KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Texas man set to die for 1993 double slaying
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Associated Press - November 17, 2009 4:15 AM ET
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Attorneys for a condemned Texas prisoner are contending he's too mentally ill to be executed for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her daughter almost 17 years ago in Houston.
Forty-5-year-old Gerald Eldridge is set for lethal injection Tuesday evening for a shooting spree that also left his son and another man wounded.
Eldridge's lawyers argue in appeals to courts that Eldridge is delusional and clueless about his punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that prisoners must be aware of their punishment to be eligible for execution.
Prosecutors respond that Eldridge has a history of faking mental illness and is doing that now to avoid the Texas death chamber.
He's the first of 3 convicted killers set to die this week in Texas.
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