Date of Birth: 
About Virginia Christian
- Virginia Christian (August 15, 1895 – August 16, 1912) was the first female criminal executed in the 20th century in the state of Virginia, and a juvenile offender executed in the United States.
- She was also the only female juvenile executed by electric chair and, to date, the last female criminal executed in the electric chair by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
- She was the last female criminal executed by the Commonwealth until Thursday, September 23, 2010 when Teresa Lewis became the first female criminal in nearly a century to be executed in the US state of Virginia.Christian, a black maid, was convicted for the murder of her employer Mrs.
- Ida Virginia Belote, a white woman, aged 72 years, in her home at Hampton on March 18, 1912.
- Shortly after she was arrested, it is said she confessed that she hit Belote. Belote frequently mistreated Christian, and in mid- March 1912, an argument ensued between the two in which Belote accused Christian of stealing a locket and a skirt.
- Belote hit Christian with a cuspidor, commonly called a 'spittoon'.
- The altercation escalated when Christian and Belote ran for two broom handles Belote used to prop up her bedroom windows.
- Christian grabbed one of the broom handles and struck Belote on the forehead.
- In an attempt to stifle Belote's screams, Christian stuffed a towel down Belote's throat, and the woman died by suffocation. When Christian left the house, she stole Belote's purse with some money and a ring.
- One newspaper reported that police found Belote's body "laying face down in a pool of blood, and her head was horribly mutilated and a towel was stuffed into her mouth and throat".
- (Streib & Sametz, 1989, p.
- 25; see also Moten, 1997) Police soon arrested Christian, and during questioning, she admitted to hitting Belote but was shocked that Belote was dead.
- Christian claimed she had no intent to kill Belote.
- With a lynch mob looming in the background, an Elizabeth City County Court tried and convicted Christian for murder and the trial judge sentenced her to death in the state's electric chair.
- One day after her 17th birthday in August 1912, a short five months after the crime, Virginia authorities executed Christian at the state penitentiary in Richmond.Governor William Hodges Mann declined to commute the death sentence, despite a plea from Virginia's mother, Charlotte Christian, who wrote to him: My dear mr governor Please for give me for Bowing low to write you a few lines: I am the mother of Virginiany Christian.
- I have been pairalized for mor then three years and I could not and Look after Gennie as I wants too.
- I know she dun an awful weaked thing when she kill Miss Belote and I hear that the people at the penetintry wants to kill her but I is praying night and day on my knees to God that he will soften your heart so that She may spend the rest of her days in prison.
- they say that the whole thing is in yours Hands and I know Governer [sic] if you will onely save my child who is little over sixteen years old God will Bless you for ever … If I was able to come to see you I could splain things to you better but I cant do nothing but pray to God and ask him to help you to simpithise with me and my truble I am your most umble subgeck, Charlotte Christian.After the Governor declined this request, Christian took her seat in the electric chair, where she was electrocuted in the state prison in Richmond.
- She was 17 years old.
- The paper reported that her body was to be turned over to the state medical school, because her parents did not have the money to transport the body from Richmond.
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