First U.S. Execution of a Transgender Woman Set in Missouri
Missouri is set to carry out the nation’s first known execution of a transgender woman early next month, but the death row prisoner is asking the state’s governor for clemency saying the jury never heard about her mental health and abusive childhood.Amber McLaughlin, 49, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on January 3, 2023, for the 2003 rape and stabbing murder of her ex-girlfriend, Beverly Guenther, who was 45 at the time.McLaughlin’s execution would be the first known execution of a transgender woman in the country.
It would also be the first execution of a woman in Missouri since it resumed the practice in 1976.The woman’s lawyers sent a letter to Gov.
Mike Parsons, asking that he consider McLaughlin’s mental illness and abusive childhood in commuting the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.“People should know I’m mentally ill,” McLaughlin told the St.
Louis Post Dispatch via telephone.McLaughlin’s clemency application claims she “never had a chance” and was failed by the individuals and institutions that should have protected her.
