HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A condemned killer has been faking mental illness to try to avoid execution Tuesday evening for the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter nearly 17 years ago in Houston, prosecutors say. But defense attorneys for Gerald Eldridge, 45, say he is too ill to receive lethal injection. "He’s completely detached from reality," lawyer Lee Wilson said. Wilson hoped to at least delay the punishment so Eldridge could receive "further evaluation and further mental health intervention and to see if he ever regains his competency." Eldridge would be the 22nd prisoner executed this year in Texas and the first of three scheduled to die this week. He "has consistently and historically feigned mental illness in order to avoid the consequences of his criminal behavior," Inger Hampton, an assistant Harris County district attorney, said in court filings. Eldridge’s attorneys were seeking a reprieve Tuesday in federal court after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected his appeals late Monday. Eldridge was convicted of capital murder for a January 1993 shooting spree that killed his former girlfriend Cynthia Bogany, 28, and her daughter, Chirissa, 9. Also wounded in the gunfire was Terrell Bogany, 7, Eldridge’s son with Bogany, and the woman’s boyfriend at the time, Wayne Dotson. Terrell Bogany testified at the trial 15 months later, describing how his father kicked in the door of their apartment, he tried to cover himself and was shot in the shoulder, and his half-sister, asleep on a couch, was shot between the eyes. "It makes my stomach churn to even think about that—to shoot a child as they were asleep—and then shoot his son toward the head," said Elsa Alcala, a state appeals court judge who in April 1994 was an assistant district attorney prosecuting the case. "I don’t know how to explain it." Terrell Bogany also described Dotson being shot and seeing his mother run from the apartment with Eldridge in pursuit. Evidence showed Cynthia Bogany was shot outside as she tried to flee to a neighboring apartment. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled mentally impaired people may not be executed. Courts also have held that an inmate must be aware of why he is being executed. A psychologist who recently examined Eldridge for his lawyers concluded Eldridge may have a significant psychotic disorder. Prosecutors, however, pointed out the psychologist also said it wasn’t possible to reach an opinion regarding his competence for execution. In previous appeals, the courts have said Eldridge’s recent low IQ test results were unreliable because a defense expert failed to consider or test for the possibility that Eldridge deliberately performed poorly on the test. Earlier tests showed his IQ to be higher and school records supported prosecutors’ arguments that he was not mentally disabled. During jury selection for his trial, Eldridge grabbed the table where he and his lawyers were seated and overturned it. After he was convicted, he refused to sit through the punishment phase. It took jurors about 30 minutes to decide he should die. Records showed Eldridge was sentenced in 1985 to eight years in prison for an earlier shooting spree in which three men were wounded, including one who was shot eight times. He was released three years later, then returned to prison in 1990 for beating his son. He was paroled after four months. On Wednesday, Danielle Simpson, 30, was set for execution for the January 2000 abduction and slaying of an 84-year-old East Texas woman. A day later, Robert Lee Thompson, 34, was scheduled to die for his part in the shooting death of a Houston convenience store clerk during a robbery 13 years ago.
