U.S. Sets Execution Date for Lisa Montgomery, the First Federal Female Inmate to Be Put to Death in 67 Years
LEAVING DEATH ROW
The federal government has scheduled the execution of a woman in Indiana for December 8, the first female federal inmate to be put to death in 67 years. Lisa Montgomery, now 52, was convicted of murder for strangling a woman and cutting her unborn baby from her in 2004. Montgomery’s lawyer Kelley Henry said in a statement, “Lisa Montgomery has long accepted full responsibility for her crime, and she will never leave prison. But her severe mental illness and the devastating impacts of her childhood trauma make executing her a profound injustice.” The last execution of a federal female prisoner took place in 1953 when Bonny Brown Heady was killed via gas chamber for kidnapping and murdering a six-year-old. A federal execution in the United States had not occurred in 17 years before this summer, but since July, the government has put seven prisoners to death under Attorney General William Barr. Montgomery is the only woman on federal death row and is slated to die by lethal injection. The Justice Department scheduled the execution of another prisoner, Brandon Bernard, age 40, for two days later.