Forty-one year-old grandmother Teresa Lewis was executed by injection Thursday night at 9:13 p.m. She was the first woman to be executed in the state of Virginia in 100 years. Lewis pleaded guilty to plotting to kill her husband and stepson, who were shot in 2002 by two men she implicated in her plan; both men were given life sentences. The judge at her sentencing called her "the head of this serpent." Lewis' fate has prompted a national—and international—uproar. The European Union asked Virginia's governor to reduce her sentence. Even Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized the case, lambasting the American media for treating Lewis and Iranian woman Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to stoning for adultery, differently. "Nobody objects to the case of an American woman who is going to be executed." Lewis had an estimated IQ of 72; the Supreme Court has ruled it unlawful to execute anyone who has an IQ of less than 70.
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