A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for a 2003 murder, becoming what is believed to be the first transgender woman to be executed in the United States.
Amber McLaughlin, 49, was convicted of stalking and killing an ex-girlfriend and then dumping her body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis. McLaughlin’s fate was sealed early Tuesday when Republican Gov. Mike Parson rejected a request for clemency.
McLaughlin spoke quietly with a spiritual adviser at his side as he was injected with the lethal dose of pentobarbital. McLaughlin took a couple of deep breaths, then closed his eyes. She was pronounced dead a few minutes later, according to the AP agency.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” McLaughlin said in a final written statement. “I am a caring and caring person.”
A database on the Anti-Execution Death Penalty Information Center website shows that 1,558 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-1970s.
All but 17 of those sentenced to death were men. The center said there are no known previous cases of the execution of an openly transgender inmate. McLaughlin began the transition about three years ago in state prison.
The clemency petition cited McLaughlin’s mental health issues and traumatic childhood: A foster father rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and used a stun gun on her, according to the petition.
The petition also included reports citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes distress and other symptoms resulting from a disparity between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth. But McLaughlin’s sexual identity was “not the primary focus” of the leniency petition, said his attorney, Larry Komp.
The Amber McLaughlin crime
Prior to the transition, McLaughlin was in a relationship with his girlfriend Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin would appear at the suburban St. Louis office where Guenther, 45, worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records.
Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers would sometimes escort her to her car after work.
Guenther’s neighbors called the police on the night of November 20, 2003, when she did not return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood.
A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where he had dumped the body.
McLaughlin was found guilty of first degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury deadlocked on the sentencing.
In 2016, a court ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.
Also read:
· Missouri Governor Rejects Amber McLaughlin’s Clemency Request; Transgender woman to be executed by lethal injection this Tuesday
The execution of Amber McLaughlin, the first transgender woman sentenced to death in the United States, is ready
· The life of the first transgender woman sentenced to death is in the hands of the governor of Missouri