# Who was the last woman publicy executed in the USA?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 4, 2005, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456 "2005-05-04T22:45:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2005, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/1 "2005-05-04T22:45:33Z")
Who was the last woman publicy executed in the USA? When was she executed? I know the last _man_ was Rainy Bethea in 1937.
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### Author:  [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/2 "2005-05-05T01:44:55Z")
Not the answer you’re looking for, but maybe you’ll find [this chart](http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/FEMALES.htm) helpful?
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/3 "2005-05-05T01:59:59Z")
They used to put women to death for concealing a birth? Wow. Over react much?
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### Author:  [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/4 "2005-05-05T02:04:48Z")
publicy? :dubious:
🙂
**adam** : kind of a sick logic to it, if you think about it. Can you believe we used to even execute children in this country? I’m glad we’ve come so far.
Oh. ☹
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### Author:  [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/5 "2005-05-05T02:05:31Z")
Pity the 18 women whose crime appeared to be asking a question.
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### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/6 "2005-05-05T02:23:17Z")
Have there not been any women executed in the US since 1962? Or is that just when the table ends?
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### Author:  [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/7 "2005-05-05T02:26:41Z")
That’s when the table ends. More info on excecutions since 1977 [here.](http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/women.html#America)
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/8 "2005-05-05T02:28:45Z")
> [@](#):
>
> They used to put women to death for concealing a birth? Wow. Over react much?
I think that “concealing a birth” usually also involved killing the infant. Because it was usually impossible to prove the child was born alive the crime was changed to cover both possibilities.
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### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/9 "2005-05-05T02:44:14Z")
> [@Casey1505](#):
>
> That’s when the table ends. More info on excecutions since 1977 [here.](http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/women.html#America)
Interesting. As a comparison, the last execution of a woman in Australia was that of Jean Lee, for murder, on 19 February 1951.
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### Author:  [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/10 "2005-05-05T03:05:16Z")
I haven’t found much at all about who was the last publicly executed woman, aside from references to the recent unpleasantness in Pinellas Park. Mary Surratt is a likely candidate for last _public_ execution of a woman in the US, back in 1865, for her role in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln.
If hangings were always done publicly, then Mary Holmes, in 1937, would be the answer.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/11 "2005-05-05T04:01:58Z")
> [@Casey1505](#):
>
> Pity the 18 women whose crime appeared to be asking a question.
I pity far more the ones who were burned to death. I hope like hell that the women burned were drugged beyond all possibility of lucidity before their executions.
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### Author:  [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/12 "2005-05-05T04:40:07Z")
Lynda Lyon Block was executed on May 10th, 2002 in Alabama by lethal injection. Convicted of 1st degree murder in the killing of an Opelika, Alabama policeman.
Prior to that, the last woman executed in Alabama was serial killer Rhonda Martin in 1957.
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### Author:  [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/13 "2005-05-05T05:01:16Z")
OOPs! My memory slipped a cog…Lynda Lyon Block was executed in the electric chair. Much was made at the time of the state going to lethal injection, but injection hadn’t started when L.L. Block’s time came. She was probably “Yellow Mama’s” last job, Yellow Mama being the affectionate name prisoners gave to the electric chair.
Her husband is now on death row for the same crime spree. They are the only husband/wife team condemned to death in Alabama history, IIRC.
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### Author:  [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/14 "2005-05-05T16:34:24Z")
[QUOTE=John Carter of Mars]
Lynda Lyon Block was executed on May 10th, 2002 in Alabama by lethal injection. Convicted of 1st degree murder in the killing of an Opelika, Alabama policeman.
[\QUOTE]
The last women excuted in the US was Aileen Wuornos, the subject of the film “Monster.” She was put to death in Florida on October 9, 2002.
[This site](http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/victims.html) has a list of the 963 people executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. It was updated on Tuesday.
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### Author:  [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-last-woman-publicy-executed-in-the-usa/302456/15 "2005-05-05T18:01:05Z")
> [@Cunctator](#):
>
> Interesting. As a comparison, the last execution of a woman in Australia was that of Jean Lee, for murder, on 19 February 1951.
Slackers!
😉