"Mastermind" of Crime Was in Reality Led Along by Actual Killers Who Received Lesser Sentences
WASHINGTON - September 7 - Unless the governor or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Teresa Lewis will be put to death on September 23 in Virginia, the first woman to be executed in that state in a century. But the woman whom the sentencing judge assumed was the mastermind in the murders of her husband and adult stepson now has been shown to be a simpler person who was readily led by others and the target of a scam by an ambitious hitman. Ms. Lewis has taken full responsibility for her role in the crime, but was probably less culpable than the two men who used her and actually carried out the killings. Those men were given life sentences, while Lewis pleaded guilty and received a death sentence.
"The issue in this case," said Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, "is not that Teresa Lewis is a woman and should be treated differently. But it would be grossly unfair if the one person among those involved who is probably the least danger to society, who is certainly no more guilty than those who carried out the murders, and whose disabilities call out for mercy, is the only person scheduled to die for this crime."
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