1st woman in 5 years executed in US amid outcry

JARRATT, Va. (AP) - The first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years has been put to death in Virginia for arranging the killings of her husband and a stepson over a $250,000 insurance payment.

Forty-one-year-old Teresa Lewis died by injection at 9:13 p.m. Thursday. She became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly a century. Supporters and relatives of the victims watchedd her execution at Greensville Correctional Center.

Lewis enticed two men through sex, cash and a promised cut in an insurance policy to shoot the sleeping men in October 2002. Both triggermen were sentenced to life in prison, and one committed suicide in 2006.

More than 7,300 appeals to stop the execution had been made to the governor in a state second only to Texas in the number of people it executes.