Christina Marie Riggs is unique among the women on these pages in that she insisted on her execution, which took place on May 3, 2000. She was the first woman to be executed in Arkansas since the state took over responsibility for executions in 1913, and only the fifth nationwide since 1977. She confessed to … Read more
Background Karla Faye Tucker had a difficult childhood. Her father had given up on her as a child, and her mother died from the effects of drug abuse on Christmas Eve, 1979, when Karla was 20—ending her relationship with the only person, whom she said, had always really loved her. She too had gotten into … Read more
Velma Barfield made international headlines when she became the first woman to be executed in America since 1962—and the first since the re-introduction of the death penalty in 1976. She was also the first woman to be executed by lethal injection. She was put to death at 2:00 a.m. on November 2, 1984, at the … Read more
Judi became the first woman to be executed in the electric chair in America since Rhonda Belle Martin was executed in Alabama on October 11, 1957. She was also the first woman to be executed in Florida since 1848, when a slave girl named Celia was hanged for battering her master to death. Her execution … Read more
Thirty-one-year-old Nicholas Lee Ingram became the first British-born murderer to be executed in the United States since 1936, when he was put to death in Georgia’s electric chair on Friday, April 7, 1995, for the brutal murder of Mr. J. C. Sawyer and the attempted murder of his wife, Mary. Background Ingram was born in … Read more
