A Texas father convicted of killing his two daughters used his final words to taunt their mother.
John David Battaglia, 62, was put to death by lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas on the night of Thursday, Feb. 1, the Daily Mail reports. He allegedly used his final moments to taunt the mother of the two children he had killed.
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It is reported that Battaglia smiled as his ex-wife and the mother of his slain children, Mary Jean Pearle, as well as other witnesses filed into the death chamber viewing area. When asked by a warden if he had any final words, he said “no,” but later changed his mind.
“Well, hi, Mary Jean,” he is alleged to have said as he smiled at his ex-wife. “I’ll see y’all later. Bye.”
He then told the warden “go ahead, please,” before he closed his eyes. When the sedative pentobarbital began to take effect, he said “Oh, I feel it.” He then gasped twice and began to snore. Within the next few seconds, all body movements had stopped, and he was declared dead at 9:40 p.m., 22 minutes after the lethal injection began.
Battaglia, who had been on death row since 2001, had been convicted in the May 2001 killings of his 9-year-old daughter, Faith, and his 6-year-old daughter, Liberty, after he had separated from his wife.
After picking his daughters up in a shopping center parking lot for his court ordered visit with the children, he had driven them to his apartment. Prosecutors allege that he had become enraged after learning that Pearle had notified authorities to the fact that he was harassing her, and used the court ordered visit to get revenge.
The murders happened after Pearle returned a call from her daughter, during which time Battaglia put the call on speakerphone and Pearle could hear her daughters begging for their lives, Faith begging “No, daddy, please don’t, don’t do it!”
A series of gunshots followed before Battaglia told Pearle “Merry Christmas,” referring to a 1999 attack on Pearle that led to him being put on probation.
Faith had been shot three times, while Liberty had suffered five gunshot wounds. Authorities arrested Battaglia after finding him outside of a tattoo shop, where he had just gotten the tattoos of two large red roses to commemorate his daughters.