1. John Battaglia was of Italian ancestry and was born on a military base in Enterprise, Alabama.
23 Facts About John Battaglia
1. 2.
John Battaglia attended high school in Oregon and Dumont, New Jersey, ultimately graduating from Dumont High School.
3.
John Battaglia attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, being an accounting major after initially being a pre-med major, but dropped out in 1976 at the urging of a friend.
4.
John Battaglia became a sergeant and left the Marines to become an accountant.
5.
John Battaglia moved to Dallas because his father lived there, and he took night classes to become a Certified Public Accountant and did modeling.
6.
John Battaglia had a daughter, Christie, from a previous marriage to Michelle Ghetti in Dallas.
7.
At one point Ghetti, an attorney, filed a request for John Battaglia to be arrested on grounds of harassment.
8.
John Battaglia had committed domestic violence against Ghetti; on one occasion he assaulted her outside of the school Christie attended, on another, he caused her a broken nose, and in another, he assaulted her at a bus stop in retaliation for the arrest request, causing her to be admitted to a hospital.
9.
In 1987 John Battaglia admitted guilt to a misdemeanor charge and was punished with probation for a two-year period.
10.
At Christmas 1999, John Battaglia was on a visit to see Faith and Liberty when he attacked Pearle in a domestic violence incident.
11.
Pearle was attempting to have John Battaglia's parole revoked because he had harassed her over the telephone.
12.
John Battaglia was not supposed to send messages to her, and she contended that he should be incarcerated because of his history of domestic violence.
13.
John Battaglia used marijuana, which violated the terms of his probation.
14.
John Battaglia was allowed to have periodic visits with them.
15.
John Battaglia grabbed his gun and shot Faith three times and shot Liberty five times with his gun.
16.
John Battaglia then visited a tattoo parlor and got two roses, representing his daughters, on his left biceps.
17.
John Battaglia was apprehended shortly afterward, getting into a fistfight with the arresting police officers, which left him with a black eye.
18.
Texas authorities stated that John Battaglia killed his daughters out of retaliation because Pearle had complained to his probation officer.
19.
Howard Blackmon was the lead prosecutor; Battaglia was represented by Paul Johnson and Paul Brauchle.
20.
Christie John Battaglia publicly expressed support for John Battaglia's execution, as did Ghetti.
21.
John Battaglia was scheduled to be executed on March 30,2016, but the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay so that the court could rule on his attorneys' claims that he was not mentally competent to be executed.
22.
At a competency hearing in November 2016, a mental health expert testified that John Battaglia was likely faking symptoms of mental illness in an attempt to delay his execution.
23.
The appeals court affirmed this, stating that John Battaglia was likely malingering.