A Texas man convicted of killing his daughters is scheduled to be executed on Feb. 1.
John Battaglia was convicted of killing Liberty, 6, and Faith, 9, when they were visiting him in May 2001.
The girls were on the phone with their mother Mary Jean Pearl when the unthinkable happened.
Faith was shot three times. Liberty was shot five times.
He had a history of domestic violence but was still allowed unsupervised visits with his daughters.
Battaglia’s attorneys asked for the U.S. Supreme Court to block the injection, arguing that their client is mentally incompetent, but that appeal was blocked.
“The defendant is a vengeful, manipulative, cunning and deceitful person with the motive and intellectual capability to maintain a deliberate ploy or ruse to avoid his execution,” State District Judge Robert Burns said in finding the former accountant competent.
A Texas judge and the state appeals court said Battaglia was faking being mentally ill to try to avoid execution.
“I don’t feel like I killed them,” he said. “I am a little bit in the blank about what happened.”
