US4 min(s) read
Published 11:40 23 Apr 2026 GMT
Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual abuse, which some readers may find distressing.
The last woman who was executed in the US had a short message shortly before her death.
Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death on April 4, 2008, a year after she confessed to killing a pregnant woman and kidnapping her baby.
The then-36-year-old strangled the pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in Missouri in 2004, before performing a C-section on the body to cut her unborn baby out of her womb.
Stinnett would bleed to death as a result of her injuries, but the baby was healthy and safely returned to her family.
At the time of Montgomery's death, she was the only female inmate on federal death row in the US, being administered the lethal injection at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, on January 13, 2021.
The US Supreme Court lifted a last-minute stay of execution to allow proceedings to go ahead.
She became the 11th federal death row inmate to be executed by the Trump administration, following a 17-year hiatus in federal executions.
Montgomery also became the first female federal inmate to be executed by the US government in 67 years, after being pronounced dead at 1.31AM back in January 2021.
Her lawyer, Kelley Henry, condemned those who took part in the execution, claiming they "should feel shame."
She further accused the Trump administration of “unnecessary and vicious use of authoritarian power.”
Henry added on X: “The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight,
“Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame.”
She further claimed: “The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman.
"Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice. We should recognise [it] for what it was: the vicious, illegal and unnecessary use of authoritarian power. We cannot let this happen again.”
The death row inmate's face mask was removed during the process, after she was taken from a Texas prison to the Terre Haute facility.
When the prison guard asked if she had any last words, witnesses reported via BBC that she simply replied "no."
Given that she said nothing else, Henry claimed: “I don’t believe she has any rational comprehension of what’s going on at all.”
Montgomery was supposed to be executed the preceding month, but it was delayed after two of her lawyers contracted Covid.
Montgomery's lawyers claimed that she was permanently scarred emotionally, and that the "sexual torture" she experienced as a child worsened mental health issues that ran in the family.
They added that this torture included gang rapes as a child.
Prosecutors claimed at the trial that she was faking mental illness, highlighting that her killing of Stinnett was planned and involved detailed planning, such as research on how to perform a C-section.
But Montgomery's lawyer explained that testing and brain scans had supported the mental health diagnosis, adding: “You can’t fake brain scans that show the brain damage.”
They added that on top of being sexually and physically abused by her stepfather, she was also trafficked by her mother, according to her family members.
They explained that she tried to escape her horrible home life by getting married at 18, but both of her marriages resulted in more abuse.
She would lie about being pregnant numerous times, according to her former husbands, though she managed to give birth to four children of her own.
Montgomery's team claimed that the violent treatment she went through in her life was the same as being tortured, alleging that she was suffering from psychosis and was out of touch with reality at the time of the murder.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org
