HUNTSVILLE — Former South Dakota resident Kevin Scott Varga, 41, was executed Wednesday for his role in the robbery and fatal beating of an army officer in Greenville in 1998.

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.

In his final statement, Varga first addressed victim David Logie’s father, Jack Logie, and five friends of the victim’s family, asking for forgiveness from the family and voicing regret for his actions in Logie’s murder.

“I know I took someone very precious to you — myself and Mr. Galloway, who you will see tomorrow,” Varga said. “Please forgive me. You have to forgive me for you to gain the kingdom of Heaven.

“I wish what was torn from you was not,” he added. “I would pay it back a thousand times to bring back your loved ones. I would pay it gladly.”

In addressing his family, Varga’s words were directed to his personal witnesses, which included his mother, Beth Varga, and personal friend Kathryn Cox.

“Mom, you are my strength... you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “This is nothing. I am going to go to sleep and wake up with Jesus. This is the only way God could save me.”

After Varga declared his readiness to the warden, the lethal cocktail of drugs were administered into Varga’s system at 6:12 p.m. He was pronounced dead just seven minutes later at 6:19 p.m.

Varga’s last few words, “Thank you Jesus. I am going Mom,” were uttered just before succumbing to the injection, with his mother declaring, “I love you so much, Kevin.”

Victim’s witnesses remained quiet and solemn throughout the execution, with a family friend keeping a hand of support upon the back of the victim’s father throughout.

Varga, along with fellow South Dakotan Billy John Galloway, were sentenced to death row a decade ago in connection with the slaying of Logie on Sept. 9, 1998.

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.

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.

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.

Galloway, 41, is set to die today in the same chamber. Like Varga, Galloway’s appeals were exhausted.



The Associated Press contributed to this story.