Teresa Lewis

The state had last executed a woman in 1912.

The case led to debate over capital punishment owing to Lewis's sex, as well as to questions regarding her mental capacity.

Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, officially making Lewis the last woman to be executed in Virginia.

Teresa Wilson Bean Lewis (April 26, 1969 – September 23, 2010) was an American murderer who was the only woman on death row in Virginia prior to her execution.

Born on April 26, 1969, Teresa Wilson grew up in poverty in Danville, Virginia, where her parents both worked in a textile mill.

Teresa sang in a church during her youth.

At 16, she dropped out of school and married a man she met at that church.

The couple had one daughter, Christie Lynn Bean, but the marriage soon ended in divorce, after which Teresa turned to alcohol and painkillers.

Her mother-in-law, Marie Bean, described Teresa as "not right".

After migrating between dozens of low-paying jobs, Teresa Wilson Bean eventually found work in the spring of 2000 at the Dan River textile mill, where her supervisor was Julian Clifton Lewis Jr.

He was a recent widower with three children, Jason, Charles, and Kathy.

Teresa, and her 16-year-old daughter Christie, moved into Julian's home in June 2000 and the two married soon after.

In December 2001, Julian's older son, Jason Clifton Lewis, was killed in a car accident, leaving his father $200,000 from a life insurance policy.

Julian used the money to buy a manufactured home on five acres of land in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murders of her husband and stepson in October 2002.

Lewis sought to profit from a $250,000 life insurance policy her stepson had taken out as a U.S. Army reservist in anticipation of his deployment to Iraq.

In August 2002, Julian's younger son, Charles J. Lewis, obtained a $250,000 insurance policy in preparation for his impending deployment to Iraq as part of the United States Army Reserve.

Charles designated his father as the primary and Teresa Lewis as the secondary beneficiaries.

In the fall of 2002, Teresa Lewis met 21-year-old Matthew Jessee Shallenberger and 19-year-old Rodney Lamont Fuller at a Wal-Mart in Danville and began a sexual relationship with both of them.

In October 2002, Charles came home on a visit from Army training in Maryland.

On October 23, Shallenberger and Lamont were given $1,200 by Lewis to purchase firearms and ammunition to kill Julian Lewis and his son Charles for the insurance money.

Their first attempt to kill Julian while on the road did not succeed.

A week later, on the night of October 30, Shallenberger and Fuller entered the Lewis' trailer through a back door that Teresa had left open.

While she waited in the kitchen, Shallenberger shot the sleeping Julian several times, while Fuller shot Charles in his bedroom with a shotgun.

After discovering Charles was not dead, Fuller shot him twice more.

Teresa waited 45 minutes before calling for help, and while waiting for the police to arrive, she removed money from her dying husband's wallet.

She divided $300 with Shallenberger and Fuller before they left.

However, sheriff's deputies arrived prior to Julian dying, and heard him say, "My wife knows who done this to me," while she had claimed the two had been killed by unidentified assailants in a home invasion.

Shortly after, Teresa Lewis was caught attempting to withdraw $50,000 from her dead husband's account with a forged check.

Within a week, she confessed to the authorities that she had offered money to have her husband killed.

During the investigation, prosecutors found that Lewis had been trying to gather the assets of her late husband and stepson even before they had been buried.

During the murder trial, the judge deemed Lewis the mastermind of the crime and called her "the head of this serpent."

Barbara G. Haskins, a court-appointed, board-certified forensic psychiatrist, stated that "Cognitive testing showed a Full Scale IQ of 72. Verbal IQ was 70, and Performance IQ was 79."

Dr. Haskins also stated that Teresa Lewis was and is able to make a plea agreement and enter pleas.

Lewis' lawyer stated that "She's not mentally retarded, but she is very, very close to it."

In addition to a low IQ, Lewis was said by her lawyer to have an addiction to pain pills, and she was diagnosed with dependent personality disorder by three different forensic psychology experts.

Defense attorneys thought the evidence against Lewis was overwhelming and advised her to plead guilty to the capital charges in order to avoid a jury, and hope that the judge would show some leniency since Lewis had been cooperating with investigators.

However, she was sentenced to death.

The murders were capital crimes since the crimes were considered murder-for-hire.

In September 2010, Lewis became the first female inmate to die by lethal injection in the state of Virginia.