Linda Carty

Linda Carty (born October 5, 1958 ) is a murderer and kidnapper sentenced to death in 2002 by the US state of Texas . In addition to being a US citizen, she is also a British citizen and is currently housed in the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville . The failure to notify the British authorities of the arrest of a British citizen in accordance with the bilateral conventions on consular relations between the two countries, several television reports and the motive sparked discussions about the criminal case.

Life

Carty was born on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts , which at the time of her birth still had the status of a British colony . Her parents were Anguillans . In 1982 she emigrated to the United States and received her citizenship there. She studied pharmacology at the University of Houston . She had previously worked as a primary school teacher at St. Kitts.

First convictions

In 1992, Carty was sentenced to a 10-year suspended sentence for car theft and presumption of office in which she posed as an FBI agent . The prerequisite for this was that she made herself available as a covert informant in the drug scene for the DEA drug law enforcement agency . During this activity, she provided information that led to two arrests. When she was arrested herself for a drug offense, her job as an informant ended. Carty herself claimed in interviews that her information had led to the seizure of narcotic drugs worth thousands of dollars and the arrest of numerous drug dealers.

Murder of Joana Rodriguez

In the early hours of May 16, 2001, three male accomplices of Linda Carty, armed with weapons, broke into the home of a neighboring family of Mexican immigrants in a suburb in southwest Houston, according to prosecutors . The accomplices later testified that Carty, who was known to them as a drug dealer, told them about a large amount of marijuana and cash that was hidden in the family's apartment. According to their representations, the goal should have been to rob it for financial reasons and transport it away. Carty's allegations later turned out to be a ruse to get her acquaintances to assist in the kidnapping of the family's newborn child.

Carty had shown no interest in the drug, but instead demanded as her part the kidnapping of a baby in the care of the family who was allegedly the birth child of her own husband. The background for this demand was probably the problematic relationship with her own husband. She had hoped to pass the child off as her own after the kidnapping in order to save their partnership. Even before the act, she had reported an alleged pregnancy and an imminent birth to several people. Police investigators later found surgical scissors, a stethoscope, a surgical gown, a child seat, diapers and baby food in her car. According to the prosecutor, she is said to have told her accomplices that she would “cut the baby out of the mother” and that she “needed the baby”.

In the further course of the apartment robbery, 25-year-old Joana Rodriguez and her baby, whom she had given birth only a few days earlier, were finally kidnapped. Meanwhile, Carty had waited outside the house and called one of the men in the house. Rodriguez was found dead in the closed trunk of a rental car a few hours later. She died of suffocation from a plastic bag wrapped around her head with several layers of tape while her hands were cuffed behind her back. The baby was found unharmed that same night.

process

The prosecution presented evidence and clues at the trial that linked Linda Carty to the crime. Cellular data recorded a total of 11 calls by Carty to one of the perpetrators present in the house, both at the time of the crime and during the night between 12:50 am and 2:50 am. According to the victim's husband, one of the kidnappers spoke on his cell phone: “We're in here. Do you want it]?". Then he shouted that "she was outside," whereupon the perpetrators took the child and mother and fled. In the rental car in which the body of Joana Rodriguez had been found, fingerprints of the accused could be secured. A prison inmate who was in custody at the same time testified that Carty asked her to write a letter for her because she did not want it to be in her own handwriting: The fake letter was said to be from a man named "Oscar ", Which claimed that two people named" Chris and Zeb "had set Carty by borrowing their car and" putting the baby in ".

Carty and the three perpetrators who broke into the apartment accused each other of being responsible for the woman's death. According to the accomplices, Rodriguez was only tied up and her mouth was taped - when the trunk was closed by them, she was alive. Carty was later seen, between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m., leaning into the open trunk and fastening the plastic bag over the victim's head. In return, she claimed to have been lured into a trap by the three men because of their previous work as informants. It was "too complicated to just kill them, that's why this plot was concocted".

Carty was found guilty by the jury on February 19, 2002 and sentenced to death by lethal injection on February 21 . The accomplices escaped the death penalty because of their testimony against Carty and received long prison terms.

criticism

According to the conventions governing consular relations between Great Britain and the United States, the British authorities should have been informed of the incident following the arrest of Ms. Carty. British authorities only became aware of the incident when they were convicted. In an Amicus Curiae , Great Britain informed the US Supreme Court that the incident was viewed as a breach of valid law. In the absence of a forum to assert British claims, redress had to be waived.

The British non-profit organization Reprieve noted that Carty's defense attorney did not present any potentially mitigating evidence. The death sentence automatically leads to a direct appeal, which was rejected - the law firm commissioned with the defense during this appeal hearing accused the original lawyer of having conducted the defense in an incompetent manner.

reception

The case was the subject of several TV reports, including the British Channel 4 and in the documentary series On Death Row by German director Werner Herzog .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Woman given death sentence in kidnap case . In: Houston Chronicle . ( chron.com [accessed September 17, 2017]).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Linda Carty v. the State of Texas. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT, accessed on September 17, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Death row woman's 'bizarre baby plan' . September 11, 2009 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed September 17, 2017]).
4. ↑ BRIEF OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND AS AMICUS CURIAE. Retrieved September 17, 2017 (English).