THE only woman on death row in Oklahoma could snag a lighter sentence after her thong was paraded around in court by “sex-mad” prosecutors.
Black widow Brenda Andrew, 61, has been behind bars for almost 20 years since she shot dead her husband as part of a million-dollar insurance scam in 2001.
Jam Press/Oklahoma Department of CorrectionsBrenda Andrew, pictured in 2024, might avoid execution if the appeal court orders a retrial or re-sentencing[/caption]
Brenda, right, was convicted of murdering he estranged husband Rob, left
APBrenda Andrew shackled to another prisoner in 2004[/caption]
Now, her sentence could be changed as her attorneys claim she was slut-shamed in court.
The prosecution team held up her thong for the jury to show the kind of underwear Brenda wore and called her a “slut puppy”.
The evidence also included a witness’s opinion that Brenda wore a “sexy” and “provocative” outfits that showed “a lot of cleavage”.
The jury also heard details about the places and times she had flirted with other men and testimony about her affairs – including some that ended seventeen years before the crime.
Brenda’s attorneys claim that claim that she, a Sunday school teacher with no prior criminal record, was “sex-shamed” so the jury would give her the harshest possible sentence.
The Supreme Court last week voted 7-2 in favour of Brenda’s appeal and ordered a lower court to reconsider her conviction.
A Supreme Court statement read: “The prosecution elicited testimony about Andrew’s sexual partners reaching back two decades; about the outfits she wore to dinner or during grocery runs; about the underwear she packed for vacation; and about how often she had sex in her car.
“The ultimate question is whether a fair-minded jurist could disagree that the evidence ‘so infected the trial with unfairness’ as to render the resulting conviction or sentence a ‘denial of due process.’”
Brenda was sentenced to death in 2004, alongside her lover and accomplice James Pavatt, also a Sunday school teacher, for murdering her husband Rob Andrew.
When Rob returned to the family home to pick up his son and daughter for Thanksgiving on November 20, 2001, Brenda told him a pilot light was on in the furnace.
He was then shot twice, first by James, then by Brenda, with his own 16-gauge shotgun, prosecutors claimed.
James always denied that Brenda had even been involved in the fatal shooting of her husband.
He claims that after selling Rob a life insurance policy worth $800,000, he murdered him with the help of another friend.
Brenda was shot in the arm during the murder, and told cops that two armed men had carried it out.
Jam Press/Oklahoma Department of CorrectionsJames Pavatt, Brenda’s boyfriend also convicted for the murder, pictured in 2003[/caption]
Brenda’s husband Rob Andrew was shot dead when he came to pick up his children for Thanksgiving
Court filings state that Brenda’s inappropriate shaming during the trial saw her called a “slut puppy” by prosecutors and had her “plainly irrelevant sexual history” publicised.
The New York Times reported that Brenda’s thong, in particular, was used as a smoking gun in the case.
The prosecutor in 2004 said: “The grieving widow packs this [her thong] to run off with her boyfriend.
“Can’t twist the facts, folks. Can’t twist the evidence.”
Brenda is said to have packed the thong to travel with Pravatt to Mexico days after the murder, where they lived for three months until they ran out of money.
The pair were arrested when they attempted to return to the United States in February 2002.
The Supreme Court’s ruling does not mean that Brenda will be released.
Rather, the case will return to a lower court which must reconsider its verdict that Brenda’s trial had been fair, considering the Supreme Court’s ruling.
If judges decided the trial in fact not fair, a retrial or a re-sentencing could be ordered.
Brenda’s attorney, Jessica Sutton, said she hoped the appeals court would “stop this injustice”.
She added: “Wielding these gendered tropes to justify a conviction and punishment of death is intolerable and poses a threat to everyone who does not follow rigid gender norms.”
Jam Press/Oklahoma Department of CorrectionsBrenda in 2004 at the time of her conviction[/caption]
AP:Associated PressBrenda being led to the courtroom after being arrested in June 2004[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
