A rare female execution is scheduled in Texas for Tuesday. It will be the first female execution in the state for more than two years. A report posted today at International Business Times says Kimberly McCarthy, 51, will be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday. McCarthy was convicted of stabbing her elderly neighbor to death in 1997.
On July 21, 1997 McCarthy asked her neighbor, 71-year-old Dorothy Booth, if she could come inside to borrow some sugar. Once inside McCarthy attacked booth, a retired college professor, stabbed and bludgeoned her to death during the ensuing struggle, then cut off her left ring finger to steal her diamond ring, which she then sold to a pawn shop.
"On Jan. 7 the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a request to review McCarthy's case, leaving no chance for her to avoid the death penalty beyond the unlikely possibility of a last-minute stay from Gov. Rick Perry."
A Change.org petition aimed at stopping McCarthy's execution has over 1,600 signatures. The petition states her addiction to crack cocaine led her to commit the crime "she lives with daily and is deeply remorseful for."
The petition reads:
"Killing Kimberly will not bring the victim back. It will only create more suffering and heartache. More victims. She could be such a positive influence to others. God can use her to touch the lives of other women headed down the road to destruction."
According to Reuters the Texas attorney general says McCarthy is "a leading suspect in the bludgeoning murders of two other elderly women."
If this rare female execution is completed, McCarthy will become the "13th woman to be executed in the United States since 1976," which is when the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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