Teresa Lewis Execution: Virginia Executes Woman Amid Outcry
JARRATT, Va. (CBS/AP) Teresa Lewis was put to death in Virginia on Thursday for arranging the killings of her husband and a stepson over a $250,000 insurance payment. The 41-year-old was the first woman to be executed in the United States in five years.
Lewis died by injection at 9:13 p.m. Thursday, police said. She became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly a century. Supporters and relatives of the victims watched her execution at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.
Lewis enticed two men through sex, cash and a promised cut in an insurance policy to shoot her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., and his son, Charles, as they were sleeping in the couple's mobile home in October 2002. Both triggermen were sentenced to life in prison; one committed suicide in 2006.
Lewis appeared tearful, her jaw clenched, as she was escorted into the death chamber. She glanced tensely around at the 14 assembled corrections officials before being bound to a gurney with heavy leather straps.
In the moments before her execution, Lewis asked if her husband's daughter was there. Kathy Clifton, Lewis' stepdaughter, was in an adjacent witness room blocked from the inmate's view by a two-way mirror.
"I want Kathy to know that I love her and I'm very sorry," Lewis said.
Then, as the drugs flowed into her body, her feet bobbed but she otherwise remained motionless. A guard lightly tapped on her shoulder reassuringly as she slipped into death.
More than 7,300 appeals to stop the execution - the first of a woman in Virginia since 1912 - had been made to the governor in a state second only to Texas in the number of people it executes.
Texas held the most recent U.S. execution of a woman in 2005. Out of more than 1,200 people put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, only 11 have been women.
Lewis, who defense attorneys said was borderline mentally disabled, had inspired other inmates by singing Christian hymns in prison. Her execution stirred an unusual amount of attention because of her gender, claims she lacked the intelligence to mastermind the killings and the post-conviction emergence of defense evidence that one of the triggermen manipulated her.
Lewis' supporters also said she was a changed woman. They pointed to testimonials from former prison chaplains and inmates that Lewis comforted and inspired other inmates with her faith and country gospel tunes she sang at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women where she was long held.
Outside the correctional center Thursday evening, those opposed to the execution protested with signs and banners on a grassy knoll. Critics said they were repulsed by Virginia's killing of a woman.
"Tonight the death machine exterminated the beautiful childlike and loving spirit of Teresa Lewis," said her lawyer, James Rocap.
MORE ON CRIMESIDER
September 22, 2010 - Teresa Lewis Speaks From Death Row After Final Appeal Blocked by U.S. Supreme Court
September 20, 2010 - Teresa Lewis Days from Execution; First Woman Facing that Fate in Va. in Nearly a Century
August 2, 2010 - Teresa Lewis Scheduled to be First U.S. Woman Executed Since 2005
March 23, 2010 - Teresa Lewis Pleads for Her Life: Only Female on Va. Death Row Says She Wasn't Mastermind
