Amber McLaughlin Wiki – Amber McLaughlin Biography
Amber McLaughlin, a Missouri convict who was executed on Tuesday, January 3 for a 2003 murder, is believed to be the first transgender inmate to be executed. McLaughlin, 49, also known as Scott, was executed 19 years after she was found guilty of killing and stalking her girlfriend Beverly Guenther, 45, before dumping her body in the Mississippi River in St. Louis in 2003.
McLaughlin was executed by lethal injection hours after Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency. 1,558 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-1970s, according to data on the Anti-Execution Center for Information Against the Death Penalty website.
Amber McLaughlin Age
Amber McLaughlin was 49 years old.
Amber McLaughlin Cause of Death
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there have never been any known executions of openly transgender prisoners before. McLaughlin began the transition approximately three years ago at Potosí State Prison. As the lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered, McLaughlin subtly spoke to a spiritual advisor at her side.
She took several deep breaths, then closed her eyes. Minutes later, she was pronounced dead. “I’m sorry for what I did,” McLaughlin said in a final written statement. “I’m a caring, caring person,” reports the Associated Press. McLaughlin’s horrific background and mental health problems, of which the jury was unaware during her trial, were also cited in the clemency appeal.
Her clemency petition claimed that when she was a young child, her foster father wiped her face with feces and her foster father used a Taser on her. She claims that she has a history of depression and has made several suicide attempts.
The petition also contained records citing diagnoses of gender dysphoria, a disorder that causes suffering and other symptoms when a person’s gender identity and the sex assigned at birth diverge. But according to her lawyer, Larry Komp, McLaughlin’s sexual orientation was “not the primary focus” of the clemency appeal.
McLaughlin reportedly dated Beverly Guenther in 2003, years before she transitioned. According to court documents, after they separated, McLaughlin frequently appeared at the 45-year-old Guenther’s suburban St. Louis workplace while she hid in the building. At times, police officers would escort Guenther to her vehicle after her work because of the restraining order she had received.
According to Jessica Hicklin, who served 26 years in prison for a drug-related murder before being released a year ago, McLaughlin began the transition about three years ago. Hicklin, now 43, filed a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections to challenge a rule that prohibited hormone therapy for inmates who were not receiving it prior to incarceration.
She won the lawsuit in 2018 and later served as a mentor to McLaughlin and other transgender inmates. Hicklin stated that prior to making the decision to transition, McLaughlin was a terribly shy person. “She always had a smile and a dad joke,” Hicklin said. “If you ever talked to her, it was always with dad jokes.”
In 2023, McLaughlin is the first person to be executed in the United States. In 2022, 18 people were executed in the US, including two Missouri convicts, Carpenter Deck and Kevin Johnson. Leonard Taylor, a prisoner in Missouri, will be executed on February 7, according to News Week.
“McLaughlin terrified Ms. Guenther in the last years of her life, but we hope her family and loved ones can finally have some peace,” Republican Gov. Mike Parson said in a written statement. after execution.
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