Virginia set to execute woman for the first time in 98 years
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Virginia is slated to execute Teresa Lewis by lethal injection on Thursday, The Associated Press reported. The 41-year-old woman was sentenced to die after pleading guilty to capital murder for hiring two men to kill her husband and stepson so she could collect a $250,000 life insurance policy.
Rodney Fuller and Lewis' lover, Matthew Shallenberger, entered her home on Oct. 30, 2002, and fatally shot Julian Clifton, Jr., 51, and Charles Lewis, 25. Teresa then rummaged through her husband's pockets for money while he was dying. She also waited nearly an hour before calling 911. The triggermen were sentenced to life for the slayings, The New York Daily News reported; however, Shallenberger committed suicide in prison in 2006.
If Lewis' execution takes place, as planned, it will be the first time a woman has been put to death in Virginia since the 1912 execution of Virginia Christian. According to the book "Women and the Death Penalty in the United States" by Kathleen A. O'Shea, the 17-year-old African-American maid was convicted of killing her white employer, Ida Virginia Belote, with a broom handle during a fight. Christian then stuffed a towel down Belote's throat, suffocating her, and left the house with the woman's purse, money and a gold locket, The Guardian reported. She confessed to the crime shortly after being caught, and died in the electric chair five months later.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has denied Lewis' request for clemency. Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to block her execution. To date, only 11 women have been executed in the United States since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
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