The only woman on Georgia’s death row has been executed – the first female execution in the southern U.S. state for seven decades.
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Georgia State Department of Corrections officials confirmed Gissendaner died at 12:21 a.m.
Gissendaner was convicted 17 years ago of convincing her lover to kill her husband.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Supreme Court denied a request from Gissendaner for a stay on Tuesday night; two justices dissented from that decision.
When a new date was announced, she pleaded with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant her application for clemency.
Gissendaner, now 47, was sentenced to death November 20, 1998, after she was found guilty of orchestrating the death of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, in 1997. “She said she was sorry that that awesome man lost his life because of her. And once after the execution started, she began singing “Amazing Grace” and sang it all the way through”.
Rev. Cathy Zappa, who ministered to Kelly Gissendaner and came to consider her as a friend, said she didn’t know how to feel. Her supporters argued that her “good works in prison” justified a commutation of her sentence to life imprisonment.
Last-minute appeals had been filed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and that state Supreme Court, all of which rejected her motions.
It was the third try for Georgia, which reportedly had to cancel previous attempts to execute Gissendaner due to inclement weather and, later, “cloudy” lethal injection drugs.
Investigators looking into the killing zeroed in on Owen once they learned of his affair with Kelly Gissendaner. He took a plea deal and testified against Gissendaner, and for his co-operation was sentenced to life in prison.
A representative of Pope Francis, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, reportedly sent a letter to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole interceding in the case during the string of appeals, but it was not clear if the board ever saw the letter. One archbishop wrote a letter to the parole board asking for a life sentence. In addition, she argued that the latest planned execution would also be unconstitutional, as it would use the same drugs.
Ms. Gissendaner’s legal argument had recently focused on whether her postponed execution in March amounted to a violation of the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Pate discussed the Gissendaner case, why her life wasn’t spared, the fairness of the legal decisions denying Gissendaner clemency and more on “Closer Look”. At the time of the murder, she was having an affair with Gregory Owen, whom she pushed to kill her husband.
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Pope Francis, who concluded a six-day USA trip on Sunday and is an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, had urged officials to commute her death sentence.
