Amber McLaughlin was executed last night in Missouri (Picture: AP)
The first openly transgender woman to face the death penalty in the United States expressed regret for her crimes in her last statement.
‘I am sorry for what I did,’ Amber McLaughlin stated. ‘I am a loving and caring person.’
McLaughlin, 49, was administered a lethal dosage of pentobarbital at 6.51pm on Tuesday evening.
Attorneys for McLaughlin filed a clemency request to Missouri Governor Mike Parsons, hoping to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole.
Activists protest the execution of Amber McLaughlin outside the Missouri Supreme Court (Credits: AP)
The governor’s office declined the request an hour before her scheduled execution.
‘McLaughlin’s conviction and sentence remains after multiple, thorough examinations of Missouri law. McLaughlin stalked, raped, and murdered Ms. Guenther. McLaughlin is a violent criminal,’ the governor’s office stated.
‘Ms Guenther’s family and loved ones deserve peace. The State of Missouri will carry out McLaughlin’s sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.’
McLaughlin was convicted for the 2003 murder of her ex-girlfriend, Beverly Guenther.
McLaughlin’s original police mugshot in 2003, side-by-side with a prison photo taken in 2022
According to investigators, McLaughlin became obsessed with Guenther after the couple split up. She would frequently follow Guenther and show up at her workplace. Guenther filed a restraining order against McLaughlin, and at one point was given a police escort to office in St Louis.
Guenther’s neighbors reported her missing after she failed to come home from work one evening. When police arrived at her home, they found the broken handle of a knife and a trail of blood leading to her body, which was dumped near the Mississippi River.
McLaughlin tried and found guilty in 2006. She was sentenced to death by a judge after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict for sentencing.
Eighteen people were executed across the United States in 2022. Two of those executions took place in Missouri, including that of Kevin Johnson in November.
McLaughlin became only the second woman ever executed in Missouri. The first was Bonnie Heady, who was convicted for the kidnapping, murder, and attempted ransom of 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease almost 70 years ago.
Heady was executed alongside her partner-in-crime, Carl Hall, in a gas chamber in 1953.
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