Inmate’s disability plea to be reviewed
Court to rule if death row case warrants stay of execution
A Harris County court will determine whether a death row inmate from Houston is too intellectually disabled to execute.
Eric Cathey, who has repeatedly professed his innocence, was convicted in a 1995 kidnapping-murder. But on Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent his case back to a lower court, which has 60 days come up with findings.
The 47-year-old former mechanic was sentenced to death for the killing of Christina Castillo, who was abducted by a group of men who intended on robbing her boyfriend of his drugs and money. The woman’s body was found two weeks later, decaying by railroad tracks in the northeast part of town.
Testimony indicated Cathey was the ringleader, but he claims he spent the night of the slaying at home watching TV with his girlfriend.
“I am not guilty of the crime,” he said in a 2008 interview. “I never met the woman.”
The year after he arrived on death row, Cathey made headlines for his role in a daring prison escape. On Thanksgiving, he and six other condemned inmates used hacksaw and dummies in prison garb to slip out of the unit and make a run for freedom. Only one of the men — Martin Gurule — made it through the hail of gunfire and outside the fences. He later died when he drowned in a nearby creek.
Cathey never made it off the prison property.
In the 20 years since that failed bid, death row moved from Huntsville to Livingston, and most of the