The US Justice Department said on Friday it has scheduled the first federal execution of a woman in almost 70 years, setting a December 8 date to put to death Lisa Montgomery, convicted of a 2004 murder. Montgomery, who was found guilty of strangling a pregnant woman in Missouri, will be executed by lethal injection at US Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana, the department said in a statement. The last woman to be executed by the US government was Bonnie Heady, who was put to death in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The justice department on Friday also scheduled a Dec. 10. execution for Brandon Bernard, who with his accomplices murdered two youth ministers in 1999. In 2007, a US District Court for the Western District of Missouri sentenced Montgomery to death after finding her guilty of a federal kidnapping resulting in death.

Source: Otago Daily Times October 17, 2020 01:07 UTC