| Christina Marie Riggs | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 2, 1971 |
| Died | May 2, 2000 (aged 28) Cummins Unit, Lincoln County, AR |
| Conviction(s) | Two counts of first degree murder |
| Penalty | Death |
| Status | Executed |
| Occupation | Licensed practical nurse |
| Children | Justin Riggs (age 5 in 1997) Shelby Alexis Riggs (age 2 in 1997) |
Christina Marie Riggs (September 2, 1971 – May 2, 2000) was a murderer executed in Arkansas by lethal injection. She was convicted of the November 4, 1997, murder of her two preschool-aged children, Justin and Shelby Alexis Riggs, in their beds at the family's Sherwood, Arkansas, home. Her plan to murder her children involved giving them undiluted potassium chloride just after giving them Elavil to sedate them.[1] However, the potassium chloride was not diluted properly and it burned her son's veins, causing Justin terrible pain but not death.[2] She eventually smothered him, when the injection was ineffective. She then smothered her daughter Shelby, without injecting her, after seeing the pain that the drug caused Justin.[1] She took the children, and laid them on her bed, covered them with a blanket, and wrote suicide notes.[3] She then attempted to commit suicide by taking twenty-eight Elavil pills, and injecting herself with undiluted potassium chloride. Nineteen hours later, Riggs' mother discovered her unconscious, but still alive, on the floor of her home.[2]
Christina was suffering from a very deep depression and apparently did not want to have her children split up after her own suicide. The children had different fathers.[4]
At her June 1998 trial, Riggs contended she was not guilty by reason of insanity, but the Pulaski County jury convicted her. During the penalty phase, Riggs would not allow attorneys to put on a defense, saying she wanted a death sentence. Coincidentally, she was executed with a potassium chloride injection, the same substance with which she attempted to kill her children.
Riggs was placed in the Arkansas Department of Correction system and held at the McPherson Unit, which included the female death row, until her execution.[5] The Arkansas execution chamber is located at the Cummins Unit.[6]
On Sunday April 30, 2000, Riggs was flown from McPherson to Cummins in preparation for her execution.[1] Riggs was the fifth woman executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. She was also the first woman executed in Arkansas since 1845.[3] Her last words were: "There is no way no words can express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies. Now I can be with my babies, as I always intended."[7] She also said, "I love you, my babies."[7]