The first woman to be executed after 67 years in the history of the US is Lisa Montgomery, who had the dubious honor in many years. It comes after a slew of executions that started in 2020.
Execution of the declared mentally ill woman who died from lethal injection to carry out the death sentence, a witness was present to see her sentence to her final moments.
The reason for getting the death penalty is for killing a 23-year-old pregnant woman. She later took the fetus from the eviscerated woman's belly in 2004. The crimes were shocking, and it made headlines, reported the Ladbible.
She was spared from getting executed earlier by a stay of execution by a federal judge. Pending the results of a mental health assessment. The US Supreme Court decided to go on with the execution despite the need to check the death row inmates' mental fitness. A stay of execution overruled led to the continuation of her death penalty. The 52-year-old died early in the morning at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana last January 13 of 2021.
During the Montgomery execution, a witness said the woman did not say anything as her final words.
Through an IV drip, the chemical would slowly drip into her bloodstream that absorbed a death-dealing substance. Lisa Montgomery was inches from slipping from this mortal coil.
The inmate was strapped as the lethal injection finally given to her. According to the observer, she was fighting for breath as the chemical was acting on her system. Her body was slipping closer to death as breathing became hard.
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She was found guilty of a heinous crime, but the killer would be like everyone else in her last moments. No one wants to die, but laws demanded she pays with her life that ended via lethal injection.
Montgomery, from the last federal execution by the state in 1953, was commuted. It took brutal litigation and delays, even getting a short stay, but it got overturned. One death in the long history of executions in America.
According to Michael Tarm, a legal writer, he observed the woman be calm and silent, knowing she' would die faced it squarely. Dying in silence and no sound.
Tarm reported when the execution process started. The female executioner was over Montgomery's shoulder. She took the doomed inmates' face mask to ask if she had something to say one last time.
Facing the officer, who got a "No" as a quiet answer. It was silence as her death got closer.
According to TIME, Montgomery looked 'bewildered' at the journalists watching from behind a glass window and 'tapped her fingers nervously' before closing her eyes to die.
Tarm said the lethal injection started at around 1:18 a.m., and the strapped woman kept licking her lips as the IV's chemical was absorbed.
A little time passed, and her abdomen shook and stopped. Montgomery passed silently without a word.
Her attorney, Kelley Henry, had nothing but vehemence for the court that allowed the execution of Lisa Montgomery. Her execution is viewed as a miscarriage of justice.