Texas set to execute inmate for the first time in six months: Man set for lethal injection on Wednesday - 13 years after he murdered a couple and shot their son

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Barney Fuller, 58, shot and killed Nathan and Annette Copeland, his next-door neighbors, in a rural area of eastern Texas in May 2003

Texas is scheduled to execute its first death row inmate in six months on Thursday.

Barring an unlikely last-second stay of execution, Barney Fuller, 58, will be administered lethal doses of poisonous chemicals through injection.

Fuller will be executed over 13 years after he pleaded guilty to murdering a couple and shooting one of their children in a rural area of east Texas just outside the town of Lovelady.

In May 2003, Fuller was hauled into a Texas court to answer for charges that he had made threatening phone calls to his neighbor two years prior.

Later that evening, Fuller went home and began drinking, stewing in his anger.

Two nights later, Fuller left his home with a 12-gauge shotgun, a military-style semi-automatic carbine and a .40-caliber pistol and carried the weapons about 200 yards to the home of neighbors Nathan and Annette Copeland.

He fired 59 shots into their house, kicked in the back door and walked inside, opening fire again.

Nathan Copeland, 43, was killed in his bedroom, shot four times.

The room in the state facility in Huntsville that will be used in Fuller's execution on Wednesday. Lethal injection is the method of execution used by Texas authorities

His wife, 39, was gunned down in a bathroom while calling 911. One of their two children was shot but survived. The 911 operator heard Fuller's voice, yelling: 'The party's over b****.'

The couple's 14-year-old son, Cody, was hit twice and survived, and their 10-year-old daughter, Courtney, avoided gunshots because Fuller couldn’t find the light in her dark bedroom. 

Cody found his mother’s cellphone and called police.

'Barney Fuller found happiness with a warm gun,' asst. district attorney Tanya Dohoney was quoted as saying by the Toronto Sun.

'He was so fond of shooting on his rural Houston County property that his pastime repeatedly peeved his neighbors, including the Copeland family.

'After Barney shot the Copeland's electric transformer to smithereens, the ensuing dispute led the Copelands to seek terroristic threat charges against Barney.'

Nathan Copeland, 43, was killed in his bedroom, shot four times by Fuller. His wife, Annette, was gunned down in a bathroom while calling 911

Fuller appears to have long been resigned to his fate. He pleaded guilty to the murder charges in court and he did not protest when jurors sentenced him to death.

'He was very adamant not wanting to be there,' said William House, one of his trial lawyers.

'From the very start, he just really didn't care.' Cindy Garner, the former Houston County district attorney who prosecuted Fuller, described him as mean and without remorse.

'A lot of times in the country folks argue about chickens and dogs,' Garner said. 

'He was shooting his mouth off, but no one had any idea that something like this was going to happen, where he was just going to march down the road like Rambo and tear up an entire family.'

There are currently 254 inmates on death row in the Lone Star State - six of them women. 

According to the Death Penalty Information Center,  15 people have been executed this year in the United States.