British gran Linda Carty facing execution in US for killing her neighbour and abducting four-day-old baby after losing appeal
A BRITISH grandmother on death row in the United States has lost her appeal against execution in Texas.
Linda Carty has protested her innocence over the past 15 years after being convicted of murder and kidnapping in 2002.
The 59-year-old was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of her neighbour Joana Rodriguez and kidnapping the victim’s four-day-old son the previous year.
Carty is the only British woman currently on death row in the US.
She was previously granted a case review after lawyers claimed to have unearthed fresh evidence that could clear her name.
She also professed that prosecutors has coerced witnesses into giving false evidence during her trial.
Carty had been a Houston resident for almost 20 years when she allegedly recruited three men to abduct her 20-year-old neighbour and the newborn child.
Court documents suggest she wanted to pass off the child as her own in an attempt to save her relationship with her common-law husband.
The mother and son were abducted from their Houston apartment on May 16, 2001.
While the child was found safe in a car later the same day, the body of his mother was found in the boot of another vehicle.
She was found with her arms and legs wrapped in duct tape.
The victim’s mouth and nose were also taped, and she was found with a plastic bag over her head.
The three men charged as Carty’s accomplices were jailed for life, while Carty was handed the death sentence.
At the time of her arrest, Carty was on probation for impersonating a federal agent and previously had been arrested for car theft and drug charges.
An appeal last year was rejected by the district court judge in Texas after Carty claimed they engaged in misconduct, hiding information that may have changed the outcome of her trial.
The district court’s decision was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Carty was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts when it was still under British rule, and retains a UK passport.
The Foreign Office has expressed concern about her impending execution and has openly supported her cause.
The British grandmother has always protested her innocence and in a 2012 interview with , she pleaded for more help from the UK.
She said: "I am 110% innocent.
"We are British. I can't wash off my nationality with soap and water. I am going to always be British.
"I won't get up and ask the British Government to go out in the public and lobby for me had I known that I am guilty because then it would be an embarrassment not only to myself and my family but also the country that I love.
"So for me when I say I am innocent and that I didn't commit this crime I mean that."
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Carty is one of 50 women on death row across the United States.
Six of those, including Carty, are imprisoned in Texas.
The state has carried out more than one third of all executions in the US since the restoration of the death penalty in 1976.
A date for Carty’s execution has not yet been set.
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