The only woman on federal death row in the US has been executed after the Supreme Court overruled a stay on the sentence by a lower court.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was pronounced dead at 1:31 am local time.
Montgomery was sentenced to death for strangling an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb before passing it off as her own as part of a custody dispute.
Montgomery was put to death at the Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana
She is the first woman to be put to death by the US government since 1953.
Montgomery drove 170 miles from her home in Kansas to the house of heavily pregnant dog breeder Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004 under the guise of picking up a puppy.
But instead, she strangled her with a rope and used a knife to perform a makeshift caesarean before fleeing with the premature baby girl.
She was caught after trying to pass the child off as her own as part of a plot to win custody of two of her four children.
Her computer records showed she had researched caesareans and ordered a birthing kit.
On Tuesday, a judge in Indiana granted a stay of execution based on evidence that Montgomery couldn’t understand the government’s rationale for her execution.
Lisa Montgomery pictured in a police mug shot after her arrest
Separately, the US Court of Appeals also voted to stay the execution, delaying any new execution date past Donald Trump’s White House departure.
However, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court intervened to clear the way for the sentence to be carried out.
She was the 11th prisoner to receive a lethal injection at the jail since July when Mr Trump, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, resumed federal executions following 17 years without one.
Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, was killed in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004
As the execution process began, a woman standing over Montgomery’s shoulder leaned over, gently removed her face mask and asked if she had any last words.
“No,” Montgomery responded in a quiet voice. She said nothing else.
Montgomery’s lawyer Kelley Henry said in a statement: “The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight. Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame.
“The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman. Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”