The only female who belongs to the list of people that belongs to the death row in the US is scheduled for execution.
Lisa Montgomery, the first woman in almost seven decades to have the death penalty sentence from a federal court in the US, is about to meet her end next week, January 12, if the schedule will push through.
The last female who dealt with the same fate was Bonnie Heady, formally put to death through a gas chamber in 1953. She was convicted for kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Bobby Greenlease after collecting $600,000 in ransom.
Other women dealt with execution in various states, but they were state executions and never went through the federal courts, just like the Heady and Montgomery cases.
In 2014, Montgomery was convicted for strangling a woman who was eight-months pregnant during that time, then cut out and kidnapped the baby. The child survived, and Montgomery’s execution was originally scheduled for December 8, 2020, through lethal injection. But her lawyers requested the delay in the schedule because they contracted COVID-19.
For those who do not know the case, Montgomery was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett in 2004. Stinnett was only 23 years old at the time and heavily pregnant with her first child.
Montgomery strangled her victim from behind then extracted the baby from her tummy using a knife. The child survived and was taken by the Montgomery to claim as her own. Fortunately, the authorities safely recovered the baby, and they handed it back to the father.
According to reports, Montgomery and Stinnett knew each other from an online chatroom about dogs where both of them were members. They became close after Montgomery claimed that she was also expecting a child. The authorities found no signs of forced entry in Stinnet’s house.
Years after the sentencing, Montgomery’s lawyers requested a review of the case. One member of her legal team, Meaghan VerGow, mentioned that her tram would petition the full appeals court to revisit the case.
According to her legal team, Montgomery is suffering from severe mental illness due to years of mental and sexual abuse. They want to revert the death sentence by reinstating their claim that she is suffering from psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorders, bipolar disorder, disassociation from reality, and irreparable brain damage due to abuses from her parents and former spouses.
If there will be no changes in the execution schedule, she will receive the lethal injection at a federal correction facility located in Terre Haute, Indiana.
It will also happen one week before president-elect Joe Biden officially swears into office on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.
The president-elect opposes the death penalty. He and his administration previously revealed that they would work hard to put an end to death sentences.
The outgoing president, Donald Trump, is the exact opposite. He supported the death penalty and allowed ten executions to proceed during his time at the White House.
Expect more details about the scheduled execution soon.
