1. Kelly Renee Gissendaner was an American woman who was executed by the US state of Georgia.
18 Facts About Kelly Gissendaner
1. 2.
At the time of the murder, Kelly Gissendaner was 28, and her husband was 30.
3.
In 1987, at the age of 19, Kelly Gissendaner married her first husband Jeff Banks.
4.
Kelly Gissendaner became pregnant by another man who later died of cancer.
5.
When Kelly Gissendaner arrived at the scene moments later, the two set fire to her husband's car and hid the body in the woods.
6.
Kelly Gissendaner was convicted of orchestrating her husband's murder and sentenced to death in 1998, after Owen testified against her in a plea agreement in which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
7.
Owen told a jury that Kelly Gissendaner had first approached him about "a way to get rid of" her husband three months before the murder.
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Kelly Gissendaner further testified that Gissendaner thought murder was the only way to get Douglas out of her life and still get the house and a payoff from his life insurance policy.
9.
Kelly Gissendaner had spoken to the women through an air vent and prevented some from committing suicide, while other women tell of how Kelly Gissendaner's words encouraged them to turn their lives around.
10.
The women released a video detailing the impact Kelly Gissendaner had on their lives.
11.
In 2010, Kelly Gissendaner enrolled in a theology studies program for prisoners, run by a consortium of Atlanta-area divinity schools, including the divinity school at Emory University.
12.
Kelly Gissendaner developed a friendship with Jurgen Moltmann while she was in prison.
13.
Kelly Gissendaner sent Moltmann a paper which she had written on Bonhoeffer.
14.
Kelly Gissendaner was impressed with her paper, and he wrote back.
15.
Kelly Gissendaner's execution was scheduled for February 25,2015, when a winter storm delayed it until March 2,2015.
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Kelly Gissendaner's execution was further delayed when one of the execution drugs was thought to have been spoiled through improper storage, though it was later determined that the drug had merely precipitated out of solution due to colder than recommended storage conditions.
17.
Kelly Gissendaner was scheduled to be executed on September 29,2015, but was again delayed by appeals.
18.
Kelly Gissendaner was the first woman executed in Georgia since Lena Baker in 1945, as well as the only woman executed in the United States in 2015.