A death row prisoner could today become the first openly transgender woman executed in the United States.
Amber McLaughlin, 49, is due to be put to death by lethal injection unless she succeeds with a last-ditch plea for clemency to Missouri governor Mike Parson.
When still living as a man in 2003, McLaughlin stabbed to death her ex-girlfriend Beverly Guenther, after developing an obsession with the victim that had forced her to take out a restraining order and get a police escort to work.
But her lawyers say the death sentence is unfair and fails to take account of childhood trauma suffered by the murderer, who transitioned while in jail after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Her clemency petition reads: ‘McLaughlin consistently and genuinely expressed remorse for the death of Ms Beverly Guenther. She remains tormented by memories of her death.’
Her attorney Larry Komp said that her gender identity was not the ‘main focus’ of her clemency request. But he noted that ‘Amber has demonstrated incredible courage because I can tell you there’s a lot of hate when it comes to that issue’.
Guenther’s neighbors reported her missing after she failed to come home from work one evening.
Investigators found a broken knife handle and a trail of blood, which eventually led to where her body was dumped by the Mississippi River.
McLaughlin was sentenced to death for first-degree murder by a judge in 2006 after a jury failed to come to a unanimous decision for her sentencing.
In 2016, an appeals court overturned the death sentence after it found her defense failed to present information about her mental health at her original trial. However, a federal appeals court reversed the decision again in 2021.
McLaughlin has no further court appeals to make after the Supreme Court declined to review her case – so the clemency request is her final hope.
It focuses on the failures of her original defense attorneys and the effects of her sufferings in childhood.
According to her petition, McLaughlin had a traumatic time in foster care. One foster parent punished her by rubbing feces on her face, and her eventual adoptive father beat her with paddles, night sticks, and shot her with a stun gun.
She has been diagnosed with depression and has had multiple suicide attempts.
McLaughlin has received letters of support from the Missouri Democratic LGBTQ+, as well as Missouri Representatives Emanuel Cleaver and Cori Bush.
‘Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,’ Bush wrote in a letter to Governor Parson.
McLaughlin also received support from seven former Missouri judges, who signed a letter asking the governor to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole. The group was lead by former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael A Wolff.
If the execution takes place, McLaughlin will become only the second woman ever executed in Missouri. The first woman executed was Bonnie Heady in 1953, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease alongside her co-conspirator Carl Austin Hall.
Missouri executed two inmates on death row in 2022. Among those was Kevin Johnson, who was executed in November for a murder he committed as a teenager.
Controversially, the Missouri Supreme Court barred Johnson’s 19-year-old daughter from standing by his side at his death, due to a Missouri law banning any individual under the age of 20 from viewing an execution.
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