John Grisham: Teresa Lewis didn't pull the trigger. Why is she on death row?

Teresa Lewis

The Commonwealth of Virginia already has a serious relationship with its death penalty. In the past three decades, only Texas has executed more inmates. But on Sept. 23, the Old Dominion will enter new territory when it executes a female inmate for the first time in nearly a century.

Her name is Teresa Lewis, she is the only woman on death row at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, and her appeals have all but expired. If she is executed, she will become another glaring example of the unfairness of our death penalty system.

Lewis is not innocent. She confessed to the police, pled guilty to the judge and for almost eight years has expressed profound remorse for her role in two murders.

As with most violent crimes, a recitation of the facts of this case would fill pages; still, a brief summary drawn from news reports, letters and affidavits is useful. In 2002, Lewis, then 33, lived with her second husband in a mobile home in a rural area near Danville. She was having an affair with a man named Matthew Shallenberger, who, though nothing more than a common thug, had ambitions. He was looking for seed money to establish a distribution ring for illicit drugs, but his real dream was to become an accomplished hitman, Mafia-style. He reasoned that if he could build his résumé, his reputation would spread all the way to New York, and he could somehow join the big leagues of contract killing.

Shallenberger had a partner named Rodney Fuller, and it is not clear if he was also afflicted with these grand ideas. What is clear is that the three -- Shallenberger, Fuller and Lewis -- participated in a scheme to kill Lewis's husband for his money. At some point, the plans broadened to include the murder of her 25-year-old stepson, a National Guard member with a life insurance policy.

On the night of Oct. 30, 2002, Lewis left a door unlocked, got into bed with her husband and waited. Shallenberger and Fuller entered through the unlocked door, as planned. Shallenberger blasted the husband with a shotgun while, at the other end of the trailer, Fuller shot the stepson. Needless to say, the crime scenes were gruesome.

Lewis initially claimed that the killings were the work of an intruder, but the authorities suspected otherwise. After being confronted, she broke down, confessed and fingered Shallenberger and Fuller. All three were arrested and charged with capital murder.

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Source: The Washington Post, September 9, 2010