This week in 1998

“…Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you.”

— Karla Faye Tucker, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed February 3, 1998

Gaining worldwide attention from the media, Tucker became the first woman executed by the state of Texas since the Civil War. In a robbery for motorcycle parts with an accomplice, Tucker had at tacked Jerry Lynn Dean and Deborah Thornton with a hammer and a pickax. Police reported finding the ax still embedded in Thornton’s chest.

Tucker became a born-again Christian in prison and was the subject of a folk song by the Indigo Girls titled simply “Faye Tucker.”