Virginia executes first woman in 100 yrs

The case against Lewis,the first woman executed in the country since 2005,had drawn international attention. Many of her supporters questioned the fairness of her sentence her co-conspirators,who fired the fatal shots,were spared capital punishment and doubts were raised about her mental capacity. Psychologists involved in her case said she was borderline retarded. And her supporters argued that she had been manipulated by the two triggermen,who stood to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and life insurance payoffs.

Lewis received support from an unlikely cast. The novelist John Grisham published an op-ed piece calling for leniency,and the EU sent a letter to Governor of Virginia Robert F McDonnell,asking him to commute Lewiss sentence to life because of her mental capacities. The case was also cited by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to Islamic clerics during a visit to New York this week.

Shortly after her execution,a lawyer for Lewis,Jim Rocap,called her death a tragic loss.

For her part,Lewis did not deny her involvement in the murders,which took place in October 2002. Prosecutors said Lewis hatched the murders with two men she had been sleeping with. They said she supplied them with money to buy the murder weapons and showered them with gifts.

On the night before Halloween,Lewis got into bed as her conspirators entered the house. According to the authorities,Lewis stood by as the two men opened fire: First on her stepson,Charles J Lewis,25,and then on her husband,Julian C Lewis Jr,51.