QUESTION OF GUILT
SUSANNA REID meets British grandmother and death row inmate Linda Carty
LINDA CARTY IS the only British woman on death row in America. She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the 2001 abduction and murder of young mum Joana Rodriguez in a bid to steal Rodriguez’s son.
Baby Ray was later found alive and well, but Rodriguez was discovered suffocated in the back of Carty’s car.
Susanna Reid travels to Texas to meet Carty for a special ITV documentary and discovers there are questions around her guilt.
SEEKING THE TRUTH
‘This is such a tough case,’ says Reid, 51. ‘At its heart is a young mother who died in horrific circumstances. But was she murdered by Linda Carty?’
At Carty’s trial, the court heard how three men, including known criminal Chris Robinson, burst into Rodriguez’s apartment looking for drugs, and then abducted her and her fourday-old son, Ray.
Carty was the plot’s leader, according to Robinson, who said she wanted Ray kidnapped because she was desperate to have a baby of her own. He also said he’d witnessed her murdering Rodriguez.
But Carty has always insisted she simply lent Robinson and his gang her car, and knew nothing about the crime. There was no forensic evidence tying her to the case, and there are also allegations that the prosecution coerced false testimony from key witnesses.
In fact, Robinson later admitted at an appeal hearing that he’d lied and that he hadn’t actually seen Carty kill Rodriguez.
Now, in a final bid for her life, Carty is seeking a pardon. However, if it fails, she knows her time is running out.
‘I can truthfully tell you I had nothing to do with that crime,’ she tells Reid. ‘I’ll fight to the end and if I lose my life, I know I have people who will not stop until they clear my name.’