More than eleven years after two bodies were found inside a house on South Sledge Street in Kyle, a man once charged and then cleared of the crime is facing a new capital murder indictment. Larry Simon was reindicted following his arrest in Bedford County, Tennessee, where he remains detained awaiting extradition back to Hays County, Texas.
The case dates to June 25, 2015, when Kyle police found the bodies of 45-year-old James “Jim” Wright Jr. and 44-year-old Tina Combs inside Wright's home at 810 South Sledge Street during a welfare check requested by Wright's father, according to KVUE. Wright lived at the home, while Combs, an Arlington mother of seven whose children's ages span two decades, was visiting after reconnecting with him as adults through a family connection, per FOX 7 Austin. Wright died instantly from a gunshot wound to the head, while Combs died in the master bedroom from a combination of gunshot and knife wounds, according to autopsy findings reported by Crime Solvers Central.
A Cold Case Reopens in 2021
The case went unsolved for nearly six years until detectives, working jointly with the Texas Rangers, made an arrest in February 2021. Authorities first charged Simon with capital murder after a witness came forward alleging he had disclosed unreleased crime scene details, and Simon was already jailed in Hays County on unrelated drug charges at the time, FOX 7 Austin reported. Police affidavits noted that Simon, a former employee and roommate of Wright's, had arrived at the crime scene back in 2015 with a black eye, admitted to pawning Wright's property, and made statements to officers questioning whether he might have committed the murders, according to the Hays Free Press.
That indictment did not survive its first brush with trial. One week before Simon was set to stand trial in March 2024, 453rd District Court Judge Sherri Tibbe granted a motion dismissing the capital murder indictment to allow prosecutors to conduct further investigation. The dismissal came without prejudice, meaning the state retained the ability to refile charges if it secured new evidence, the same outlet's report notes.
New Charges After a Tennessee Arrest
That refiling happened this week. Officials confirmed on Tuesday that Simon was reindicted on capital murder charges following his arrest in Bedford County, Tennessee, where he is currently detained awaiting extradition to Texas, the Hays Free Press reported. Simon is expected to face trial in Hays County once that extradition is complete.
The 453rd District Court, presided over by Judge Tibbe, serves as the local venue for major felony prosecutions and capital cases in the San Marcos judicial district, per court records cited by the Hays Free Press. Tibbe previously served as the county's district attorney before taking the bench.
What Capital Murder Charges Mean Under Texas Law
Under Texas Penal Code § 19.03(a)(7), intentionally killing multiple people in a single criminal transaction or course of conduct is classified as capital murder, a charge punishable solely by life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty, according to the Barbieri Law Firm. That statute is what elevates the killings of Wright and Combs into the state's most severe charging category, given that both victims died in the same home during what investigators have treated as one course of conduct.
Kyle itself looks very different than it did in 2015. The city has grown from roughly 5,000 residents in 2000 to more than 62,500 by 2023, making it one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Texas along the Interstate 35 corridor, according to Kyle Economic Development. For the families of Wright and Combs, that growth has unfolded across more than a decade of unresolved grief, as the case moved from a cold file to an indictment, to a last-minute dismissal, and now back to a fresh set of charges awaiting Simon's return to Texas.
