While the state of Georgia executed a woman for the first time in 70 years on Wednesday, Texas has executed more women than any other state in the past three decades with a half dozen more awaiting their fate on death row right now.
Kelly Gissendaner was the only woman on Georgia's death row when she was executed by lethal injection just after midnight. She was convicted in 1998 of convincing a boyfriend to murder her husband.
Meanwhile, Texas has executed the majority of the 15 female inmates in the United States since capital punishment was re-instated here in 1982. Karla Faye Tucker in 1998 was the first woman executed in Texas in 135 years. But her execution was followed by Betty Lou Beets in 2000, Frances Newton in 2005, Kimberly McCarthy in 2013, Suzanne Basso in February of 2014, and Lisa Coleman seven months later.
Right now there are six more women on death row in Texas along with 247 men. The women include Kimberly Cargill, Melissa Lucio, Linda Carty, Brittany Holberg, Darlie Routier, and Erica Yvonne Sheppard from Houston. Sheppard, on death row now for more than 20 years, was convicted in 1995 of the brutal robbery and murder of 43-year-old Marilyn Sage Meagher at her Galleria area apartment. Sheppard's boyfriend James Dickerson was convicted and sentenced to death as well. But he died of HIV-AIDS in prison in 1999.
Execution dates, however, have not been set for Sheppard or any of the other five women. District Courts set the individual execution dates once each offender exhausts their appeals.
