James Emery Paster (January 30, 1945 – September 20, 1989)[1] and Stephen Albert McCoy (December 17, 1948 – May 24, 1989)[2] were American serial killers who murdered at least three people in Texas between 1980 and 1981.
[4] In October 1980, Paster, McCoy, and an acquaintance, Gary LeBlanc, agreed to murder 38-year-old Robert Edward Howard in Houston.
On October 25, 1980, Paster, accompanied by McCoy and LeBlanc, drove to a nightclub in Houston and slashed the tires of Howard's truck.
On June 1, 1983, while serving his sentences at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama, he was indicted for the capital murder of Robert Howard in Houston.
[5] McCoy, who at the time of the revelation was serving a five-year sentence in a Texas prison for burglary, was found guilty of capital murder and rape.
[9] In April 1989, Paster and another inmate attempted to escape from prison by squeezing through an air vent and sawing through an exhaust fan.
[17] The Texas Attorney General, Jim Mattox, later admitted that McCoy "seemed to have a somewhat stronger reaction," and that "The drugs might have been administered in a heavier dose or more rapidly.
[20] On September 20, 1989, Paster was executed via lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit for the capital murder of Robert Howard.