Karla Faye Tucker
Karla Tucker was executed by the State of Texas by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, on February 3, 1998, at age 38. She was the first woman executed in the United States since 1984. In prison she embraced Christianity, and before her death she visited with her husband, a prison preacher, her father and her sister, and in her final words she apologized to the families of the victims. Her lawyers' last-minute appeals were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit, and Governor George W. Bush refused a final appeal to block the execution, while her conversion drew debate among death penalty opponents and conservative Christians.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. Objections to the execution were raised by death penalty opponents and some conservative Christians who debated her conversion to Christianity, but no specific objection is attributed here beyond that debate.
Reported by: Texas Department of Criminal Justice (the agency that held her); news reports.