Dallas man to be executed for killing daughters with their mom on speakerphone

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A former Dallas accountant condemned for fatally shooting his two young daughters while their mother listened helplessly on speakerphone is looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to spare his life.

John David Battaglia is set for execution Thursday evening for the May 2001 killings of his 9-year-old daughter, Faith, and her 6-year-old sister, Liberty. Battaglia and his wife had separated and the girls were killed at his Dallas apartment during a scheduled visit.

Battaglia’s attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to stop the punishment and review his case, contending Battaglia, 62, was delusional and mentally incompetent for execution.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, hours before Battaglia’s scheduled punishment, rejected an appeal that argued a lower court improperly refused his lawyers money to hire an expert to further examine legal claims he’s mentally incompetent for execution.

The Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners can be executed if they’re aware the death penalty is to be carried out and have a rational understanding of why they’re facing that punishment.

Attorneys for Battaglia contend that he doesn’t have that understanding and that the state’s highest court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, misapplied the Supreme Court’s guidance when it ruled that Battaglia is competent. They also argue that a federal judge improperly denied their requests for additional money to hire an expert to collect information about his competency, which has been the focus of prolonged appeals in his case.

State attorneys argued that the Texas courts ensured proper legal standards were followed and that Battaglia had been provided expert help and a court hearing in accordance with Supreme Court precedents.

A state judge and the state appeals court described Battaglia as highly intelligent, competent, not mentally ill and 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 during a phone call from jail the “chess game” of avoiding execution. State Judge Robert Burns, who found him competent, said Battaglia’s intelligence and education – he has a master’s degree – shows he’s not a “typical inmate” and has the “motive and intellectual capability to maintain a deliberate ploy or ruse to avoid his execution.”

According to prosecutors, Battaglia became enraged that his estranged wife, Mary Jane Pearle, notified police about his harassment and he used the visit with their daughters to act on his anger. Pearle, who had gone to dinner, returned a call from one of her daughters and heard Faith pleading with her father, who put the call on speakerphone.

“No, daddy, please don’t, don’t do it!” Faith begged.

Pearle yelled into the phone for the children to run, then heard gunshots.

“Merry … Christmas,” Battaglia told Pearle, the words of the holiday greeting derisively divided by an obscenity.

There were more gunshots. Pearle called 911.

At the time of the shootings, Battaglia was on probation for a Christmas 1999 attack on Pearle. His profanity-laced Christmas greeting to Pearle was an apparent reference to that.

Faith was shot three times, Liberty five. Hours later, Battaglia was arrested outside at a tattoo shop where he had two large red roses inked on his left arm to commemorate his daughters. It took four officers to subdue him.  A fully loaded revolver was found in his truck and more than a dozen firearms were recovered from his apartment.

Battaglia told The Dallas Morning News in 2014 his daughters were his “best little friends” and that he had photos of them displayed in his prison cell.

“I don’t feel like I killed them,” he said. “I am a little bit in the blank about what happened.”

Battaglia would be the nation’s third prisoner executed this year, all in Texas.

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Robert Wagner named person of interest in Natalie Wood’s drowning death

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Almost four decades after the tragic death of Hollywood star Natalie Wood, investigators reveal there is a new person of interest in the case: her then-husband, Robert Wagner. Susana Victoria Perez (@susana_vp) has more.
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Thirty-six years after Natalie Wood’s mysterious drowning death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has reopened the investigation and named her then-husband, Robert Wagner, a person of interest in the case.

CBS reported the new detail Thursday as part of its upcoming 48 Hours report Natalie Wood: Death in Dark Water (Saturday, 10 p.m. ET/PT).

Wood, the 43-year-old Oscar-nominated star of films such as  Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story, drowned off the coast of Catalina Island in California the night of Nov. 29, 1981, after taking her family yacht, Splendour, out with Wagner and her Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken. Boat captain Dennis Davern was also on board.

She was found wearing a flannel nightgown, socks and a red down jacket and Davern identified her body for authorities, according to an autopsy report. Her body had superficial bruises, according to the report, but those were considered consistent with drowning. 

“She looked like a victim of an assault,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detective Ralph Hernandez tells CBS per 48 Hours. ”We have not been able to prove this was a homicide. And we haven’t been able to prove that this was an accident, either. The ultimate problem is we don’t know how she ended up in the water.”

Her death was ruled an accident in 1981, but the sheriff’s department reopened the case in 2011, ultimately changing the cause of death on her death certificate from an accidental drowning to “drowning and other undetermined factors” in 2012.

In a 2011 interview with NBC’s Today show, Davern said he had come forward to police with new information. “I made mistakes by not telling the honest truth in the (initial) police report,” Davern said.

When asked if Wagner had more of a responsibility in the case, Davern said, “Yes, I would say so, yes.” But he refused to elaborate.

However, when asked if Wagner was a suspect, Lt. John Corina, the lead detective on the reopened case, said he was not.

For his part, Wagner had pledged his “full support” to the 2011 investigation, with the caveat that he hoped any new leads “would come from a credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from the 30 year anniversary of the tragic death.”

Representatives for Wagner and the L.A. County Sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.

Contributing: Bryan Alexander, The Associated Press

 

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