by: Celine Ryan Ciccio
An Associated Press article published this week lamented that “Unless Missouri Gov. Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first transgender woman executed in the U.S.”
The piece, republished by The Washington Post, ABC News, CBS News, and many more, is referencing the case of Scott McLaughlin, a man who was convicted in 2006 of stalking, raping, and killing his former girlfriend Beverly Guenther.
In fact, Mclaughlin only began “transitioning” three years ago, according to the AP report– while incarcerated, and with the help of another transgender inmate.
The piece begins with an appeal to McLaughlin’s plea for clemency rather than McLaughlin’s undisputed heinous crime.
McLaughlin is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday. Despite the media’s angling, Gov. Parson says it will indeed occur as planned.
“McLaughlin’s culpability in Ms. Guenther’s murder has never been in question,” Parson said in a statement. “McLaughlin’s conviction and sentence remains after multiple, thorough examinations of Missouri law. McLaughlin stalked, raped, and murdered Ms. Guenther. McLaughlin is a violent criminal. Ms. Guenther’s family and loved ones deserve peace. The State of Missouri will carry out McLaughlin’s sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”
“McLaughlin waited outside Beverly Guenther’s workplace, where McLaughlin brutally raped and violently stabbed her as she walked to her vehicle to go home,” the Governor’s office explained.
“McLaughlin terrorized Ms. Guenther for months prior, to the point where Ms. Guenther had an order of protection against McLaughlin after McLaughlin broke into her home. McLaughlin’s culpability in Ms. Guenther’s murder has never been in question. Missouri courts have found no issue in the application of Missouri law to McLaughlin, and federal appellate courts have maintained as much.”
Many headlines from America’s trusted news sources read as if perhaps McLaughlin is being put to death for being transgender. [CNN: Missouri is scheduled to carry out first US execution of an openly transgender person today]
And quite nearly all of them position McLaughlin as a “transgender woman” who unsuccessfully sought clemency. CNN’s report is framed around McLaughlin’s lawyer’s claims that he “has shown genuine remorse and has struggled with an intellectual disability, mental health issues, and a history of childhood trauma.”
The fact he decided to pretend to be a woman just makes his execution a two-fer. Good riddance.
read the original court case of 2006, He is guilty as hell
The M.S. Media is always taking the sides of criminal’s often parading the criminal’s family before the cameras I can remember back when the notorious Robert Alton Harris was executed in the California Gas Chamber the usual Bleeding-hearts protesting in the streets the Media bottom feeders covering their protest no one mentioned his two innocent victims both had ordered Burgers at a McDonalds Harris had the gall to eat the Burgers and Hollywood is always on the side of violent felons and convicted killers and no one mentions their victims
Pardon bait for idiot Biden.