Kelly Gissendaner, 47, featured in the October issue of The Lutheran, was reportedly singing “Amazing Grace” as she was put to death just after midnight Sept. 30 near Jackson, Ga.
Gissendaner, who in 1997 planned the murder of her husband but did not kill him, was the first women to be put to death by the state of Georgia in 70 years. Her lawyers filed appeals to state and federal courts, including three to the U.S. Supreme Court, that failed.
More than 90,000 people signed a petition urging Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to halt the execution, claiming the mother of three had turned her life around and called her a “powerful voice for good.”
A #kellyonmymind social media campaign to save her life drew widespread activism, including many ELCA members and seminarians.
Jennifer M. McBride, professor at ELCA-affiliated Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, was Gissen-daner’s teacher in a prison seminary program. She gave public witness to Gissendaner’s personal and spiritual transformation and her witness and ministry behind prison walls.
McBride’s Facebook post in the early morning hours of Sept. 30 was simply: “Jesus turned to the thief on the cross and said, ‘TODAY, you will be with me in paradise.'”
