Gerald Eldridge, 52, may have faked having an illness to avoid execution after fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend Cynthia Bogany and her daughter in Houston 23 years ago, the Associated Press reports.
Eldridge was convicted in 1993, and in 2009, when he was less than two hours away from being executed by lethal injection, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal stopped the execution because Eldridge's lawyers claimed that he was too mentally ill for the punishment. Rosenthal decided that the claim needed to be further examined.
However, in a 2013 hearing, it was determined that while Eldridge showed signs of mental illness, there was inconsistency in the extensive evidence claiming that he was incompetent because of that mental illness, raising the possibility that he had faked symptoms.
On Monday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling and moves Eldridge a step closer to execution.
According to AP, Eldridge's lawyer, Lee Wilson, has filed a request for a rehearing before the appeals court and will continue to appeal the case.
"Mr. Eldridge is schizophrenic," he said.
In addition to killing Bogany and her daughter, Eldridge was found guilty of shooting and wounding his son with Bogany, Tyrell, and Bogany's boyfriend at the time, Wayne Dotson.
Read more at Fox News.