POTOSI — Nineteen years after Scott McLaughlin stabbed, strangled and raped an ex-girlfriend in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, the state of Missouri is set to put McLaughlin to death. It would be the state’s third execution in nine months, a marked increase from recent years.
Unless the courts or Gov. Mike Parson intervene, McLaughlin will die by lethal injection Tuesday evening in Bonne Terre.
McLaughlin, 49, has been held in recent months in protective custody at the men’s prison in Potosi, living as a transgender woman, Amber. McLaughlin would be the first openly transgender inmate put to death in the U.S., said Robert Dunham, executive director for the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks the death penalty.
Missouri was one of just six U.S. states to carry out an execution in 2022: Kevin Johnson was executed in November, and Carman Deck in May. The state has not killed three inmates in a 12-month span since 2015. A fourth prisoner, Leonard Taylor, is set to be executed Feb. 7.
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No execution dates have been set in Missouri beyond February, but Missouri’s attorney general has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set dates to execute Michael Tisius, who fatally shot two Randolph County jailers in 2000, and Johnny Johnson, who kidnapped and beat to death a 6-year-old girl in Valley Park in 2002.
“Things are going to pick up in 2023 beyond the two dates we have now,†predicted Elyse Max, co-director of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “Because new death sentences are so rare, most of the individuals on Missouri’s row are at the end of appeals.â€
Al Wedepohl, whose sister Beverly Guenther was killed by McLaughlin in 2003, anxiously awaits Tuesday’s execution. Wedepohl said he plans to be in the witness box inside the Bonne Terre prison to see McLaughlin die.
“I’ve had this feeling since the day it happened,†Wedepohl said. “It’s not going to bring her back or any of that, but it will help that I will know that (McLaughlin’s) gone.â€
Guenther, 45, of Moscow Mills, was stabbed with a steak knife as she left her job in Earth City on Nov. 20, 2003. Her body was dumped in ºüÀêÊÓƵ near the Mississippi River.
Guenther and McLaughlin had dated on and off for about a year and lived together briefly, but a turbulent breakup led Guenther to seek restraining orders against McLaughlin. McLaughlin was scheduled to appear in court in Lincoln County the day after Guenther’s disappearance on charges of stalking and harassment.
McLaughlin’s defense lawyers argued that McLaughlin, with an IQ of 82, has “borderline intellectual and personality disorders, intermittent explosive disorder and learning disorders.â€
McLaughlin’s supporters point out that trial judge Steven H. Goldman handed down the death sentence when the jury deadlocked on punishment. Missouri and Indiana are the only states that permit a judge to hand down the death penalty when jurors can’t agree.
“The death sentence now being considered does not come from the conscience of the community — but from a single judge,†McLaughlin’s lawyers told the governor in an application for clemency.
Though McLaughlin now goes by Amber, the execution warrant is in the name Scott A. McLaughlin. McLaughlin lives in the men’s prison because assignments are based on “genitalia rather than on gender identity,†Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said.
McLaughlin, in a phone interview with the Post-Dispatch, declined to talk about the crime itself but said, “People should know I’m mentally ill.†McLaughlin called the pending execution “a sad thing. I don’t agree with it.â€
“I’m trying to stay calm,†McLaughlin said.
Stalked, then murdered
McLaughlin in 2003 hid in the bushes outside Compucard, which sold badges and lanyards in Earth City, and waited for Guenther to leave work. Crouching at the bottom of the steps, McLaughlin frightened Guenther, and she dropped her car keys. McLaughlin then stabbed her in the neck and raped her after she died, .
McLaughlin, of Wright City, put the body in a station wagon and drove to an area near Bellerive Park in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ. McLaughlin tried to drag her body to the Mississippi River only to become fatigued and give up. McLaughlin threw Guenther’s clothes into a garbage bin and drove to Fenton, falling asleep in a commuter parking lot before going to a relative’s trailer in northern Jefferson County to sleep some more.
Police soon arrested McLaughlin, who led officers to the body. Investigators found Guenther’s blood in McLaughlin’s car and McLaughlin’s DNA on Guenther’s body.
A detective asked what Guenther did to make McLaughlin angry, and McLaughlin said Guenther wouldn’t return a deep freezer.
“The head games,†McLaughlin told the officer, “had been going on for months.â€
McLaughlin was, attorneys at trial said, “a damaged guy who couldn’t deal with getting dumped.â€
McLaughlin’s previous crimes, spelled out in a parole report, included trespassing, property damage, vehicle theft and sexual assault of an underage teenage girl. McLaughlin left school after the 11th grade and worked odd jobs, including as a factory assembler, dishwasher and day laborer.
Early in their relationship, Guenther brought McLaughlin to the Compucard office for a Christmas party in 2002. The couple broke up the next summer. Guenther confided to friends that McLaughlin was stalking her. McLaughlin burglarized her home and cut up her shoes, and also jumped out of bushes and groped her, according to court records. Guenther obtained court orders of protection and police escorts, and she arranged a safety network with neighbors and her employer to fend off advances by McLaughlin.
A ºüÀêÊÓƵ County jury convicted McLaughlin in 2006 of first-degree murder, rape and armed criminal action in the guilt phase of the trial but could not agree on punishment.
Goldman, the judge, handed down the death sentence after jurors agreed McLaughlin had acted with the necessary depravity of mind to be executed. But jurors had deadlocked on whether that was trumped by other mitigating factors.
“I think that Beverly Guenther lived, at the end, a tortured life, and she died a tortured death,†Goldman told McLaughlin at sentencing. “You made her worst fears come true when you killed her.â€
The judge’s decision that he had the authority to impose a death sentence under this circumstance appeared to set a precedent. Goldman’s move was appealed on grounds of McLaughlin’s Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
McLaughlin had psychological problems that began in a childhood marred by neglect and abuse, defense lawyers said. McLaughlin’s sister testified that their adoptive father was a policeman who used a taser and nightstick on McLaughlin, and their adoptive mother would force the children to drown pregnant pet cats. A psychologist and a pediatrician said McLaughlin had deficient language skills and trouble with cognitive ability and common sense.
A federal judge determined that McLaughlin’s lawyers were ineffective for failing to investigate one of their own expert witnesses. The lawyers discovered during the penalty phase of the trial that the expert had falsified data in a lab report 17 years earlier. The defense team then chose not to use him to discuss McLaughlin’s mental state during the murder.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry vacated the death sentence in 2016. Perry ruled, in part, that a flawed jury form meant a judge could not have known whether the jury thought the aggravating factors in favor of the death penalty — such as depravity — outweighed mitigating circumstances and that a jury, not a judge, had to weigh those factors. But five years later, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed with Perry’s decision and effectively reinstated McLaughlin’s death sentence.
Executions picking up in Missouri
Missouri has executed 93 people — all men — since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. That’s the fifth-most in the country after Texas (578); Oklahoma (119); Virginia (113); and Florida (99), according to statistics compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Between 1990 and 2003, Missouri picked up its pace of executions, carrying out six, seven and even nine executions a year. That matched the trend nationwide, where the number of inmates killed in a single year peaked at 98 in 1999.
Then the pace slowed. Most years brought one execution — or none — in Missouri. Outliers were 2014 and 2015, with 10 and six men executed, respectively.
One woman was executed at the Missouri State Penitentiary gas chamber in 1953, but that was a federal case. Bonnie Brown Heady and her lover, Carl Austin Hall, were put to death by arrangement with federal officials for the infamous kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease in Kansas City just 81 days before.
Five women received death sentences in a Missouri state court between 1988 and 1992 but were never executed. Their sentences were overturned on appeal.
Eighteen men executed in Missouri since 1989 had their death sentences handed down in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County; 17 were in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. The next highest was Jackson County, with nine, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Missouri has 19 men on a list of current capital punishment offenders, including five who received their sentences in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County.
Former ºüÀêÊÓƵ County prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch, who spent 28 years in office, prosecuted murder cases that have sent 10 men to the execution chamber, with McLaughlin and four others awaiting execution. McCulloch lost reelection four years ago to Wesley Bell, who opposes the death penalty.
For McLaughlin, the defense team seeking clemency from Parson highlighted McLaughlin’s abusive childhood, brain damage and fetal alcohol syndrome, bouts of depression as a child and suicide attempts as an adult.
“All of the essential mental health evidence was never presented to the jury due to the shortcomings of trial counsel, and yet it still deadlocked, not agreeing that death was warranted,†the clemency request says.
Seven retired judges including Michael A. Wolff, who served on the Missouri Supreme Court for a dozen years, signed a letter in December urging Parson to commute McLaughlin’s sentence to life in prison. They said “a flaw in Missouri’s capital sentencing scheme†put McLaughlin on death row.
“Missouri law permits a trial judge to make independent factual findings (both as to aggravating and mitigating factors) and to impose a sentence of death when a jury deadlocks on whether the death penalty is warranted,†their letter said. “This flaw is more pronounced in this case because the trial judge then relied upon aggravating circumstances specifically rejected by the jury.â€
“The trial judge did a complete end-run around a jury, where Mr. McLaughlin’s attorneys had persuaded at least one and maybe 11 jurors that death was not appropriate,†the letter said.
Goldman, the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County circuit judge who sentenced McLaughlin, is now retired. Before he was a judge, he was a prosecutor who helped draft language for the statute allowing a judge to decide punishment in a death penalty case if a jury deadlocks.
In an interview Wednesday with the Post-Dispatch, Goldman said he sticks by his decision to send McLaughlin to death row.
“The only aggravating circumstance (the jury) found was ‘depravity of mind,’ and so I found that also, and I just elaborated with what the jury said,†Goldman said. “I adopted the jury’s findings.â€
“I believe in the death penalty,†Goldman added. “It’s something I take very seriously. It’s someone’s life. It means a lot to me to have to weigh that.â€
Goldman called it a terrible crime and noted that the one night Guenther didn’t have a police escort from work is the night she was slain.
Parson hasn’t announced his decision on mercy for McLaughlin. Five men have been executed since Parson became governor in June 2018.
Seeking hormone therapy
One of McLaughlin’s closest friends in prison was Jessica Hicklin, a transgender woman paroled last January after serving 26 years for murder. Hicklin would visit with McLaughlin for about an hour every Friday at Potosi Correctional Center, beginning back when McLaughlin was “known as Scotty,†Hicklin said. The two would talk about life.
“About how hard life was living, you know, trapped where you don’t belong,†Hicklin said. “She just wanted somebody to care for her and somebody to love her and somebody to recognize her for who she is.â€
McLaughlin spent months in protective custody at the Potosi prison. “Amber is not exactly an aggressive person, and there were people trying to prey on her,†Hicklin said.
Hicklin helped McLaughlin navigate access to gender-affirming care inside prison after Hicklin won a federal lawsuit in 2018. The suit challenged the Missouri Department of Corrections’ “freeze frame†policy that barred treatment for transgender inmates who weren’t receiving hormone therapy before they were incarcerated.
The lawsuit argued that the state’s refusal to provide medically necessary care — including hormone therapy, permanent hair removal and access to gender-affirming care products — was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.
Hicklin said she knew of more than 30 inmates in Missouri prisons last year who identified as transgender, and fewer than a dozen were undergoing hormone therapy. Missouri now covers hormone therapy but does not cover gender-reassignment surgery for inmates.
To be eligible for hormone therapy, Hicklin said, McLaughlin was expected to live a full year as a woman — using a female name and pronouns, and “dressing effeminately,†Hicklin said — before the therapy would be considered by a committee that includes the prison’s medical provider.
Pojmann, the spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said transgender inmates are managed on a “case-by-case†basis. The inmates work with a psychiatrist, Pojmann said, and would be diagnosed with gender dysphoria before beginning hormone therapy. McLaughlin’s current attorney, Larry Komp, said two doctors have diagnosed McLaughlin with gender dysphoria.
McLaughlin completed the one-year “real-life experience†period about six months ago, Hicklin said, but has not been given hormone therapy yet.
Witness to an execution
Wedepohl, Guenther’s brother, sat through the murder trial and has kept up to date on McLaughlin’s appeals since. He plans to attend the execution in person, at the invitation of the state. Wedepohl will sit in a witness box reserved for the victim’s friends and family. A one-way window prevents the condemned from seeing who is there.
Wedepohl’s wife might go too, to support her husband, but she is apprehensive. Wedepohl is unwavering.
“It’s just to get closure that I need. My personal closure,†Wedepohl told the Post-Dispatch.
Wedepohl is a 58-year-old crane operator from Callaway County, Missouri, about 40 miles northeast of Jefferson City. His sister was six years older than Wedepohl. As kids, they would spend time outdoors sledding and riding horses.
“We were very close,†he said. “She was my best friend.â€
When she was an older teenager, Guenther got married and moved out of the house.
Guenther and her husband, Greg, had three sons, one of whom drowned in a swimming pool as a toddler. The couple’s marriage ended in divorce. Guenther slipped into a depression and didn’t work for a few years. Guenther had training as a medical assistant. She bred bull terriers and was doing graphic design work screen printing T-shirts. Later, she started working at a relative’s business in Earth City and bought a car and a house.
“She was starting to enjoy life again,†said Wedepohl’s wife, Annie. “And then she met Scott, and it went downhill. He was very controlling and jealous.â€
Wedepohl said his sister wasn’t perfect and, like anyone, had made some mistakes in her life — but that dating McLaughlin was the biggest mistakes of all. “It was his way or the highway,†Al Wedepohl said. “He was very possessive and (treated her like) she was nobody else’s but his.â€
Wedepohl said hearing details retold about his sister’s murder all these years later makes him angry. “She was a wonderful person,†he said. “I just miss her company, being able to talk to her about life issues. I could always count on her.â€
Wedepohl sent a photograph of his sister to Parson in November at the request of the governor’s office, as it prepared to weigh a clemency request.
“He wanted a photograph of Beverly so he knew who the victim was and could make it more personal,†Wedepohl said. “I’ve been very proud of the governor for this.â€
Kim Bell covers breaking news for and the ºüÀêÊÓƵ. She can be reached at kbell@post-dispatch.
Table: Missouri ranks fourth in execution rate
State | Population | Executions | Rate per 100,000 |
---|---|---|---|
1. Oklahoma | 3,956,971 | 112 | 2.83 |
2. Texas | 28,995,881 | 570 | 1.97 |
3. Delaware* | 973,764 | 16 | 1.64 |
4. Missouri | 6,137,428 | 90 | 1.47 |
5. Alabama | 4,903,185 | 67 | 1.37 |
6. Virginia | 8,535,519 | 113 | 1.32 |
7. Arkansas | 3,017,804 | 31 | 1.03 |
8. South Carolina | 5,148,714 | 43 | 0.84 |
9. Georgia | 10,617,423 | 76 | 0.72 |
10. Mississippi | 2,976,149 | 21 | 0.71 |
11. Louisiana | 4,648,794 | 28 | 0.60 |
12. South Dakota | 884,659 | 5 | 0.57 |
13. Arizona | 7,278,717 | 37 | 0.51 |
14. Ohio | 11,689,100 | 56 | 0.48 |
15. Florida | 21,477,737 | 99 | 0.46 |
16. North Carolina | 10,488,084 | 43 | 0.41 |
17. Nevada | 3,080,156 | 12 | 0.39 |
18. Indiana | 6,732,219 | 20 | 0.30 |
19. Montana | 1,068,778 | 3 | 0.28 |
20. Utah | 3,205,958 | 7 | 0.22 |
21. Nebraska | 1,934,408 | 4 | 0.21 |
22. Tennessee | 6,829,174 | 13 | 0.19 |
23. Wyoming | 578,759 | 1 | 0.17 |
24. Idaho | 1,787,065 | 3 | 0.17 |
25. Illinois* | 12,671,821 | 12 | 0.09 |
26. Maryland* | 6,045,680 | 5 | 0.08 |
27. Kentucky | 4,467,673 | 3 | 0.07 |
28. Washington* | 7,614,893 | 5 | 0.07 |
29. New Mexico* | 2,096,829 | 1 | 0.05 |
30. Oregon | 4,217,737 | 2 | 0.05 |
31. California | 39,512,223 | 13 | 0.03 |
32. Connecticut* | 3,565,287 | 1 | 0.03 |
33. Pennsylvania | 12,801,989 | 3 | 0.02 |
34. Colorado* | 5,758,736 | 1 | 0.02 |
35. New Hampshire* | 1,359,711 | 0 | 0.00 |
36. Kansas | 2,913,314 | 0 | 0.00 |