Susanna Reid was left torn over loving gran Linda Carty’s controversial case as she paid a visit to the first Brit on death row in Texas in more than 70 years.
The 51-year-old jetted out to the United States to visit the inmate at Mountain View Unit, a maximum prison in Texas, as she delved into her case for her upcoming documentary ITV British Grandma on Death Row with Susanna Reid.
Carty, who has spent more than 20 years on death row, was found guilty for murdering a young mum and trying to steal her four-day-old baby.
The convict insists she did not commit the heinous crime and instead states that she was framed for the horrific murder as she explained how her only mistake was lending someone her car.
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In May 2001, a court heard that Carty organised the kidnapping of her pregnant neighbour, Joanna Rodriguez, 25, with the aid of three men in Houston, Texas, with the intention of cutting the baby out of Joana’s body.
At the time of the murder, Carty had purchased scrubs and scissors unaware that the young mum had given birth to her son Ray four days earlier.
Luckily, Ray survived the kidnapping and was safely found in the car the next day, but Joana was discovered in the boot of Linda’s car after she had been suffocated.
Baby clothes and a baby chair were found in the hotel room where Carty was staying, and she had told her ex-boyfriend that she was expecting a baby despite not being pregnant at the time of her arrest.
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But despite spending time with the now 63-year-old Brit, the Good Morning Britain presenter confessed she is still uncertain if she believes Carty is guilty.
The Mirror reports that Susanna admitted: “I found it impossible to come to a final judgement. She has been tried by a jury and found guilty and all her appeals have failed.
“The justice system has found her guilty. But I have been talking to the British lawyer, who has looked into the case and listening to her American defence lawyer, who was pro death penalty before he took her case, and now says, ‘You cannot be pro death penalty when you see the injustice in this case.
“When you talk to those people about the disputed evidence, you end up thinking, is there more to this? What was responsible for it? I don’t think there’s an easy or comfortable answer.”
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If Carty is executed, she will be the first British prisoner to be punished with the death penalty since Ruth Ellis in 1955.
British Grandma on Death Row with Susanna Reid, 9pm, Tuesday on ITV or catch-up on ITV Hub.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
