Karla Faye Tucker was convicted of murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 in 1984 and put to death in 1998. She was the first woman to be executed

Capital punishment in the United States

Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 since 1984

Velma Barfield

Margie Velma Barfield was a serial killer, convicted of six murders. She was the first woman in the United States to be executed after the 1976 resumption of capital punishment and the first since 1962...

, and the first in Texas since 1863

Chipita Rodriguez

Josefa "Chipita" Rodriguez was convicted of murder and hanged in San Patricio County, Texas at the age of 63. A century later, on June 13, 1985, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution noting that Rodriguez did not receive a fair trial...

. Because of her gender and widely publicized conversion to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, she inspired an unusually large national and international movement advocating the commutation of her sentence to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

, a movement which included a few foreign government officials.
Karla Tucker was born and raised in Houston, Texas

Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

, the youngest of three sisters.