Christina Riggs in Arkansas on May 2, 2000 - Riggs, a licensed nurse, was convicted of murder by smothering her two preschool-aged children in their beds at the family’s Sherwood home. She wrote suicide notes saying “I hope one day you will forgive me for taking my life and the life of my children. But I can’t live like this any more, and I couldn’t bear to leave my children behind to be a burden on you or to be separated and raised apart from their fathers and live knowing their mother killed herself.” Then took 28 Elavil tablets, normally a lethal dose, and injected herself with enough undiluted potassium chloride to kill five people. The next day, police officers entered her apartment and found Riggs and rushed her to the hospital. During the death penalty phase, Riggs would not allow attorneys to put on a defense, saying she wanted a death sentence. The jury obliged, and she was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Riggs said “thank you” and squeezed her attorney’s hand. Read “Woman Executed in Arkansas” by BBC News (May 3, 2000).