HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A condemned killer who prosecutors said had been faking mental illness to avoid execution has won a reprieve from a federal judge less than two hours before he could have been taken to the Texas death chamber.
Inmate Gerald Eldridge was condemned for the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter nearly 17 years ago in Houston.
Attorneys contended he was too mentally ill to receive lethal injection.
The 45-year-old Eldridge was the first of three scheduled to die this week.
Eldridge was convicted of capital murder for a January 1993 shooting spree that killed his former girlfriend, 28-year-old Cynthia Bogany, and her 6-year-old daughter, Chirissa. Also wounded in the gunfire was Terrell Bogany, Eldridge's 7-year-old son with Bogany, and the woman's boyfriend at the time, Wayne Dotson.
