Western Morning News

First execution of female by US federal government since 1953

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A WOMAN was executed yesterday for strangling an expectant mother and taking her baby, the first time in nearly seven decades the United States government has put to death a female inmate.

Lisa Montgomery, 52, was pronounced dead at 1.31am local time yesterday, after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

She was the 11th prisoner to receive a lethal injection there since July when Donald Trump, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, resumed federal executions following 17 years without one.

“The craven blood lust of a failed administra­tion was on full display tonight,” Montgomery’s lawyer, Kelley Henry, said in a statement. “Everyone who participat­ed in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame. The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman. Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”

It came after hours of legal wrangling before the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to discontinu­e federal executions.

Montgomery killed 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the Skidmore, Missouri, 2004. An appeal court granted Montgomery a stay of execution on Tuesday, shortly after another appeals court lifted an Indiana judge’s ruling that found she was probably mentally ill and could not comprehend she would be put to death. Both appeals were lifted.

The previous woman to be executed by the federal government was Bonnie Brown Heady in December, 1953, for the kidnapping and murder of a six-year-old boy in Missouri.

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