Brit gran awaiting execution on Death Row after murdering young mum to 'steal her baby'

dailystar.co.uk:

grandmother is awaiting execution on Death Row in the US two decades after being found guilty of murdering a young mum and trying to steal her four-day-old baby.Linda Carty is at the Mountain View Unit, a maximum security prison in Texas, where she has been awaiting execution for 20 years.In May 2001, a court heard that Carty orchestrated the kidnap of her pregnant neighbour Joana Rodriguez by three men in Houston, Texas, intending to cut the baby out of Joana’s body.However the 63-year-old, who was born on the island of Saint Kitts before it gained independence from Britain, maintains her innocence, the Mirror reports.When presenter and journalist Susanna Reid visited her for a TV show, Carty told her: “If I were guilty of this crime, I would have taken my punishment.“Anyone who knows the system knows Texas does not admit when they are wrong.

I’ll fight until the end.“If I lose my life I know I have people behind me who will not stop until they clear my name.”But the details of the case place Carty as the "ringleader," and not everyone is convinced of her innocence.

Lynn Hardaway, former Harris County Assistant District Attorney, says: “I don’t have any doubt she is guilty. All the evidence was consistent and had her as the ringleader.”At the time of the murder Carty had bought scrubs and scissors, but Joana, 25, had given birth to son Ray four days earlier.Ray survived the kidnapping and was found in a car the next day, but Joana was found suffocated in the boot of Linda’s car.The jury convicted Gerald Anderson, Chris Robinson, and Carlos Williams of going to Joana’s home on May 16, 2001, and abducting her and baby Ray.They said Carty had wanted the baby to bring up herself.