CALDWELL — The top Texas Ranger contradicted his testimony Friday during a hearing on reducing the $1 million bail for former death-row inmate Anthony Graves, whom the Texas Innocence Network says is innocent.

Chief Texas Ranger Ray Coffman, a sergeant when he led the investigation into the 1992 slayings of a grandmother and five children, testified that the man executed for the killings never told him Graves was innocent.

But at an Oct. 30 hearing in the same Burleson County courtroom, Coffman said at least five times that Robert Carter told him Graves wasn't involved.

Bobbie Joyce Davis, 45; her 16-year-old daughter, Nicole; and four grandchildren, between 4 and 9, were shot, stabbed and beaten to death and their Somerville home set ablaze.

Prosecutors say Carter alone could not have wielded the hammer, knife and pistol used in the slayings.

Graves' three defense attorneys did not object despite Coffman's contradictory testimony.

Neither Coffman nor attorneys could comment because of a gag order imposed by Burleson County District Court Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett.

But the contradiction is significant in a case that was overturned by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year in part because of false testimony by Coffman.

The appeals court accused prosecutors of withholding a statement by Carter that he acted alone.

The court accused Charles Sebesta, then-district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties, of eliciting false testimony from Coffman.

During the 1994 trial, Coffman testified that Carter implicated Graves in every statement except one he gave before the grand jury, although prosecutors knew Carter had told them Graves was not an accomplice. "I did it all myself," he said.

Carter's testimony during the trial was key to convicting Graves in 1994, but Carter recanted his testimony at least three times, including a statement given moments before he was executed in 2000.

Asked by defense attorney Jeff Blackburn on Friday if Carter had ever told him that Graves had nothing to do with the slayings, Coffman replied, "No sir."

He said he only knew about Carter's claims of Graves' innocence through hearsay.

In the October hearing, the district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties, Renee Mueller, asked Coffman: "What do you think of the statement that Carter made when he said, 'I did it all myself?' "

Coffman replied, "I've heard him say that several times before," according to a transcript.

Under questioning by defense attorney David Mullin, Coffman repeated that Carter had made such statements several times.

Towslee-Corbett said she would rule on the bail reduction request April 13.

harvey.rice@chron.com

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