Missouri, United States.- Unless Missouri Governor Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first openly transgender woman to be executed in the United States.
He is scheduled to die by lethal injection tomorrow for killing a former girlfriend in 2003. McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, said there are no pending court appeals.
The clemency request centers on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard at his trial. A foster father rubbed feces in her face when she was little and another of hers used a stun gun on her, according to her plea for mercy. She says that she suffers from depression and attempted suicide several times.
The petition also includes reports citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes distress and other symptoms resulting from a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth.
“We believe that Amber has shown incredible courage because I can tell you that there is a lot of hate out there on this issue,” her attorney Larry Komp said today.
But, he added, McLaughlin’s sexual identity is not “the main focus” of the leniency request.
Governor Parson’s spokesperson, Kelli Jones, said the clemency application review process is ongoing.
There are no known cases of an openly transgender inmate having been executed before in the United States, according to the Anti-Death Penalty Information Center.
A friend of McLaughlin’s said she saw her personality blossom during her gender transition.
Prior to the transition, McLaughlin was in a relationship with his girlfriend Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin would appear at the suburban St. Louis office where Guenther, 45, worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers sometimes escorted her to her car after her work.
Guenther’s neighbors called the police on the night of November 20, 2003, when he did not return home. Agents went to her office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and traces of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where the body had been dumped.
McLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced her to death after a jury deadlocked on sentencing. In 2016, a court ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.
