Karla Faye Tucker
Karla Faye Tucker | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 18, 1959 Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | February 3, 1998 (aged 38) Huntsville Unit, Huntsville, Texas, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Execution by lethal injection |
| Spouses |
Dana Lane Brown (m. 1995) |
| Parent(s) | Larry and Carolyn Tucker |
| Conviction | Capital murder (2 counts) (1984) |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Details | |
| Victims |
|
| Date | June 13, 1983 3:00 A.M. |
| Country | United States |
| State | Texas |
| Location | Houston |
| Weapons | Pickaxe |
Date apprehended | July 20, 1983 |
Karla Faye Tucker (November 18, 1959 – February 3, 1998) was an American woman sentenced to death for killing two people with a pickaxe during a burglary. She was the first woman to be executed in the United States since Velma Barfield in 1984 in North Carolina, and the first in Texas since Chipita Rodriguez in 1863. She was convicted of murder in Texas in 1984 and executed by lethal injection after 14 years on death row. Due to her gender and widely publicized conversion to Christianity, she inspired an unusually large national and international movement that advocated the commutation of her sentence to life without parole, a movement that included a few foreign government officials.