Missouri set to execute first transgender person in the US

Amber McLaughlin, 49, will be the first openly transgender person put to death in the US unless a governor commutes her sentence. She will be executed by injection on Tuesday in Missouri, a state in the Midwest, for the 2003 murder of a former girlfriend.

According to McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, there are no current judicial appeals.

For the clemency plea to be granted, Republican Governor Mike Parson of Missouri would need to approve it. It focuses on a number of topics, including McLaughlin’s difficult upbringing and her mental health problems, which the jury was never told about during her trial.

According to the clemency petition, when she was a young child, a foster provider put feces in her face and her adoptive father shocked her. She allegedly has depression and has made several suicide attempts.

The petition also contains documentation citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a disorder that results in suffering and other symptoms when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

We believe Amber has shown extraordinary bravery because, as I can attest, there is a great deal of animosity surrounding that subject, said Komp, her attorney, on Monday. However, he continued, the clemency application does not “focus primarily” on McLaughlin’s sexual orientation.

According to Kelli Jones, a spokesperson for Parson, the clemency plea is still being reviewed.

According to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center, there has never been a known instance of an openly transgender prisoner being put to death in the US. A prison companion claims to have witnessed McLaughlin’s personality develop throughout her gender transformation.

McLaughlin had a relationship with Beverly Guenther before he transitioned. According to court documents, McLaughlin would appear at the suburban St. Louis, Missouri office where Guenther, 45, worked, occasionally hiding inside the structure. Police officers occasionally escorted Guenther to her vehicle after work due to the restraining order she had received.

When Guenther didn’t come home on the evening of November 20, 2003, her neighbors dialed 911. Officers arrived at the office building and discovered a blood trail and a broken knife handle close to her car. A day later, McLaughlin directed police to the spot where the body had been discarded in St. Louis, close to the Mississippi River.

In 2006, McLaughlin was found guilty of first-degree murder. A jury couldn’t agree on a verdict, so a judge executed McLaughlin. A federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021 despite a 2016 court injunction for a new sentencing hearing.