Texas executed its first woman in three years last night, and her last statements were about how she wasn’t afraid to go.
52-year old Kimberly McCarthy was convicted of murdering 71-year old Dorothy Booth in 1997 over a diamond ring after beating her with a candlestick. She was the wife of a former Black Panther member and admitted to pawning the ring she’d stolen from Booth, but the admission did nothing to lighten her sentence. On Wednesday night at 6:37 p.m., she was killed after being given a lethal injection and became the 500th prisoner in Texas to be given the death penalty since 1976.
McCarthy’s last words were about how she didn’t consider her death a loss.
“This is not a loss, this is a win. You know where I am going. I am going home to be with Jesus, keep the faith, I love ya’ll. Thank you chaplain,” McCarthy said.
Texas, which holds the record for most executions in the country by far, has come under fire in recent years for the policy by many who say that the death penalty does more harm than good. But officials say they won’t be deterred.
“Here in Texas, we tell people that if you commit really bad crimes, we’re going to look to putting you to death,” said Jim Willett, a former warden and current director of the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville. “And we’re going to follow through with it.”