{"id":3399,"date":"2023-01-04T06:15:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T12:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3399"},"modified":"2023-03-15T03:42:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T08:42:30","slug":"transgender-missouri-inmate-executed-for-fatal-stabbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3399","title":{"rendered":"Transgender Missouri inmate executed for fatal stabbing<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) \u2014 A Missouri inmate was put to death Tuesday for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the\u00a0first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S.
\nAmber McLaughlin, 49, was convicted of stalking and killing a former girlfriend, then dumping the body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis. McLaughlin\u2019s fate was sealed earlier Tuesday when Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined a\u00a0clemency request.
\nMcLaughlin spoke quietly with a spiritual adviser at her side as the fatal dose of pentobarbital was injected. McLaughlin breathed heavily a couple of times, then shut her eyes. She was pronounced dead a few minutes later.
\n\u201cI am sorry for what I did,\u201d McLaughlin said in a final, written, statement. \u201cI am a loving and caring person.\u201d
\nA database on the website for the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center shows that 1,558 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-1970s. All but 17 of those put to death were men. The center said there are no known previous cases of an openly transgender inmate being executed. McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago at the state prison in Potosi.
\nThe clemency petition cited McLaughlin\u2019s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard during her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the petition. It cited severe depression that resulted in multiple suicide attempts, both as a child and as an adult.<\/p>\n

The petition also included reports citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes anguish and other symptoms as a result of a disparity between a person\u2019s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth. But McLaughlin\u2019s sexual identity was \u201cnot the main focus\u201d of the clemency request, her attorney, Larry Komp, said.
\nIn 2003, long before transitioning, McLaughlin was in a relationship with Beverly Guenther. After they stopped dating, McLaughlin would show up at the suburban St. Louis office where the 45-year-old Guenther worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers occasionally escorted her to her car after work.
\nGuenther\u2019s neighbors called police the night of Nov. 20, 2003, when she failed to return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where the body had been dumped. Authorities said she had been raped and stabbed repeatedly with a steak knife.
\nMcLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury deadlocked on the sentence. Komp said Missouri and Indiana are the only states that allow a judge to sentence someone to death.
\nA court in 2016 ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.<\/p>\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) \u2014 A Missouri inmate was put to death Tuesday for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the\u00a0first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. Amber McLaughlin, 49, was convicted of stalking and killing a former girlfriend, then dumping the body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1397,1396,3486,1395],"class_list":["post-3399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-inmate","tag-missouri","tag-suicide-attempt","tag-transgender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7633,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions\/7633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}