is arguably the deadliest of them all.
00:22Billy Joel Tracy.
00:24Billy Joel Tracy is at a level of evil like almost no one before.
00:30Human life means absolutely nothing to him.
00:34He viciously attacked a 16-year-old girl.
00:38He choked her. He tried to smother her with a pillow. He beat her into unconsciousness.
00:44Once she was subdued, Tracy basically dropped her out of her window.
00:51Billy Joel Tracy is an opportunist. He waits and he plans, and it's like a cat waiting to pounce.
00:57Even behind bars, Billy Joel Tracy poses a threat to everyone.
01:05I don't think he had any consequences for anything. I mean, honestly, when I grabbed him, I thought I'd grab the devil for a minute.
01:26His reputation is that of a cold, calculated killer.
01:31He hammered on him with a 20-inch slot bar and caved in the back of his head and then threw him down the stairs.
01:38I don't know if you can design a prison that's so restrictive that he won't find a way to defeat the security and kill someone.
01:46Billy Joel Tracy currently sits on death row, awaiting his final punishment.
01:53Billy Tracy deserves a death penalty every day and twice on Sunday.
01:57Some people don't believe in the death penalty.
02:01I think the death penalty was made for Billy Joel Tracy.
02:03Billy Joel Tracy
02:05Billy Joel Tracy
02:35The Barry Telford Unit, which opened in 1995, houses the most dangerous and volatile inmates.
02:50The Telford Unit is a maximum security prison.
02:54It houses approximately 3,000 offenders.
02:58The Barry Telford Unit houses inmates from G1 to G5.
03:03It's a classification level for inmates.
03:06And then you have administrative segregation offenders.
03:08The worst of the worst would be a way to describe the prisoners that are in ADSEG.
03:13They put you in administrative segregation when you have been deemed to be a threat to the institution, safety, and security of staff or inmates or both.
03:21They're allowed out one hour per day, and they're placed by their cells into an individual recreation room.
03:31It's loud.
03:32It's chaotic.
03:33You deal with inmates with severe psychological issues.
03:37You deal with inmates who have just given up on everything.
03:40They will hurt you if they have the chance.
03:43One prisoner who spent most of his time in ADSEG because he's classified as extremely dangerous is Billy Joel Tracy.
03:52He managed to get a hold of a welding rod that he converted, you know, probably sharpened it to a point.
04:09And he used that to stab a guard in the shoulder.
04:15He can play a part where you kind of trust him a little bit, and you think he's a good guy.
04:22And I think he played that part a couple times and convinced people that he wasn't as dangerous as he was, and that's when people got hurt.
04:29No one is safe when he takes a dislike to you.
04:40Tracy slipped a hand free of his cuff and continued to deliver blows into his head and face like one would wield a hammer.
04:49How he could just beat somebody until they're lifeless and then walk back to your cell like you just went out for a smoke.
05:00Tracy is probably one of the most dangerous individuals on this planet.
05:04He's shown sexual violence.
05:05He's shown physical violence.
05:07What makes Tracy so evil is that when you look at his victims, it really appears that no one is off limits.
05:13Billy Joel Tracy was born on November 30th, 1977, in Wisconsin.
05:29While still an infant, his parents moved him to Dallas, Texas.
05:37Billy Joel Tracy didn't have the most perfect upbringing.
05:40His parents both suffered from mental health issues.
05:44There were allegations of physical abuse.
05:46There may have been a lack of emotional support for him.
05:50When you have a dysfunctional household as a child, there's already a built-in instability in your life.
05:58You're not sure where you're safe or where you're unsafe.
06:02You likely don't have a lot of structure or direction or rules.
06:06It has the capability of completely changing the trajectory of your life.
06:14In his adolescence, Billy Joel Tracy's mother institutionalized him in a psychiatric hospital.
06:20He didn't seem to really have any clear indicators of a serious mental condition that would warrant hospitalization.
06:28But his mother put him there.
06:31If your family has shown you that societal norms don't matter, by the time you're 12 years old and you're in a psychiatric hospital, there's a huge potential for you to already be rebellious.
06:46After spending his early teenage years making repeat visits to the hospital, Tracy eventually returned to live with his parents.
06:54But in 1994, at the age of 17, his mother kicked him out.
07:06He had to try to earn his own way.
07:09He had to find a place to live.
07:11To have a 17-year-old with such a dysfunctional childhood come out of a psychiatric hospital, be kicked out by his mother, and now he's essentially still a child being thrown into the real world.
07:28That's a recipe for disaster.
07:32Just a few months later, Tracy had his first run-in with the law.
07:36He was facing felony charges.
07:39He threatened a witness in the case.
07:42The most serious crime for which he was convicted at that point was retaliation.
07:47It can involve taking some sort of action against somebody in basically retaliation for something that they've done that you didn't like.
07:56After serving 20 months of a three-year sentence for the crime, Tracy was paroled in July 1996,
08:03returning to live in Dallas, where he found himself an apartment.
08:11One evening, he invited a friend over for drinks, who brought with him his girlfriend, 16-year-old Casey Kuhn.
08:20He invited Casey Kuhn and her boyfriend over to his apartment to, you know, drink beer, smoke weed, and just generally hang out.
08:29Throughout that evening, Billy Joel Tracy had been making some sexual remarks to Casey.
08:38She just sort of blew him off.
08:39She felt safe with her boyfriend there.
08:43Later that night, Casey and her boyfriend left Tracy's.
08:48Casey returned home, where she lived with her mom.
08:51She was in her bedroom, she was dressed for bed, and she heard some tap-tap-tapping on the window, and it was Tracy.
09:02She told Tracy, you know, go away, but Tracy was able to gain access to her bedroom.
09:08He began disrobing, took off his shoes, took off his shirt, and she pled with him to leave.
09:15But he began to assault her, he choked her, he tried to smother her with a pillow, he beat her into unconsciousness.
09:30He is showing signs of narcissism.
09:33His needs come first before anybody else's.
09:36There's also an element of a need for control and power here, because this is her private home, this is her bedroom, this is her body.
09:44And yet, none of that factors into his decision-making.
09:51Thinking Casey was dead, he dropped her out of the bedroom window and jumped out after her.
09:57He picked her up and carried her to his car, placing her in the passenger seat footwell, before driving off towards Rockwall County.
10:08Billy Joel Tracy realized at some point that Casey was still alive.
10:13He stopped the car, assaulted her again, and then he drove her to a wooded area, where we believe he was planning to kill her and conceal her body.
10:22It's in the middle of the night, and as he's out there in the woods, just by chance, a couple of patrol officers happen to see the car parked at the side of the road.
10:39My name is Paul Britt, and I was a City of Rockwall police officer in 1998.
10:46I think I was about six months in on being on my own when I came up on Billy Tracy.
10:52I was on night shift.
10:54It was 4.13 in the morning.
10:56I was driving north on Ridge Road and happened to see a white Kia Sportage parked off in a field next to the railroad track.
11:02And so I pulled in behind it, let dispatcher know I was there.
11:08As soon as I opened the door and stepped out, I heard someone say, help me.
11:13And I had never heard something almost so forlorn and just desperate.
11:17I mean, it still makes my hair stand up, just thinking about, because I can hear it still.
11:21And I popped my flashlight up and looked into the tree line over by us, and I saw Billy Tracy.
11:28Tracy approached Officer Paul Britt.
11:32Tracy lunged at him.
11:34The two began to struggle physically.
11:37Tracy was a young 20-year-old man in excellent physical condition with training as a boxer, prison fights under his belt,
11:46and he's fighting with a police officer who was pretty young himself.
11:49I think at the time I was 30 or 31.
11:52I just remember we were fighting, and I had called for backup and didn't hear anything.
11:57We weren't, like, going to sit down between rounds.
12:00We threw punches for six minutes.
12:02We threw kicks for six minutes.
12:05He cut me.
12:06I have a little divot right there, and I could feel the blood starting to run down.
12:10I was scared I was going to die.
12:13And that's when my sergeant showed up.
12:15Tracy immediately fled into the woods.
12:17Paul was ready to give chase, but stopped when he saw Casey Kuhn move.
12:28I thought she was already dead, just almost a ghost.
12:31I've never seen anybody like that before, and I've seen a lot of stuff.
12:35I just remember her whole nightgown was coated in blood, and I really only remember seeing, like, one tooth in her mouth.
12:41And her face was swollen beyond belief.
12:44Casey was rushed to the hospital, and a manhunt for Billy Joel Tracy began.
12:52Alerts were issued throughout the Rockwall area, whilst a helicopter was deployed to track him down.
12:58Tracy was on the run, and he hid in a variety of places.
13:06He was just breaking into houses.
13:09During the day, he would slip in, and he would steal cash.
13:13He would steal jewelry.
13:15He would take some food.
13:16Eleven hours later, Tracy was discovered hiding in a house in Rockwall, 55 miles away from the scene of the attack in the woods.
13:25He had hidden in a closet.
13:29I mean, it even, like, made himself a little pallet to sleep on.
13:35And was discovered when the homeowner and her daughter came home one afternoon.
13:43He did not attack them, but obviously they alerted authorities.
13:48Tracy ran out of the house and along a road through the neighborhood, with authorities hot on his tail.
13:55At three o'clock, dispatch called me and said, we got him, and that he took off.
14:02And it was a straight shot.
14:03People were chasing him across to the other house, where he climbed onto the roof.
14:08Law enforcement has surrounded the house.
14:11Rather than surrender, Tracy shouted, bye-bye, and did basically like a backflip off of the house, falling and injuring himself.
14:20There was a tree, there was a freshly tilled flower bed, surrounded by concrete everywhere, and he hit the tree in a freshly tilled flower bed.
14:32Tracy was arrested and taken into custody.
14:37Miraculously, 16-year-old Casey survived.
14:41She was unrecognizable after that attack.
14:46She had a broken orbital bone around her eye.
14:50There were cigarette burns on her ankles and feet.
14:54She was beaten and bruised.
14:58They had to put a metal plate in her face.
15:02What she went through was absolutely horrific.
15:04There's no doubt in my mind that it will probably affect her for the rest of her life.
15:1720-year-old Billy Joel Tracy was placed in Rockwell County Jail.
15:23He was charged with the kidnapping and aggravated assault of Casey Kuhn, as well as assault on Officer Paul Britt.
15:31He was a straight pain in the ass in the jail.
15:37He would make human waste bombs.
15:39He would pee and put feces in cups, throw it at people.
15:43He would try to fight the jailers.
15:46He would throw things at them and just wear out the call button in the dispatch of the jail.
15:53Six months later, in July 1998, Tracy's trial began.
15:58Officer Paul Britt was brought in to testify.
16:03I just stared at him.
16:05He didn't want to look at me.
16:06I think he never expected to be caught.
16:08And he's mad he got caught and he couldn't beat me.
16:13Billy Joel Tracy was sentenced to two life sentences for the attack on Casey Kuhn.
16:18And an additional 20 years for the attack on Paul Britt.
16:24He was sent to Allred Prison Unit, based near the town of Wichita Falls.
16:29There's no denying that Texas has one of the most scary prison systems in the United States.
16:40There are units that don't have air conditioning.
16:42And in the summer times in Texas, the stifling heat is killing inmates.
16:46They are tough.
16:47And the worst of the worst wind up in them.
16:50I believe there are about 100 different prisons in the state of Texas.
16:54Probably one of the largest in the United States.
16:59At the Allred Unit, Billy Joel Tracy, at first, was allowed to live in general population.
17:05Tracy began to really show that assault of side.
17:10And he kept winding up in administrative segregation.
17:14He would just get into altercations with an inmate if they had a dispute over something.
17:18It would wind up physical.
17:20As for the staff, he would make their lives a living hell by doing things like flooding his cell.
17:26I think he just was generally menacing.
17:34This is not somebody who's going to say,
17:36well, I got caught, I'm in prison, I should now change who I am.
17:39For somebody with a criminal mindset, that's only going to flare up more.
17:44If anything, it gets exacerbated.
17:46Because now you're in a controlled environment.
17:48So now you're angry because you're not free.
17:51You're being told what to do all the time.
17:53You're in a confined space.
17:56Prison for most people is a deterrence.
17:58Not for Tracy.
18:00Inmates take great pleasure in guards' discomfort.
18:04It was not unusual back in the day when we had Zippo lighters and lighter fluid.
18:09For guys to squirt lighter fluid on the back of a guard's uniform as he walked by.
18:14And somebody down the road would throw a match and set him on fire.
18:19Tracy committed at least 27 assaults.
18:23It was just misconduct after misconduct.
18:26Misbehavior after misbehavior.
18:28When you are serving a life sentence, I think it was pretty easy for Tracy to look at, what have I got to lose?
18:37Following an attack on a correctional officer, Tracy was transferred to the Clements unit in Amarillo.
18:44He would behave for long enough to get into a less restrictive environment within the prison.
18:52But once in that less restrictive environment, it was only a matter of time before he did something that left someone injured.
19:00In November of 2005, while at the Clements unit, Billy Joel Tracy was in general population.
19:14And the inmates were all sort of milling about outside of their cells.
19:19Officer Katie Stanley is simply walking by, doing her job.
19:25And Tracy just leaps on her and is just pummeling her, brutally attacking Officer Stanley.
19:35Tracy stabbed 39-year-old Katie Stanley with a shank multiple times, puncturing her lungs and leaving her fighting for her life.
19:44He lost the knife in her body.
19:47He proceeded to kick and stomp on her, leaving shoe imprints on her face and body.
19:53He attacked her, and then he tried to throw her over that railing, but was unable to do so, I think, before he ran off.
20:02She was so covered in blood that when her fellow officers arrived to render aid to her, they didn't know if they were treating a man or a woman.
20:11That's how messed up she was physically.
20:19When questioned about his motivation behind the attack, Tracy said that his toothpaste had been confiscated.
20:29Can you believe that by solving her, it was a way to remedy the problem?
20:33It's not going to solve the problem.
20:34It's just a little bit of a way to, you know, guess what, man?
20:37I can strike back, too.
20:39Nothing's always free.
20:40Someone's got to pay for it sooner or later.
20:43This is a woman in a position of authority who's capable of telling him what to do, when to do it, how to do it.
20:51He already has a hatred for women.
20:53He's already violent.
20:54He already hates authority.
20:55So a female correction officer is really the perfect target for him.
21:00I believe Tracy intended to kill Katie Stanley.
21:03Tracy has a penchant for picking out people he deems to be vulnerable, people he thinks he can for sure get the upper hand with.
21:13Despite her injuries, Officer Stanley made a full recovery, continuing to work as a correctional officer.
21:21Tracy was transferred to the Robertson unit in Abilene.
21:25The prison began to handle him even more carefully.
21:32Billy Joel Tracy's life was lived completely in administrative segregation.
21:36He had these security designations that were there to put the correctional officers on alert that he was an extremely dangerous inmate and that he should be handled with caution and not by an officer alone.
21:51For the attack on Officer Stanley, Tracy was sentenced to an additional 45-year prison term.
22:03Tracy is capable of behaving when he wants to behave and then waiting for the exact moment to pounce when he can attack and do the most damage.
22:15Now locked up in solitary confinement, Tracy was no longer seen as a major threat until he found a way to attack again.
22:27In January of 2009, while at the Robertson unit, Correctional Officer Brian Lomas was there to transport Tracy back from the shower area to his cell when Tracy attacked Officer Lomas with a weapon he had constructed from plastic disposable razors that inmates are given to use.
22:52He slashed him all over his face.
22:57Doctors had to use over 200 stitches to put him back together.
23:11He's got scars from being slashed across the face with razor blades.
23:18Officer Lomas' face will never be the same.
23:20Tracy, now 33 years old, was convicted of assaulting a public servant.
23:29Another 10 years was added on to his sentence.
23:34Tracy was moved again, this time to the Hughes unit in Gatesville.
23:41He's just racking up more and more time as he's shifted from unit to unit to unit within the state of Texas.
23:50I can't imagine that that 10-year sentence for assaulting Brian Lomas had really any impact on Tracy whatsoever.
24:00I think he probably wanted to kill, but I also think that he wanted to inflict harm, pain, and torture.
24:11Whether he kills them or not is almost inconsequential to him.
24:15Billy Joel Tracy was now serving two life sentences, plus an additional 75 years, for ongoing violent assaults.
24:33Following a failed prison escape in April 2014, Tracy was moved for a fourth time to the Telford unit, based in New Boston, Texas.
24:44The Barry Telford unit can house approximately 2,900 inmates.
24:52There's an administrative segregation.
24:54There's general population.
24:55It's more known in the state as a rougher prison.
25:00My name is Mark Anthony Adcock, Jr.
25:02I was the video surveillance sergeant at the Barry Telford unit, where Billy Joel Tracy was incarcerated.
25:07My father had worked there, and I was working on my criminal justice degree.
25:15My name is Mark Adcock.
25:16I am a former captain of corrections at the Barry Telford unit.
25:20I was pleased when my son went to work for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
25:25We were one of the first prisons in the state of Texas to have full access to video surveillance.
25:33But I want to say there's three to four hundred cameras on the Barry Telford unit.
25:38The cameras are designed to deter dangerous activity from inmates.
25:42Under the watchful eye of the security cameras and Mark Adcock was 36-year-old Billy Tracy, who was being housed in Adseg in complete isolation.
25:56My first interaction with Billy Joel Tracy was he'd gotten a disciplinary case for something fairly minor, but I had to go get his statement.
26:10All offenders who come in, I look over their records.
26:13So I was pretty well versed in what he was capable of.
26:18Billy Tracy was not a very tall inmate.
26:21I would say he's probably 5'8", 5'10".
26:24But he was very hulking, very muscular, very fit.
26:28Probably not a lot of body fat content on him.
26:30Worked out a lot.
26:34He had probably spent a total combined number of years in administrative segregation.
26:40What did he have to do for 24 or 23 hours a day?
26:44It really seems to me that he used his time to work out, bulk himself up, get very, very strong,
26:52and to think of new and inventive ways to attack an assault.
27:01Working alongside the Adcocks was Officer Timothy Davison, a 47-year-old father of two from Chicago.
27:08My name is Ken Davison.
27:14I'm the brother of Tim Davison.
27:16My brother and I were very close growing up.
27:19Tim was my younger brother by nine years, and we would go fishing, and we would take my daughter's camping,
27:25and we spent a lot of time together.
27:29He was a man of honor, and he loved his children.
27:32He was the type of person that would give you the shirt off his back.
27:35He would help you in any way he could.
27:36Tim had relocated to Texas after securing a job as a correctional officer at Telford Prison.
27:45His brother, Ken, was already working there, teaching inmates.
27:51One of Tim's colleagues was Mark Adcock, Jr.
27:54I was an instructor in the training course, so I met him right at the beginning of his training.
28:01You could tell that he was just a decent, good human being.
28:05And then after he got through a training, he went to work on my dad's shift.
28:11Mr. Davison came to my shift, and he was a quiet man.
28:15He never complained.
28:17He always showed up for work on time, ready to work.
28:21And he was always eager to learn.
28:23He was a joy to me to work with.
28:25Tim had never worked in a prison before.
28:28It was long hours.
28:29They were 12-hour shifts.
28:31He just constantly talked about spending time with his kids.
28:34And I got the sense that Tim was enjoying his job and that he had a passion for helping people.
28:39While working in ADSEG, the solitary confinement section of the prison, Tim had had fleeting interactions with Tracy.
28:53On the morning of July 15, 2015, Tracy was in the exercise yard.
29:00He had gone outside for his one-hour wreck.
29:03And then his one-hour wreck was over.
29:05Mr. Davison handcuffed him and escorted him back toward his cell.
29:11And it was only like maybe 30 feet from the recreation to his cell.
29:16And then right when he got to his cell, he had slipped out of his handcuffs somehow.
29:22And that's when the attack started.
29:24They were fighting back and forth some.
29:26And then the slot bar that he held fell off Mr. Davison's body onto the floor.
29:31And the offender was on top of Mr. Davison.
29:34He grabbed the slot bar and started beating him with it.
29:39That metal tray slot bar is a pipe about that big round, and it's about 16 inches long.
29:46You're talking about a piece of steel.
29:49The pipe is used to insert into a hole next to a slot in the inmates' prison cell doors.
29:55And it causes the little slot window to pop open.
29:58I mean, it's like hitting someone almost with a hammer.
30:02It's brutal.
30:03It's a very effective weapon.
30:06I don't know how many times he hit him.
30:08I try not to think about it.
30:09After beating him into unconsciousness, Billy Joel Tracy picked up Timothy Davison's body and hurled it down the stairs towards a gathering crowd of other correctional officers.
30:23And then sprayed the air with pepper spray so that it would be difficult for them to walk up there.
30:33He just walked like he was taking a walk in the park up to his cell.
30:38He didn't slam the door.
30:39He just shut it.
30:41So he was very calm.
30:43Mr. Davison's not a very big guy.
30:45So he chose him, I think, because he thought he was going to be an easy target.
30:53Tim Davison was rushed to the hospital by helicopter.
30:58The prison was immediately placed on lockdown, and Tracy was taken to a secure holding cell.
31:06Video surveillance sergeant Mark Adcock, Jr., was immediately called in.
31:11I got through the security checkpoint, and they kind of briefed me.
31:15Hey, this happened.
31:16Go lock down the cameras.
31:18I got on my camera system.
31:19I backed up the time, and I looked at what happened.
31:22There was camera angles of here, here, here, all angles of the camera.
31:26You could just see everything from six different angles as it was happening.
31:30That's the first time that anybody had ever seen the incident.
31:36Right now, you've got Billy Tracy.
31:38He is being escorted up the stairs by Officer Davison.
31:42He's holding on to him.
31:43He's going up to the thing, telling them to, oh, roll the door.
31:45And you can see when he's coming up those stairs that he's fidgeting with his right arm behind his back.
31:52It's hard to say what he's doing, what he's not doing.
31:54He has handcuffs on.
31:55When the cuffs were put on, they were not double locked as they're supposed to be.
32:01And, you know, Tracy obviously has had decades of experience with handcuffs.
32:06And somehow, he managed to defeat those cuffs, slip a hand free.
32:12And then he comes around, and when Davison turns his back to open his door, cell number 66, he attacks him.
32:25It was the worst thing I'd ever seen.
32:27For Tim's brother, Ken, the day had started like any other.
32:36July 15, 2015, I got up at about 6 o'clock in the morning, had a cup of coffee with my brother.
32:42He went off to work.
32:44Then, late morning, my phone rang, and it was my wife.
32:48Somebody had told her that he was hurt, and I needed to go to the hospital to see him.
32:53And it just all spiraled from there.
32:57I just thought maybe he had a knock in the head, and he was going to be fine.
33:02We'd be laughing about it tomorrow.
33:04When I got to the hospital, I was there maybe 20 minutes, and then I hear my hysterical wife screaming running down the hallway and said he was dead.
33:14I just never thought that he would be dead.
33:18The staff, as well as the entire unit, was absolutely devastated.
33:26Devastated.
33:29It's heartbreaking to lose a fellow officer, and to lose him in that way made it 100 times worse.
33:39They got him to Christa St. Michael Hospital in Texarkana, Texas, which is the closest medical facility there was.
33:56I think he was pronounced dead, you know, within an hour or so of arriving at the hospital.
34:02His injuries were just too extensive.
34:05They were not survivable.
34:06They put seven pints of blood in my brother in the helicopter ride to the hospital, and it all poured out of the back of his head.
34:15What was the need in this?
34:16What was the purpose of this?
34:18Why did this get to this point?
34:20It makes you realize that this is a real job, and this is something that could happen every single day in the United States.
34:2637-year-old Billy Joel Tracy had just brutally killed father of two, Correctional Officer Tim Davison.
34:43He was now being held in a holding cell.
34:46We had staff monitor him, you know, 24 hours constantly, and he was running his mouth, how bad he was, and how, you know, I'm going to do it again.
35:00I wasn't remorseful or anything.
35:02He was taken for questioning.
35:05He hit me in the head.
35:06My head busts open, and then from that point on, it went farther than I expected it to go.
35:10Then I was pissed off, and I hit him with a bean bar.
35:13Where'd you hit him at with the bean bar?
35:15In the head.
35:15How many times did you hit him?
35:17Exactly.
35:18I'm not sure, but I would guess six, at least six.
35:21He doesn't attribute value to human life.
35:24He's not capable of thinking, oh my gosh, I just ended a man's life.
35:29What is his family going to think?
35:31He has an inability to feel empathy or remorse.
35:36Then what happened?
35:37I threw him downstairs.
35:39I was really upset.
35:40And that's why I had no idea the significance of his injuries.
35:43And she didn't realize that he was going to die.
35:46So how do you think they're going to perceive that video when they see it?
35:49It's going to look completely premeditated.
35:51And you're saying it wasn't?
35:52Well, I mean, the assault was, of course, obviously.
35:54Yeah, the assault was premeditated, but it wasn't trying to kill him.
35:57Billy Tracy knew what he was going to do that morning.
35:59When he woke up, he knew he was going to, if he could, and the opportunity presented itself,
36:04he was going to attack an officer.
36:06The reasons for that, I do not know.
36:09News of the murder soon reached the press.
36:12I was in the newsroom at my former job, and we were all shocked.
36:18I believe this is the first time that a correctional officer with the Texas Department of Criminal
36:24Justice had been killed in seven or eight years.
36:28It certainly had never happened at the Telford's unit, not in my experience as a reporter.
36:33Tracy was charged with the murder of Tim Davison, whose death affected everyone in the community.
36:48Timothy's funeral service, it was heart-wrenching.
36:52It was humbling.
36:54It was about 3,000 or 4,000 people showed up for that.
36:57They were people there that really cared.
36:59After his death, the governor asked for the flags to be flown at half-staff until he was laid to rest.
37:08They awarded him the Medal of Honor.
37:11He earned the right to have that type of funeral.
37:15Everybody was somber, and the community was still in shock about it.
37:20Timothy Davison was a good man who was killed by an evil person, a coward, an opportunist.
37:27A grand jury indicted Billy Joel Tracy with capital murder.
37:35After two years of pretrial proceedings, his trial began.
37:42Extra security was required to contain this unpredictable and volatile prisoner.
37:49They installed a giant bolt to the floor underneath the defense table in the courtroom so that they could shackle Tracy while he was sitting at the table so that he could not get up and run.
38:02That's how concerned they were about his behavior.
38:06I think everybody expected him to be convicted.
38:09I think the only question was, would the jury impose the death penalty, or would they give him life without the possibility of parole?
38:14Being in the same room with him, I don't know, maybe I'm struggling for the right words.
38:23It's an emotion that people shouldn't have to have.
38:27When I saw Billy Joel Tracy in a courtroom, it kind of made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, I have to admit.
38:35Something about him, he just gave off a vibe, like, I'd sooner kill you than look at you.
38:42He did not seem remorseful at all.
38:45He just sat there.
38:47He didn't really say nothing or had no emotion.
38:50He just looked like he was at a movie or something, you know.
38:54Tracy's reasoning that he gave for attacking Timothy Davison was that he claimed Davison owed him a cell phone and that he had paid him $500 for it.
39:08But there was really no evidence to support that.
39:12The video surveillance footage of the attack was screened to the courtroom.
39:16When we pushed play to the time the video ended, you could feel like there was a different energy in the room.
39:24They'd just witnessed something that nobody should have to witness, but they'd also, I think it made the trial real at that point.
39:35It was very quiet, but there was a palpable just sense of revulsion and of sadness.
39:42I can still see that video playing in my mind's eye.
39:47It will never leave my mind.
39:51And it is one of the most, if not the most disturbing piece of video footage I have ever watched in my life.
39:58But you also heard a few gasps.
40:02Some of the jurors were literally wiping tears from their eyes.
40:06Heartbroken to watch that video.
40:08When you see somebody you love and care for that they're so disfigured from a beating, nobody should have to go through that.
40:22The Texas Department of Criminal Justice implementing the video surveillance system and it coming to the Telford unit when it did
40:28was one of the greatest things that could have happened as far as procurement of evidence against an offender in probably TDCJ history.
40:38There's no way somebody could look at that and be like, I don't know if that's him.
40:42After a five-day trial, Tracy was found guilty of capital murder.
40:50In the sentencing phase, the jury deliberated for less than an hour before sentencing the 39-year-old to death.
41:00What else do you do with him?
41:01He is the textbook example of a case that in Texas is ripe for the death penalty.
41:07Billy Joel Tracy was stoic when the verdict of guilt was read.
41:14It was a good feeling.
41:16It's hard to say it wasn't a good feeling.
41:18Happy.
41:19Everybody's hugging.
41:21Justice for somebody whose life was taken from them.
41:25Our family kind of all congratulated everybody.
41:29People felt relieved.
41:30We felt that maybe the healing process could start.
41:35But you don't get your brother back.
41:40So Tim's gone for good.
41:45I think that if you feel the person is so bad, you can never, ever, ever, ever let him out again.
41:52I think the death penalty is far kinder to them and far cheaper for society than to keep somebody on death row.
41:59If they can't live in the society and you can't have them out of the society, what do you do with them?
42:14For those who knew Tim Davison, his death has had a lasting impact.
42:19I can't help but feel a little bit responsible because he worked directly for me.
42:27And I made the rosters out that placed him that day on that pot.
42:32Every year on that date, I think about it pretty much all day.
42:36The loss of my brother is like a hole in my heart.
42:40I feel so fortunate to be able to take my brother the weekend before he died up to see his daughters for the last time.
42:49I got to snap one picture of him hugging his two daughters.
42:53It's such a tragedy to have him taken from you like so suddenly that I don't know that you're ever totally healed from that.
42:59Tracy is currently being held at the Polunsky unit in West Livingston, where he'll remain until his death warrant is issued.
43:15The day of his execution, a moment, two or three seconds after it, I'll say, okay, it's good now.
43:21But right now, he's still living on Texas taxpayers' dimes.
43:25So he hasn't gotten what he deserved yet, but he's close.
43:28I have two family members that, if we're allowed to go watch the execution, they would wish to be there.
43:36I have other family members that don't want to.
43:39I'd like to have a front row seat.
43:43I just hope I don't die of old age first.
43:49If you look at Billy Tracy's M.O., every incident he's ever had in the state of Texas, always women, older guys, 16-year-old girls.
43:57That's what he does.
43:58That's what he does. He's a coward. He's not a tough, strong man.
44:03I believe that Billy Joel Tracy is a danger to everyone he meets.
44:08He may act like he's your friend for a little while.
44:11He may follow all the rules to a T, but eventually, he's going to strike, and he's going to strike with a plan, and he's going to strike with a deadly plan.
44:20I hope we'll be right back.
44:28Transcription by CastingWords
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