JARRATT, Va. — Unless the U.S. Supreme Court or Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell step in to stop it, Teresa Lewis will die on Sept. 23, in the death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.
Some will say the 41-year-old woman deserves to become the first woman to be executed in Virginia in almost 100 years. But Lynn Litchfield, a Virginia 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.
Teresa Lewis was convicted of masterminding two murders in 2002.
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“She does not deserve to die,” Litchfield declares. Why would anyone think she does?
On Oct. 30, 2002, Lewis allowed 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, a plea that meant she would be sentenced by a judge rather than a jury.
The judge accepted the prosecutors’ assertions that she had agreed to share with Shallenberger the life insurance proceeds she would receive, in return for killing her husband and his adult son. The judge ruled that Teresa Lewis 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 case. First of all, Litchfield points out that two intelligence tests reveal that Lewis has an IQ of 70 to 72 and does not possess the critical thinking level necessary to have masterminded the murders. According to information found on a website established for Lewis, a Duke University psychology professor agrees.
He 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.
Lynn Litchfield says Teresa Lewis has shared her faith with other women in prison. (Photo by O.T. Holen)
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According to medical experts, Shallenberger had assessed well her vulnerability. 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 points out that neither she nor anyone else is attempting to justify Lewis’ part in these horrific 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 to an end a ministry that God is using within the prison walls.
How does a woman living in solitary confinement on death row manage to minister to the needs of others?
“Teresa lives in isolation in a single cell in one of two segregation wings in the compound,” Litchfield shares. “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 affirms. “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 the woman was sentenced to death and shuffled into the prison wearing manacles. Recalling the changes she has observed in Lewis since then, Litchfield cites, “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.”
Litchfield is praying that Virginia Baptists — even those not opposed to the death penalty, generally — will speak out against putting Lewis to death. More information is available at www.saveteresalewis.org.
To encourage Gov. McDonnell to commute her sentence, you may sign a petition at www.saveteresalewis.org/petition.html. You also may contact Gov. McDonnell directly by phone at 804.786.2211, by mail at The Office of the Governor, Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor, 1111 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23219, or through the governor's web page at www.governor.virginia.gov/contact.cfm.
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.