A mum who was sentenced to death for killing her own children shared some chilling last words before she was executed.
Christina Marie Riggs, a nurse, was executed in Arkansas in May 2000 after spending just three years on Death Row. She had been convicted of murdering her children three years before and had planned to take her own life, but was unsuccessful.
“There is no way words can express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies,” she said. “Now I can be with my babies, as I always intended.”
Riggs became the 18th woman in the US to be executed and was the youngest woman to be put to death at just 28. In Arkansas, it was the first time a woman had been executed in the state since 1845.
She killed her two children Justin, five, and Shelby Alexis, two, by injecting them with potassium chloride and smothering them. Later, Riggs wrote a suicide note and took a massive overdose of antidepressants.
Her failed attempts saw her waive her last appeal after she was sentenced to death, leading to the unusually and relatively short time between the sentencing and it being carried out.
The mum initially claimed that the trauma of working as a nurse during the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 led her into a deep depression. However, the Veterans Affairs hospital disputed this, stating she was actually at another hospital on the day of the bombing.
Riggs’ lawyers argued she was innocent due to insanity at the time of the murders, but prosecutors disagreed, saying the crimes were premeditated.
“Sometimes I can’t think about them,” Riggs confessed to the Arkansas Times in 1999. “It’s like they’re being ripped away from me all over again.”
While in jail, it emerged that Riggs had been sexually abused as a child by her brother and a neighbour. “I felt that no boy liked me because of my weight, so I became sexually promiscuous because I thought that was the only way I could have a boyfriend,” she admitted.
Riggs first fell pregnant at 16 and gave the baby up for adoption in 1988. She later started a relationship with Timothy Thompson from the nearby Tinker Air Force Base.
She fell pregnant with Justin in late 1991, but Thompson didn’t stick around. During her pregnancy, she began a relationship with sailor Jon Riggs before Justin was born.
“As I held Justin in my arms and looked into his little face, I became so scared. Would I be a good Mum? Could I give him all he needed?” Riggs wrote in her journal.
Jon and Christina Riggs would eventually got married, but their wedding night was marred by tragedy when Christina suffered a miscarriage. The marriage turned sour – court documents revealed that Jon Riggs had punched Justin so hard in the stomach that he needed medical attention, leading to Christina Riggs falling into depression.
In 1994, they welcomed a baby girl named Shelby Alexis. Christina wrote: “We were so happy. She was so beautiful. I didn’t think things could get any better. (Jon) cried. I cried. He was full of so much love for her. The way he looked at her.”
However, what followed was the eventual breakup of their marriage and a financial spiral that Riggs said led her to commit terrible crimes. She later expressed regret for her actions.
“I still believe in the death penalty even though I’m sitting here on Death Row,” she once stated. “In my case, I’m glad I have the option.”
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