ST. LOUIS (AP) – Unless Missouri Governor Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will be the first openly transgender woman executed in the US.
McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, said no court appeals are pending.
The plea for clemency focused on several issues, including childhood trauma and McLaughlin’s mental health, that the jury never heard during the trial. Her adoptive parents smeared feces on her face when she was a child and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the clemency petition. He said he suffered from depression and tried to kill himself several times.
The petition also includes reports that mention the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes sadness and other symptoms as a result of differences in gender identity and the sex assigned at birth.
“We think Amber has shown incredible courage because I can tell you there is a lot of hate when it comes to that problem,” her lawyer, Larry Komp, said there. However, he said, McLaughlin’s sexual identity was “not the main focus” of the clemency plea.
Parson’s spokeswoman, Kelli Jones, said the review process for the clemency request is ongoing.
There have been no known cases of transgender inmates being executed in the US before, according to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center. Friends in prison said they saw McLaughlin’s personality blossom during the gender transition.
Before transitioning, McLaughlin was in a relationship with girlfriend Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin would show up at the suburban St. Louis office where the 45-year-old Guenther worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther got a restraining order, and police officers occasionally walked him to his car after work.
Guenther’s neighbors called the police on the night of November 20, 2003, when he did not return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near the car and a trail of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis.
McLaughlin was convicted of first degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after the jury deadlocked on the sentence. The court in 2016 ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.
One person who knew Amber before she transitioned was Jessica Hicklin, 43, who spent 26 years in prison for a drug-related killing in western Missouri in 1995. She was 16 years old. January 2022.
Hicklin, 43, began transitioning while in prison and in 2016 sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, challenging a policy that bans hormone therapy for inmates who don’t receive it before incarceration. He won his lawsuit in 2018 and became a mentor to other transgender inmates, including McLaughlin.
Although they were in prison together for about a decade, Hicklin said McLaughlin was so shy they rarely interacted. But when McLaughlin began her transition about three years ago, she asked Hicklin for guidance on issues such as mental health counseling and for help ensuring her safety in the male-dominated maximum security prison.
“There’s always paperwork and bureaucracy, so I spent time helping them learn to file the right things and talk to the right people,” Hicklin said.
In the process, a friendship develops.
“We’ll sit down once a week and have what I think of as girl talk,” Hicklin said. “He’s always smiling and making dad jokes. If you ever talk to him, it’s always with dad jokes.
She also discusses the challenges transgender inmates face in male prisons — like how to get feminine things, deal with rude comments, and stay safe.
McLaughlin still has insecurities, especially about his well-being, Hicklin said.
“Definitely a vulnerable person,” Hicklin said. “Definitely the fear of being attacked or victimized, which is more common for trans people in the Department of Corrections.”
The only woman executed in Missouri was Bonnie B. Heady, executed on December 18, 1953, for the kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old boy. Heady was executed in the gas chamber, along with another kidnapper and murderer, Carl Austin Hall.
Nationally, 18 people will be executed in 2022, including two in Missouri. Kevin Johnson, 37, was killed on November 29 in an ambush by the Kirkwood, Missouri, police. Carmen Deck was executed in May for killing James and Zelma Long during a robbery at their home in De Soto, Missouri.
Another Missouri inmate, Leonard Taylor, is scheduled to die on February 7 for killing his girlfriend and three children.