Texas to Execute Man Who Kept Changing his Mind About Appealing Death Sentence

By Ayden Runnels, The Texas Tribune

For years, Richard Tabler went back and forth on whether he wanted to be executed for two murders he once boasted about committing. On Thursday evening, with his court appeals exhausted, he is set to become the second death row inmate Texas puts to death in 2025.

In 2004, officials say Tabler, along with an accomplice, shot and killed four people in Killeen: Tabler’s former boss at a nightclub and the man’s friend on Nov. 26; and two teenage girls who worked at the club on Nov. 28. Bell County Sheriff’s officials said at the time that Tabler called their office on at least one occasion to brag about the murders.

After being arrested quickly after the fatal shootings, Tabler confessed while in police custody to killing the two men, and said he had a list of other club staff he had planned to kill as retaliation against his former boss. Tabler also claimed his accomplice, Timothy Payne, recorded him killing the two men, but later destroyed the video.

Despite Tabler’s confession, both men pleaded not guilty in separate trials. Tabler was sentenced to death only for the first two killings, while Payne received a life sentence. Tabler was never charged in the deaths of the two girls, and later denied he had killed them in a 2008 interview.

Like his confession and contrasting not guilty plea, Tabler has expressed a desire to be executed multiple times in the 21 years since his conviction only to later walk back the claims. Tabler first expressed he wanted to speed up his execution shortly after he was sentenced in 2008. He would later be granted a stay of execution in 2010 when his legal representation sought relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.

On multiple occasions, Tabler’s legal representation called into question whether he was mentally sound enough to decide whether or not his appeals should be withdrawn, and at one point a judge held a competency hearing for Tabler in 2008. The judge ultimately determined he was competent, allowing Tabler to waive his state habeas corpus rights, which would have allowed him another avenue to appeal his conviction.

Tabler later tried to withdraw the waiver months later, but was unable to due to a miscommunication on deadlines. In 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union also claimed in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Tabler that his counsel in 2008 had withheld a report that diagnosed Tabler as severely mentally ill. The Supreme Court denied the appeal in October.

While on death row, Tabler made headlines in 2008 and 2012 for sending multiple death threats to then-state Sen. John Whitmire, now the mayor of Houston, via contraband cellphones and through letters.

Texas’ third execution for 2025 is scheduled for March 13. David Wood was convicted in the abduction and fatal stabbing of a 24-year-old woman more than 30 years ago. Her body, along with the bodies of five other women he is accused of killing, were found buried in the desert northwest of El Paso.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/13/texas-execution-richard-tabler-2025/.