Christina Riggs

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma in 1971, Christina Riggs was a registered nurse and mother of two small children, Justin and Shelby, by two different fathers.

In 1997, whilst at the family home in Sherwood, Arkansas, she planned to sedate her children with amitriptyline before killing them with undiluted potassium chloride. However, the first injection on her son was unsuccessful, so Riggs smothered them both instead. She then laid the children on her bed, covered them with a blanket, and
wrote suicide notes. Following this Riggs unsuccessfully attempted suicide by taking twenty-eight amitriptyline pills and injecting herself with undiluted potassium chloride. Riggs’ defense claimed she was suffering from depression and was apparently unwilling to have her children split up after her envisioned suicide.

Christina Riggs was executed by lethal injection on the 2nd May 2000. She was the first woman to be executed in Arkansas since 1845.