Texas completes its thirs execution of 2018

As reported in this local article, headlined "John Battaglia jokes with his ex-wife before being executed for killing their girls while she listened in horror," a death sentence was carried out tonight in Texas. Here are the details:

John David Battaglia went out with a joke and a grin. Battaglia, 62, offered no apologies and showed no remorse for killing his daughters at his Deep Ellum loft in 2001.

He seemed jovial, strapped to a gurney while witnesses arrived to watch his execution at the state's Huntsville Unit. As they filed in, he looked around and asked, "How many people are there? Oh, that's a lot."

The one-time accountant even said hello to his ex-wife, Mary Jean Pearle, who was there to watch him die. "Well, hi, Mary Jean. I'll see y'all later. Bye," he said. "Go ahead, please."

He closed his eyes for several moments, and shortly after the lethal injection was administered, he looked at the chaplain at his feet, smiled and asked, "Am I still alive?" Battaglia grinned and then sighed. "Oh, here, I feel it," he said. It took about 22 minutes for him to be pronounced dead at 9:40 p.m.

Battaglia was the third man executed this year in the nation, all in Texas, and the second killer from Dallas put to death this week. His execution brought an end to a lengthy legal battle to spare his life. He was twice granted a stay so his mental competency could be evaluated, and his attorneys filed last-ditch efforts Thursday to delay the execution.

Battaglia received national attention in May 2001 after he gunned down his 9-year-old daughter, Faith, and 6-year-old Liberty at his Deep Ellum loft while their mother listened helplessly on the phone. At the time, he was on probation for hitting his ex-wife, the girls' mother, and she had been trying to have him arrested for violating that probation.

"Mommy, why do you want Daddy to have to go to jail?" Faith was told to ask her mother, moments before the girl begged for her life. "No, Daddy. Don't do it."

Last week, his attorneys filed a request for a stay of execution to the U.S. Supreme Court saying that Battaglia did not fully understand why he was being put to death. "Although he is aware of the state's rationale for his execution, he does not have a rational understanding of it," appellate attorneys Michael Mowla and Gregory Gardner wrote.

Battaglia, himself, said in a 2014 interview with The Dallas Morning News that he didn't recall committing the crime and still considered the girls his "best little friends."... In his Texas appeals, his attorneys wrote that Battaglia was "convinced that his trial and conviction were a sham" and that his death sentence was all part of a conspiracy involving "the KKK, child molesters and homosexual lawyers."...

A state judge and the state appeals court, however, described Battaglia as highly intelligent, competent and not mentally ill. They argued he was faking mental illness to avoid execution. Testimony at a hearing showed Battaglia used the prison library to research capital case rulings on mental competence and discussed with his father the "chess game" of avoiding execution....

Pearle, the killer's ex-wife and the mother of his victims, was at the Huntsville Unit on Thursday to witness his execution — almost 17 years after she listened to Faith and Liberty die and pleaded for them to run away from their father. On Thursday, she leaned in as close as she could to the window separating the witnesses from the death chamber. Pearle watched as Battaglia's breathing grew heavy and then stopped. "I've seen enough of him," Pearle said as she walked away.