RECENTLY EXECUTED AMERICAN MURDERESSES

Article BY LORI BELL

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Men outnumber women in prison by far, and this difference is even greater on death row. The vast majority of people executed in the United States are men. And yet some women do find themselves walking the green mile. Here are the 10 who did so most recently.

 

Suzanne Basso 2014

In 1998, Suzanne Basso agreed to marry 59 – year – old Louis “Buddy” Musso. It was no ordinary engagement. Buddy was mentally disabled, and Basso’s promise to marry him was only a trick to lure the man from New Jersey to Texas.

Here, Basso and five accomplices ---- including her own son ---- abducted the man, beat him, tortured him, and left him dead on the roadside. Buddy’s battered and lacerated body, washed with bleach, and scoured with a wire brush, was found in a ditch outside Houston. He had also been burnt with cigarettes.

Basso had made herself the beneficiary of Mr. Musso’s insurance policies and took over his social security benefits after luring him from New Jersey. Justice caught up with the murderers. All were arrested, and investigators discovered that Suzanne had killed Buddy for his life insurance money.

After 15 years on death row and a failed last – minute appeal, Basso was executed in February 2014. She decided not to make a final statement. Texas, the nation’s busiest death – penalty state, has now executed five women and 505 men.

 

Kimberly McCarthy 2013

In 1997, McCarthy had sneaked into the home of her neighbor Dorothy Booth, a 71 – year –old retired college professor, under the pretext of borrowing some sugar. She stabbed the old lady 5 times. She wanted to steal Booth’s diamond ring, but it seemed stuck on the woman’s hand. Kimberly got around this by slicing Booth’s finger off ---- Booth was still alive at the time, but she soon died from her injuries.

McCarthy was addicted to cocaine and had robbed Booth to fund the habit. McCarthy was also indicted but never tried in the 1998 deaths of two other elderly women. Maggie Harding, who was bludgeoned with a meat tenderizer, and Jetti Lucas was beaten with a claw hammer and stabbed with a knife.

“This is not a loss,” said 52 –year –old Kimberly McCarthy moments before officials administered lethal injection. “This is a win. You know where I’m going . I’m going home to Jesus. I love you all . . . God is great. “

Kimberly McCarthy’s death by lethal injection marked Texas’ 50th modern execution ---- reaching that milestone well ahead of other states that allow capital punishment.

 

Teresa Lewis

In October 2002, Teresa Lewis seemed to suffer a major tragedy. In the middle of the night, two men entered her trailer and shot her husband and stepson. Teresa phoned the authorities, but the boy, Charles, was already dead. Her husband Julian moaned “baby, baby” as police arrived and succumbed to his wounds.

But Julian had said something else to police before he died : He’d said, “My wife knows who done this to me.” And police soon realized that Teresa waited over half an hour after the shooting before calling them ---- and she’d emptied her dying husband’s wallet in the meantime.

In the weeks that followed, she made further attempts to illegally access the dead man’s money. Eventually, police got the woman to confess that she had hired the assailants. One of them was even her lover.

Teresa’s case gained notoriety because she said she had an IQ of 72. Under US law, anyone with an IQ of 70 or less escapes the death penalty. Numerous protests demanded clemency for Teresa but they were ultimately fruitless.

In 2003, Teresa pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to death. In 2010, Teresa had her last meal and received lethal injection. One shooter, Rodney Fuller, made a deal with the prosecutors in return for a life sentenced. The judge sentenced the other shooter, Shallanberger to life saying that was only fair because of Fuller’s deal.

 

Frances Newton 2005

Women in this list were somewhat prone to getting lured by generous insurance benefits,. Such was the case with Francis Newton. In 1987, for insurance money she allegedly shot her husband Adrian and their children ---- Alton 7, and Farrah 21 months old.

Francis never stopped claiming innocence. According to her, Adrian used and sold drugs. He owed money to his dealers, who caught up with the man and shot him and his children. In addition, the evidence seemed dubious, and some was destroyed during the investigation.

Nevertheless, the court decided Francis had killed her husband and children. Consequently, she was condemned to die. Without distent, the Supreme Court declined a pair of appeals about an hour before Newton was scheduled to be taken to the Texas death chamber.

In 2005, Francis was executed. She refused to make a final statement and a dose was administered. Then she turned her head toward the witness rooms and tried to say something, however, the drugs to effect and nothing was heard. She was the first black woman put to death in Texas since the Civil War.

 

Lynda Lyon Block 2002

In 1983, 35 – year – old Lynda Lyon married Karl Block, who was 33 years her senior. Karl who had lost his only son years previously, wanted a male heir to carry his name. One year after the nuptials, Lynda bore him a son named Gordon.

By 1992, Karl and his wife were separated over money issues. In addition, Lynda already had another lover named George Sibley . One day, Karl, Lynda and George had an argument that ended with a stab wound in Karl’s chest. He survived, Lynda and her lover were arrested, and messy prosecution followed. Lynda and George ultimately were released on bail to await their sentence. The two escaped taking Lynda’s nine – year – old son with them. They stopped at a local Walmart and were noticed by local police.

Officer Roger Motley approached their vehicle and, within minutes, he and George Sitbley were exchanging fire. Preoccupied with Stibley, Motley failed to notice Lynda until it was too late. She ran toward him from behind and kept shooting. Roger Motley died later that day.

George and Lynda fled but were caught soon after. Lynda was completely uncooperative with her court appointed attorney, who nevertheless attempted to work against her death sentence. She is the first woman executed in the state since 1957, and the ninth female executed in the US since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.

The Alabama Supreme Court upheld Block’s death sentence in 1999 and Sibley’s in 2000. Block may be the last person to die in “Yellow Momma,” the states electric chair, which has been used since 1927.

 

Lois Nadean Smith 2001

There is nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her child. Lois Nadean Smith, however, might have taken her devotion for her son Greg a little too far. One summer morning in 1982, she and Greg picked up the son’s ex girlfriend , Cindy Baillee, from a motel. Lois interrogated the girl about bizarre rumors that she was arranging Greg’s death. The young woman denied the accusations of course, but Lois wasn’t satisfied.

Lois choked Baillee and stabbed her in the throat. Then she drove to her ex husband’s house, where she taunted Baillee with a pistol before finally pulling the trigger. Cindy fell out of her chair and Lois jumped up and down on her neck. Then she shot the women some more, firing a total of nine times.

Greg received a life sentence. Lois was condemned to die, and in 2001, after 19 years on death row, she received a lethal injection. Lois was the third woman on Oklahoma’s death row. Lois was scheduled to die on December 4, 2001. This was Oklahoma’s 17th execution in 2001, the highest rate in the nation.

 

Marilyn Plantz 2001

Yet another woman seduced by insurance money. Marilyn orchestrated the murder of her husband Jim to claim $300,000 that should have landed in her hands if he died. In 1988, 27 – year – old Plantz recruited her 18 – year – old lover, Clifford Bryson, and his friend Clinton McKimble, to help her with the killing,

One night, the two youngsters attacked the man in his home with baseball bats as Marilyn listened from the neighboring room. The two men dragged the beaten husband to his truck and set him on fire, while Marilyn stayed behind to clean the blood stains from the carpet.

Although even Jim’s relatives initially insisted that she was innocent in his murder, the black widow was charged and was found guilty. Bryson’s accomplice McKimble, pled to life and testified. Plantz and Bryson were tried jointly. Marilyn was sentenced to death on March 31, 1989.

Bryson was executed in 2000. Marilyn was executed on May 1, 2001, via lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Marilyn was the second woman executed since statehood (1907), As well as the second women in 2001, preceding Lois Nadean Smith.

 

Wanda Jean Allen 2001

“Father forgive them they know not what they do,” whispered Wanda Jean just before a lethal dose of poison entered into her veins. Her crime : the bold and violent killing of her lover Gloria Leathers. Gloria met Wanda in prison, serving a sentence for murdering a childhood friend. Later, both women were released and their relationship continued.

But there was no happy ending. One day in 1988, Gloria called her mother and the two headed for the police station together to file a complaint against Wanda for stealing some of Gloria’s clothes. Wanda followed them and then shot her former lover ---- in front of her mother. Gloria died four days later.

Wanda Jean was arrested, tried and convicted to die. Despite a long string of appeals and numerous protests. Wanda was executed on January 11, 2001 by lethal injection. In 2001, she was the 4th murderer executed in US, and the 1st female executed in Oklahoma since 1976.

 

Christina Riggs 2000

In 1997, Christina Riggs gave her five –year –old son Justin and two – year – old daughter Shelby some antidepressants to sedate them. Then she injected a large dose of potassium chloride into her son’s neck. Christina hoped that it would kill her son painlessly.

However, the concentrated chemical proved agonizing, and the child woke up screaming, so his mother smothered him with a pillow. Since the poison had not worked as expected, Christina skipped that part with Shelby and suffocated her straight away.

Finally, she wrote suicide letters, injected herself with potassium chloride, and took a large dose of antidepressants. “ I can’t live like this anymore, “ she wrote in her final letter. “and I cant leave my children behind to be a burden on you or to be separated and raised apart from their father, and live knowing their mother killed herself. “

The next day Christina was found by her mother, rushed to the hospital, and revived. She was subsequently tried for the murders of her children. Even though she initially claimed that she was innocent on the grounds of insanity and depression, Christina would later request the death sentence and prevent attorneys from putting on a defense.

In contrast with other cases of this list, Riggs did not wait for her punishment for a decade or more. She was executed in 2000 by lethal injection. Riggs was the fifth woman executed in the US since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. She was also the first woman executed in Arkansas in more than 150 years.

 

Karla Faye Tucker 1998

Just before her execution, Karla was a nice and attractive woman who was well liked by people around her and married to her prison Chaplin. Her case attracted a massive outcry, sympathy, and even pleas for clemency from the Pope himself. None of the many attempts to avert her fate helped Tucker, and she eventually was executed.

Back in 1983, when she committed her crime, Karla Faye was a very different person. She was a prostitute addicted to drugs. During a weekend orgy, she and her boyfriend Daniel, consumed a barely comprehensive amount of illegal substances before they came up with the idea to rob one of Karla’s lovers, Jerry Lynn Dean.

Tucker secretly snatched the keys to Dean’s apartment from his sister Shawn. She and Daniel entered Jerry’s home with an accomplice. There, Karla put a pickaxe to Jerry’s head and told him not to move. When he started to beg for his life, she hit him, either with her bare hands or a hammer. Karla herself later claimed that every time she struck Jerry, she got sexual thrills out of the attack.

Jerry wasn’t dead yet. He began to gurgle. Enraged, Tucker grabbed the axe and plunged it into his body multiple times. The murderers then discovered one more person in the room ---- 32 – year – old Deborah Thorton was hiding under a pile of sheets in the corner. They hacked her to death as well.

The next morning, a coworker of Jerry’s discovered the victims. Thorton’s body still had the pickaxe in it. The killers were arrested, convicted and sentenced to die. Daniel , also sentenced to death, died in prison of liver disease in 1993.

Texas does not have a sentence of life without parole. If Tucker’s sentence was reduced to life, she would be eligible for parole in 2003. Karla was tied to a gurney and received her shot of poison. She was the 5th murderer in the US in 1998, and 2nd female murderer executed in Texas in 1998. In Texas she was the 145th murderer executed since 1976 and the 1st female murderer executed in Texas since 1976.

Women are not initially thought of as the murdering type , especially when it comes to their own children. But lately the gruesome fad has taken flight. Most think the logical explanation for a woman to be violent enough to kill someone is self defense. But one motive for a female murderer does make sense, and that is greed. Materialistic females looking to rid themselves of commitment, play the bereaved wife, and cash in on death benefits. Whatever the reason, it seems like some women want equal billing when it comes to murder.