JARRATT, Va. (ABP) — Unless the federal Supreme Court or Virginia Gov.
Bob McDonnell (R) step in to stop it, Teresa Lewis will die on Sept. 23
in the death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.
Some say the 41-year-old deserves to become the first woman to be executed in Virginia in almost 100 years. But Lynn Litchfield, a Baptist who served as chaplain at the Fluvanna (Va.) Correctional Center for Women for 11 years and who is well-acquainted with Lewis, is leading a desperate fight to save her life.
“She does not deserve to die,” Litchfield said.
Teresa Lewis was convicted of masterminding two murders in 2002.
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On Oct. 30, 2002, Lewis let Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller into her home, where they shot and killed her husband, Julian Lewis, and his adult son, Charles. For her role in the killings, Lewis pleaded guilty to capital murder for hire. The plea meant that she would be sentenced by a judge rather than a jury.
The judge accepted the prosecutors’ assertions that, in return for killing the two, Lewis had agreed to share with Shallenberger the life-insurance settlement she expected. The judge ruled that she was “the mastermind” behind the murders and sentenced her to death while Fuller and Shallenberger received life sentences.
But the case is hardly an open-and-shut one. First of all, Litchfield pointed out, two tests reveal that Lewis has an IQ of 70 to 72 and does not possess the critical-thinking ability necessary to have masterminded the murders.
According to an affidavit found on a website established for Lewis, a Duke University psychology professor agrees.
Philip Costanzo concluded that “when multiple sources of evidence are taken into account, it is very clear that Teresa possessed neither the verbal intelligence nor the independent initiative to frame and mastermind a plan to murder the victims. It is also quite inconsistent with both tested personality profiles and patterns of personality evidenced in her life choices that Teresa would lead and direct two men in the commission of these crimes.”
In addition Shallenberger, who later committed suicide in prison, maintained that killing the two was his idea and that he sized up Teresa Lewis as a vulnerable woman he could easily manipulate. He later admitted that to get money to fund a drug ring, he convinced Lewis that he loved her and became intimate with her. His plan, after murdering her husband, was to collect the insurance money he was sure he could get her to share with him.
According to medical experts, Shallenberger had assessed her vulnerability well. They diagnosed Lewis with Dependent Personality Disorder and said she was addicted to painkillers before the crimes, calling into further question the “mastermind” label attached to her.
Litchfield said neither she nor anyone else is attempting to justify Lewis’ role in the crimes. Lewis herself admits her involvement and is not asking to be released. But Litchfield believes that to put Lewis to death would not only be a travesty of justice, it would put an end to a ministry that God is using within the prison's walls.
Lynn Litchfield says Teresa Lewis has shared her faith with other women in prison. (Photo by O.T. Holen)
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“Teresa lives in isolation in a single cell in one of two segregation wings in the compound,” Litchfield said. “She lies face down on the floor to speak through plumbing or air vents to try and talk with other inmates to help them. The women housed in segregation are often there for behavioral infractions. They can be among the most difficult women on the compound to deal with, and yet Teresa has found ways to befriend, encourage and support them.
“People unfamiliar with prison may not realize that a woman may be in segregation on the day she learns that her mother or her child has died. Isolated, away from any support network, Teresa reached out to these women in the ways she could. She would sing to them. Her voice is really quite extraordinary.
“When she sings, the Spirit moves,” Litchfield said. “I know of no other explanation for what happens other than the power of the Holy Spirit moves through her. Her story and her witness of faith in the ways she chooses are living testimonies to the power of redemption and grace.”
Litchfield first met Lewis shortly after she was sentenced to death and shuffled into the prison, wearing manacles. Recalling the changes she has observed in Lewis since then, Litchfield said, “Teresa came into the prison broken and lost. Gently, we began working together at grieving. We began praying together right away. We prayed for the victims’ family — that they might find a peace that surpasses understanding, a comfort that can only come from God and a light to guide them through their dark and tragic loss. We prayed for her own children, her parents and her friends…. We talked about how proud she was of her children and how much she loved them and how hard her life had been.
“I watched her learn to grapple with the unaddressed grief over the loss of her own mother. I watched her face nightmare after nightmare for what she had done. [She was] figuring out how her life had gone so wrong. She knew of God — and had sung in small groups at churches — so she knew of faith. However, what happened in prison is that Jesus became real to her, personally. She began to realize the sacrifice that Jesus made for her.”
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Jim White is editor of the Virginia Baptist Religious Herald.