Trans inmate is scheduled to die
Mo. execution first of its kind
ST. LOUIS — Unless Missouri Governor Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first transgender woman executed in the United States. She is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing a former girlfriend in 2003.
McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, said there are no court appeals pending.
The clemency request focuses on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard in her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the clemency petition. It says she suffers from depression and attempted suicide multiple times.
The petition also includes reports citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes anguish and other symptoms as a result of a disparity between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth.
“We think Amber has demonstrated incredible courage because I can tell you there’s a lot of hate when it comes to that issue,”
Komp said Monday. But, he said, McLaughlin’s sexual identity is “not the main focus” of the clemency request.
Parson’s spokesperson, Kelli Jones, said the review process for the clemency request is still underway.
There is no known case of a transgender inmate being executed in the United States before, according to the antiexecution Death Penalty Information Center. A friend in prison says she saw McLaughlin’s personality blossom during her gender transition.
Before transitioning, McLaughlin was in a relationship with girlfriend Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin would show up at the suburban St. Louis office where the 45-yearold Guenther worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers occasionally escorted her to her car after work.
Guenther’s neighbors called police the night of Nov. 20, 2003, when she failed to return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where the body had been dumped.
McLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury deadlocked on the sentence. A court in 2016 ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.
One person who knew Amber before she transitioned is Jessica Hicklin, 43, who spent 26 years in prison for a drug-related killing in western Missouri in 1995. She was 16. Because of her age when the crime occurred, she was granted release in January 2022.
Though imprisoned together for around a decade, Hicklin said McLaughlin was so shy they rarely interacted. But as McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago, she turned to Hicklin for guidance on issues such as mental health counseling and getting help to ensure her safety inside a maledominated maximum-security prison.
They also discussed the challenges a transgender inmate faces in a male prison.