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John Battaglia,
60, a former accountant, is set to be put to death by lethal
injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville at 6 p.m.
local time. If the execution goes ahead, it would be the 537th
in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death
penalty in 1976, the most of any state.
Lawyers for Battaglia launched a last-minute appeal saying he
should be spared because he suffers from severe bipolar
disorder, which was not properly considered in sentencing.
"Mr. Battaglia has presented evidence that makes a colorable
showing that his delusions make him not understand the reasoning
behind his execution," they said in a filing to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Battaglia had a history of beating women and had been divorced
from his wife, Mary Jean Pearl, for about a year at the time he
fatally shot their two daughters, Mary Faith, 9 years old, and
Liberty, 6, in May 2001, prosecutors said.
At the time of the shooting, Pearl was seeking to have him
arrested for violating a protective order by threatening her.
When he had the children, he knew a warrant had been issued for
his arrest, with an officer asking him to turn himself in
peacefully so police did not have to take him into custody while
he was with his daughters, court documents showed.
He left a message on his wife's phone. When she called back, he
put the phone on speaker and demanded that his wife speak with
daughter Mary Faith.
The daughter then asked: “Mommy, why do you want Daddy to go to
jail?" and could be heard a few seconds later saying: “No,
Daddy, please don’t, don’t do it.”
Then the mother heard gunshots and screams. Battaglia shouted an
obscenity at her on the phone, the documents showed.
Pearl then hysterically called 911 and police found the dead
girls in Battaglia's apartment. Both had been shot multiple
times.
After the shooting, Battaglia went to a bar with his girlfriend
and was arrested shortly afterward at a tattoo parlor where he
was getting rose tattoos to remember his daughters, the
documents showed.
It took a jury about 20 minutes to convict him.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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