Son confesses but mum to be executed
A US woman looks set to be executed this week for a murder a son confessed to, according to CNN.
CNN reports that Mississippi's attorney general has asked that Michelle Byrom, 57, be put to death by lethal injection tomorrow for hiring her son's friend to kill her abusive husband.
If the order is approved, Ms Byrom will be the first woman executed in Mississippi in more than 70 years.
Prosecutors say Ms Byrom plotted the murder of her husband to collect his $160,000 in life insurance.
, CNN reports.
Edward Byrom (Senior) was fatally shot in his home in Iuka, Mississippi, while Ms Byrom was in the hospital receiving treatment for double pneumonia.
But Ms Byrom's lawyers argue that she deserves a stay of execution because her son Edward confessed to the 1999 killing in three letters smuggled to his mother in prison. They say he also confessed in another statement to a court-appointed psychologist, according to the CNN report.
The defence team, who were trying their first capital murder case, never entered the confessions into evidence.
In one letter to his mother, Edward Junior wrote how he killed his father in a rage after his father called him a "bastard, no good, mistake, and telling me I'm inconsiderate and just care about my self".
He said that after his father hit him he got a 9mm handgun, entered his father's bedroom, shot him and fled.
Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr told CNN that Ms Byrom should get a new trial.
"The majority of Mississippians support the death penalty because they think that people get fair trials and they think that they have competent attorneys representing them, - in this case, she didn't have either one," he said.
