A nurse who once claimed that working with victims of the Oklahoma City bombing worsened her depression asked jurors to sentence her to die for killing her young son and daughter.
Jurors who convicted Christina Marie Riggs, 26, of two counts of capital murder deliberated a few hours on Tuesday and then grant-ed her wish.During the penalty phase, Riggs told jurors, "I want to die. I want to be with my babies. I want you to give me the death penalty."
She made 5-year-old Justin and 2-year-old Shelby Alexis drink a lethal dose of the antidepressant amitriptyline, then gave her son an injection of potassium chloride, prosecutors said. She then suffocated the children and tried to kill herself.
"When they read the sentence part of the verdicts, she said under her breath, `Thank you,' and squeezed my hand," Riggs' lawyer John Wesley Hall Jr. said outside the courtroom.
The sentence makes Riggs the only woman on Arkansas' death row.