#Rest In Peace Beverly Guenther

[the-rad-menace]

"At a prison in Bonne Terre on Tuesday, the state of Missouri carried out the first execution of an openly transgender woman in the history of the United States.

Amber McLaughlin, 49, was put to death for the murder of Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin, then known as Scott, raped and stabbed Guenther, 45, twenty years ago in Earth City, Missouri, before dumping her body in the city of St. Louis.

....

McLaughlin’s final written statement was, "I am sorry for what I did. I am a loving and caring person." This morning McLaughlin was served a final meal of a cheeseburger, french fries, a strawberry milkshake and peanut M&Ms.

The execution represents the first time a woman has been put to death in Missouri since 1953, (they STILL haven't executed a woman since 1953 🙄) when the federal government executed Bonnie Brown Heady for kidnapping and murdering a child.

The younger brother of McLaughlin’s victim, Al Wedepohl, 58, witnessed the execution. He remembers Guenther as "the best sister anybody could ask for," a woman whose life was taken from her just as she was reinventing herself after her marriage collapsed.

Provided by Al Wedepohl

Beverly Guenther, 45, was murdered on November 20, 2003.

"After the depression of the divorce, she was finally starting to bring herself back on track," Wedepohl says. Guenther hadn't worked when she was married and the house she lived in hadn’t belonged to her, but Wedepohl recalls his sister in the wake of the divorce establishing an independent life. She bought a car. She bought a house.

"She was really turning her life around," Wedepohl says. "It took a few years, but she finally got herself back together."

Then she met McLaughlin.

"The worst mistake she ever made," Wedepohl says.

Wedepohl met McLaughlin in 2003 and described his sister's murderer as manipulative, controlling and "very abusive, physically and mentally."

Wedepohl recalls a get-together Guenther had arranged so her brother and sister-in-law could meet McLaughlin, but at the gathering McLaughlin walked right past Wedepohl and his wife without saying a word.

The relationship between Guenther and McLaughlin devolved into abuse. When Guenther tried to end it, McLaughlin stalked and harassed her, burglarizing her home in October 2003.

"[McLaughlin] had this thing that was like a fatal attraction. It was either you'd be with me, or you're not," Wedepohl says. "That was even more messed up because he was living with someone else."

In the months before her murder, Guenther filed a restraining order against McLaughlin and, according to court filings, said in her victim impact statement that McLaughlin "threatened her and her friends” and “showed up at her job and watched 'everything' that she did."

On November 20, 2003, McLaughlin abducted Guenther outside the office where she worked. McLaughlin raped and stabbed her to death before leaving her lifeless body in the Patch neighborhood in south St. Louis, near the banks of the Mississippi River.

McLaughlin had been due in court on stalking charges the very next day.

(The justice system completely failed to protect her.)

After a four-day trial in 2006, the jury in the case was unanimous that McLaughlin had murdered Guenther, but they couldn't agree on whether the punishment should be life in prison or death. With the jury deadlocked, the decision was left to St. Louis County Circuit Judge Steven Goldman. He ruled that McLaughlin deserved to die.

Court transcripts show that Goldman thought the "depravity of mind" with which McLaughlin killed Guenther ultimately warranted death.

"I think that Beverly Guenther lived at the end a tortured life, and she died a tortured death, and this was at your hands," Goldman said, addressing McLaughlin. "You made her worst fears come true when you killed her."

More than a decade later, McLaughlin was incarcerated in Potosi Correctional Center in 2018 when another inmate there, Jessica Hicklin (murdered his friend for money, got life in prison, decided to transition at age 36, was released on parole just 6 years later. I'm sure his release had nothing to do with the lawsuit + transition costing the judicial system a shit ton of money and requiring special accommodations) in prison, won a landmark lawsuit allowing transgender incarcerated Missourians access to gender-affirming care.

Hicklin previously told the Riverfront Times that because of her success in the courts, she became a mentor to other transgender inmates. One day, Hicklin was introduced to McLaughlin for the first time as Amber.

"Now, this makes sense," Hicklin recalled thinking. "I've known you for a long time, you didn't necessarily seem very comfortable in your skin, and now you're smiling." (Rapist/murderers don't deserve to be comfortable or happy)

...

The brother of McLaughlin’s victim, Wedepohl, says that he's been bothered by the recent focus on McLaughlin's identity as transgender woman. He feels that his sister has been entirely lost in the onslaught of news coverage given to McLaughlin’s case in the past month.

He says that he doesn't want to belittle anyone, but he feels like McLaughlin's transition is a "ploy.” He adds, “It seems like it's pretty premeditated to try to get out of the death penalty."

...

Any hope for clemency was dashed this morning around 10 a.m. when the governor's office issued a statement saying that McLaughlin's execution would go through. Like the Supreme Court, Parson used the name “Scott McLaughlin” in issuing the order. McLaughlin also signed her final written statement in that name as well. (Even he gave up the ruse at the end.)

"McLaughlin’s conviction and sentence remains," Parson's statement said in part. "Ms. Guenther's family and loved ones deserve peace.

..."

Bolding for emphasis and red comments are mine.

[coochiequeens]

The co-director of MADP, Elyse Max, told local news outlet KRCG: “We just implore the Governor to find mercy in his heart. Amber is a gentle human. Everyone who knows her knows that Amber is not of future harm.” WTF Elyse? Sott raped a girl back in 1992 and raped a murdered a woman in 2003.

Government officials and “prison reform” activists in the United States are backing an effort to block the execution of a convicted child sex offender and murderer who began identifying as transgender while on death row. 

Missouri Democrat Representatives Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver have issued a letter to the state’s governor requesting clemency for Amber McLaughlin, a man who is set to become the first transgender inmate executed by the state for his crimes on January 3, 2023.

Formerly known as “Scott,” McLaughlin began transitioning while on death row for the horrific rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, Beverly Guenther, in 2003.

According to court records, Guenther and McLaughlin met in 2002 and began living with each other shortly into the relationship. But the cohabitation was marred by break-ups that were often so serious that Guenther sometimes had to obtain restraining orders to keep McLaughlin away from her.

In the spring of 2003, Guenther and McLaughlin formally ended their relationship, but McLaughlin continued to pursue the woman, exhibiting stalking behaviors by frequently visiting her place of work and calling her.

On October 27, 2003, McLaughlin was arrested after burglarizing Guenther’s home. He told arresting officers he was trying to reclaim possessions he left behind at the home while living with Guenther, and was arraigned in November. Guenther had filed for a protective order just two days before McLaughlin murdered her.

On the night of November 20, while the protective order was in effect, McLaughlin drove to Guenther’s workplace and waited for her in the parking lot of the office building. He ambushed her as she walked towards her truck, pulled her to the ground, and sexually assaulted her.

After violating the woman, McLaughlin stabbed her to death and shoved her corpse in his hatchback. He drove Guenther’s body to a nearby river, and disposed of it in the underbrush. McLaughlin was arrested the next day at the hospital while attempting to obtain medication for his mental illness.

McLaughlin was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and forcible rape. A trial jury was unable to decide whether to impose a sentence of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, and the presiding judge made the final decision to issue the death penalty. 

McLaughlin has unsuccessfully appealed his sentence multiple times over since it was handed down.

In 2016, McLaughlin was granted a stay of execution, but it was re-instated by a Federal Appeals Court in 2021. On September 29, after years of delays, the state of Missouri announced a date of January 3, 2023, had been set for McLaughlin’s execution.

In addition to the 2003 murder of Beverley Guenther, McLaughlin also had a historical sex offender registrationdue to a 1992 conviction for raping a 14-year-old girl.

On December 12, McLaughlin’s legal counsel filed a clemency petition urging Missouri Governor Mike Parson to intervene and prevent the execution. In the 27-page document, McLaughlin’s lawyers portrayed their client sympathetically, stating that he was “failed by the institutions… that should have protected [him].”

Included in the petition were descriptions of childhood physical and sexual abuse, periods of time spent in foster care, brain damage from fetal alcohol exposure, and mental illness that manifested as depression.

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (MADP) took up McLaughlin’s cause and rallied at the Missouri Capitol on Tuesday, December 27, to request that Governor Mike Parson grant clemency to McLaughlin. The organization delivered a petition with over 6,000 signatures to Parson’s office.

The co-director of MADP, Elyse Max, told local news outlet KRCG: “We just implore the Governor to find mercy in his heart. Amber is a gentle human. Everyone who knows her knows that Amber is not of future harm.”

The plea was supported by seven former Missouri judges, according to MADP, and two Democratic state representatives of Congress.

A joint letter signed and issued by both Rep. Bush (D-MO) and Rep. Cleaver (D-MO), delivered alongside MADP’s petition, requested that Governor Parson halt the scheduled execution and commute McLaughlin’s sentence to life in prison, citing “gender dysphoria” and “mental health issues” as mitigating circumstances.

The letter, dated December 27, argues that jurors deliberating McLaughlin’s sentence were deprived of “crucial mental health evidence,” including information regarding his “gender dysphoria,” as his defense lawyers “failed to present it.”

Using feminine pronouns for McLaughlin, the politicians wrote: “Ms. McLaughlin faced a traumatic childhood and mental health issues throughout her life. She experienced horrific abuse and neglect at the hands of various caregivers; court records indicate her adoptive father would frequently strike her with paddles and a night stick, and even tase her. Alongside this horrendous abuse, she was also silently struggling with her identity, grappling with what we now understand is gender dysphoria. The abuse, coupled with the persistent mental turmoil surrounding her identity, led to mild neurological brain damage and multiple suicide attempts both as a child and as an adult.”

The two representatives concluded their appeal by describing McLaughlin as a “woman” and referencing discrimination against “LGBTQ+” people.

“Ms. McLaughlin’s cruel execution would mark the state’s first use of the death penalty on a woman since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and even worse it would not solve any of the systemic problems facing Missourians and people all across America, including antiLGBTQ+ hate and violence, and cycles of violence that target and harm women.”

A spokesperson for Gov. Parson told NBC News that the governor is reviewing the clemency request.

Earlier this month, Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the death sentences of 17 men convicted of violent murders, including one male inmate who had begun identifying as a woman while on death row.

According to court documents, in 1994 Karl Anthony Terry killed Jeffrey and Dale Brown with a samurai sword while they slept. The three men belonged to an organization that Terry called the “Order of the Black Dove.” The creed of the Order of the Black Dove, as stated in Terry’s journal entries, “celebrated violence and other anti-social behavior.”

While incarcerated and awaiting the death sentence, Terry began identifying as transgender and adopted the name Tara Ellyssia Zyst. Terry has used nearly a dozen other aliases in addition to Tara Ellyssia, such as Miazni Theidra, Deluria Dinnae, Uujohne Aejetta, and Ula Mitsata. He is being held at Snake River Correctional Facility in Ontario, Oregon, a medium-security mixed custody prison, and is now listed as “female” in prison records.

By Genevieve Gluck Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

[coochiequeens]

Ok for the second time in just a few days I want to make it clear that I am usually against the death penalty. But this guy should fry before he tries to get moved to a woman’s prison

An inmate incarcerated in Missouri for the brutal rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend appears to have transitioned while on death row for the horrific crime.

Scott McLaughlin, 49, was found guilty in the murder of Beverly Guenther in 2003. The victim was McLaughlin’s ex-girlfriend, a woman he had been on-again-off-again dating for approximately one year. According to court records, Guenther and McLaughlin met in 2002, and began living with each other shortly into the relationship. 

But the cohabitation was marred by break-ups that were often so serious that Geunther sometimes had to obtain restraining orders to keep McLaughlin away from her.

In spring of 2003, Geunther and McLaughlin formally ended their relationship, but McLaughlin would continue to pursue the woman — frequently visiting her place of work and calling her.

On October 27, 2003, Guenther would be arrested after burglarizing McLaughlin’s home. He told arresting officers he was trying to reclaim possessions from when he lived with her, and was arraigned in November. Guenther sought a protective order at this time, but just two days later McLaughlin would murder her. 

On the night of November 20, while the protective order was in effect, McLaughlin drove to Geunther’s workplace and waited for her in the parking lot of the office building. He ambushed her as she walked towards her truck, pulled her to the ground, and sexually assaulted her. 

After violating the woman, McLaughlin stabbed her to death before shoving her corpse in his hatchback. He drove Guenther’s body to a nearby river, and disposed of it in the underbrush. McLaughlin was arrested the next day at the hospital while attempting to get some medication for his mental illness.

McLaughlin was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and forcible rape. A trial jury was unable to decide whether to impose a sentence of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, and a judge made the final decision to issue the death penalty. 

McLaughlin unsuccessfully appealed his sentence multiple times over the years. In 2008, he brought it before the Supreme Court of Missouri, arguing a technical error in the rape conviction. The Court denied his appeal, and further rejected any re-hearings. 

McLaughlin then took his case to a Circuit Court seeking post-conviction relief, which he was also denied. Finally, McLaughlin filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus, believing his incarceration was unconstitutional.

In 2016, McLaughlin was granted a stay of execution, but it was re-instated by a Federal Appeals Court in 2021.

On September 29, after years of delays, the state of Missouri announced a date of January 3, 2023, had been set for McLaughlin’s execution.

McLaughlin is currently incarcerated in the Potosi Correctional Center, a male prison in Mineral Point, Missouri for maximum-security and high-risk inmates. Records from the Missouri Department of Corrections show McLaughlin has apparently begun identifying as a “woman,” with his most recent mugshot capturing him donning long hair, makeup, and nail polish.

The photo, updated in December of 2021, is strikingly different from a previous record from just a few years prior when McLaughlin was seen with a decidedly more “masculine” appearance. 

Despite the dramatic change, McLaughlin is still recorded in the Missouri Department of Corrections system as a “male” and under his birth name. The state does not have an explicit gender self-identification policy.

McLaughlin is one of two known trans-identified male inmates incarcerated for extremely violent crimes in the state of Missouri. Just two hours away in Charleston, Patricia Elaine Trimble is housed at the Southeast Correctional Center. 

Born Patrick, Trimble was convicted in 1978 of the brutal rape of two 9-year-old girls in the city of St. Charles, Missouri. While in prison awaiting the final verdict on his case, Trimble would commit another heinous crime, making what the court would describe as a “slave” out of his developmentally disabled cellmate before murdering him.

According to a court document, Trimble “… forced the victim to have both oral and anal intercourse with him, compelled him to wear a ‘bra’ around the jail for the entertainment of the other inmates, and forced him at one point to display to the other inmates a rag that had been stuffed into his anus.” Trimble prostituted Everett to other inmates, and even offered to sell him to a member of the prison staff for a carton of cigarettes. Trimble also tortured Everett, making deep gashes in his flesh using burnt shampoo bottles.

Trimble was initially sentenced to death for his crimes, but the decision would later be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 50 years.

By Anna Slatz Anna is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Reduxx, with a journalistic focus on covering crime, child predators, and women's rights. She lives in Canada, enjoys Opera, and kvetches in her spare time.