Unless Missouri Governor Mike Parson grants clemency, 49-year-old Amber McLaughlin will become the first openly transgender woman executed in the United States. She is to die by injection on Tuesday for the 2003 murder of an ex-girlfriend.
McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Comp, said there are no pending appeals.
The clemency request focused on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, that the jury never heard about at her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the clemency petition. It said she suffered from depression and had repeatedly tried to kill herself.
The petition also includes reports citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes pain and other symptoms as a result of a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and their assigned gender at birth.
“We think Amber has shown incredible courage because I can tell you there’s a lot of hate when it comes to this issue,” her attorney, Larry Comp, said Monday. But, he said, McLaughlin’s sexual identity “is not the main focus” of the clemency request.
Parson’s spokeswoman, Kelly Jones, said the clemency review process is still ongoing.
There is no known case of an openly transgender inmate being executed in the U.S., according to the Death Penalty Against Executions Information Center. A friend in prison says she saw McLaughlin’s personality blossom during her gender transition.
Before he passed, McLaughlin was in a relationship with his girlfriend, Beverly Gunther. McLaughlin showed up at the suburban St. Louis office where Gunther, 45, worked, sometimes hiding in the building, according to court records. Gunther was granted a restraining order and police officers occasionally escorted her to her car after work.
Gunther’s neighbors called the police on the night of November 20, 2003, when she failed to return home. Officers went to the office building where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a spot near the Mississippi River in St. Louis where the body had been dumped.
McLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a deadlocked jury. A 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 moved was Jessica Hicklin, 43, who spent 26 years in prison for a drug-related murder in western Missouri in 1995. She was 16. Because of her age when the crime happened , she was released in January 2022.
Hicklin, 43, began the transition while in prison and in 2016 sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, challenging a policy that banned hormone therapy for inmates who did not receive it before being incarcerated. She won the case in 2018 and became a mentor to other transgender inmates, including McLaughlin.
Although they were incarcerated for about a decade, Hicklin said McLaughlin was so shy that they rarely interacted. But when McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago, she turned to Hicklin for guidance on things like mental health counseling and getting help to ensure her safety in a male-dominated maximum security prison.
“There’s always paperwork and red tape, so I spent some time helping her learn to file the right things and talk to the right people,” Hicklin said.
A friendship developed in the process.
“We sat down once a week and had what I called a girl talk,” Hicklin said. “She always had a smile and dad was joking. If you ever talked to her, it was always with dad jokes.
They also discussed the challenges facing a transgender inmate in a men’s prison — things like how to get women’s items, dealing with rude comments and staying safe.
McLaughlin still had uncertainties, especially about her well-being, Hicklin said.
“Definitely a vulnerable guy,” Hicklin said. “I definitely fear being assaulted or victimized, which is more common for trans people in the Department of Corrections.”
The only woman ever executed in Missouri was Bonnie B. Headey, executed on December 18, 1953, for the kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old boy. Headey was executed in the gas chamber, side by side with fellow kidnapper and murderer, Carl Austin Hall.
Nationally, 18 people have been executed in 2022, including two in Missouri. Kevin Johnson, 37, was killed Nov. 29 in the ambush killing of a Kirkwood, Missouri, police officer. 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 her three young children.
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