Christina Riggs Executed for Killing Her Babies in the Most Horrifying Way | Final Meal & Words

Christina Riggs Executed for Killing Her Babies in the Most Horrifying Way | Final Meal & Words

This is, without a doubt, one of the most chilling execution cases in the history of the United States. It’s the story of a woman who spent less than two years on death row before being executed by lethal injection in Arkansas: Christina Marie Riggs. She did something so disturbing, so unforgivable that the jury didn’t hesitate, the state didn’t hesitate, and she herself could never forgive it.

Before reaching her final moments, we need to go back to the decision that sealed her fate. The case you’re about to hear contains sensitive and distressing details. Viewer discretion is advised. All events have been presented with care and respect for the victims.

The Tragic Events

On November 4, 1997, Christina Marie Riggs walked out of the Arkansas Heart Hospital for the last time. To many of her co-workers, she was seen as one of the hospital’s most dedicated nurses—kind, reliable, and professional. But that afternoon was different. This time, Christina didn’t plan on coming back. In her mind, she had already made a decision to end her life and her children’s. She left the hospital with her pockets full of stolen medications: morphine, potassium chloride, and a bottle of Elavil. But these drugs weren’t meant for her patients. They were meant for something far darker.

Christina was the mother of two children. As usual, she went to pick them up from her mother Carol’s house, who took care of them while Christina was at work. But that afternoon, Carol noticed something different—a strange feeling, like a premonition that something bad was about to happen. She asked if everything was okay. Christina said yes, handed her the money she owed, and left with the kids.

Once home, she fed them, played with them, and went through her usual routine. That night, in her small apartment in Sherwood, Christina tucked in her children: 5-year-old Justin and Shelby, who was almost two. She kissed their foreheads, adjusted their blankets, and hugged them tenderly. The children smiled, happy to see their mother so affectionate, unaware of what was about to happen. Because that night wasn’t just bedtime. It was the beginning of a countdown to death.

Around 10:00 p.m., Christina told Justin he could have some candy as a reward. Without knowing it, the boy and his sister ingested lethal doses of Elavil, a powerful antidepressant, enough to render them unconscious. Then Christina stood silently beside their beds, watching them sleep, waiting for the pills to take effect.

Justin was the first. Christina filled a syringe and injected potassium chloride directly into his veins—the same compound used in executions—but she hadn’t diluted it properly. The boy’s body reacted instantly. He woke up confused, screaming and crying, his chest convulsing as his nerves seemed to burn from the inside. He didn’t understand what was happening. Christina panicked. She tried to fix it by giving him morphine, hoping it would calm him down, but it didn’t work. Then she took a pillow and pressed it against his face. Justin fought, kicked, scratched, crying out in desperation, “Mom, no. Mom.” But Christina didn’t stop. Eventually, his small body went still.

Then she turned to Shelby. This time, she couldn’t bring herself to use the needle again, not after seeing what she had done to Justin. Instead, she smothered her. Shelby, still under the effects of Elavil, barely reacted. She was too little to understand what was happening, and within seconds, she was gone.

When it was over, Christina carried her children’s bodies to her bed. She placed them side by side, tucked them in carefully as if she were simply putting them to sleep. Then she sat down to write three farewell letters: one to her mother, one to her sister, and one to her ex-husband. In the letter to her mother, she explained that she feared her children, who had different fathers, would be separated after her death. She also wrote that she didn’t want them to grow up knowing she had taken her own life.

Then Christina swallowed a massive dose of 28 Elavil pills, injected potassium chloride directly into her body, and collapsed to the floor beside the bed, next to the children she had just put to rest forever. It was supposed to end there, but it didn’t.

“The amitriptyline I figured would help them sleep so they wouldn’t wake up and feel nothing. And the potassium chloride was supposed to stop their heart, you know, no pain, no nothing. Just didn’t… I don’t think he knew. I think that the amitriptyline… and he just kind of, you know, blind mama. Mama, after I let Justin get out of the bed in my bed, oh, I used a pillow and suffocated [him].”

Discovery and Investigation

The next day, November 5, her mother, Carol, began to worry. She hadn’t heard from Christina and couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Around 4:00 p.m., she entered the apartment and froze. What she saw shattered her: her grandchildren were dead, and Christina, barely alive, lay on the floor unconscious but still breathing. Carol immediately called 911, and paramedics arrived within minutes. Christina was fading fast, but they acted quickly, loaded her into the ambulance, and rushed her to Baptist Memorial Hospital. By 5:30 p.m., doctors had pumped her stomach and stabilized her. She survived, but the damage was already done.

Back at the apartment, detectives began to piece everything together. They found syringes, traces of morphine, potassium chloride, and an empty bottle of Elavil, along with the farewell letters. One by one, the puzzle pieces started to make sense. They immediately contacted the hospital with a clear order: no visitors. Christina was not to see or speak to anyone, not even her own family.

But her family didn’t stay idle. Shortly after midnight, they hired an attorney to protect her, and he wasted no time calling the police directly to instruct them not to question Christina unless he was present. The police ignored him. The next morning, November 6, detectives entered the hospital room, read her rights, turned on the recorder, and began asking questions. In less than 8 minutes, Christina confessed.

She told them everything: how she’d tried to end all of their lives, how she saw Justin scream in pain, how she pressed a pillow over his face to finish what she had started, and how she moved the bodies onto her bed hoping they would all die together. She said she never warned anyone because she didn’t think anyone could understand.

By the end of that same day, Christina was booked into the Pulaski County Jail and charged with two counts of capital murder. When she finally stood before the judge, she didn’t try to hide what she’d done, though she pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. But the damage was done: her confession was on tape in her own voice, the letters were in her handwriting, and the apartment spoke for itself.

“I can’t say exactly when the kids became a part of it. But it… I was sitting there thinking, well, who’s going to take care of the kids when I’m gone? Cuz up until this point, all I ever heard [was] just my son had ADHD and people who would take care of him were always like, ‘He’s a handful. He wears me out. He does this. He does that.’ I’d get calls from the daycare. Mom was keeping them in the evening times and she was always just so exhausted. And so in my mind, nobody wanted them.”

Background and Trial

From the moment Christina was arrested, investigators began digging into her life, searching for answers, looking for the moment everything changed. But what they found didn’t make things clearer—only heavier.

Christina Marie Riggs was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and grew up in Oklahoma City. Behind closed doors, things happened that no child should ever face alone. Later, she told investigators she’d been sexually abused by a relative, and by age 14, she was numbing the pain with cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. At 16, she became pregnant for the first time. She carried the baby to term but gave it up for adoption—a decision she rarely spoke of afterward.

She tried to move on, returning to high school, earning a license as a practical nurse, and spending her early twenties doing home care work before landing a job at a veterans hospital. On paper, she looked like someone rebuilding her life. She was good at her job, but inside, something was starting to break.

In 1991, Christina became pregnant again, this time with a boy named Justin Thomas. The father had disappeared before she even knew she was pregnant. Shortly before Justin was born in June 1992, she started dating a man named John Riggs, and they married the following year. In December 1994, they had a daughter, Shelby Alexis. In 1995, they moved to Sherwood, Arkansas, where Christina’s mother lived, and Christina got a new job at Baptist Hospital.

On paper, it looked like a fresh start, but the cracks showed quickly. Christina claimed that John was abusive toward Justin, stating she once saw him punch the boy in the stomach. “That moment was the breaking point,” she said, ending the marriage soon after. From then on, she was on her own, raising two children and working long shifts at the hospital with no real help. To most people, she seemed like a tired but responsible single mother trying to hold it all together, but inside, she was falling apart.

At her trial in 1998, Christina didn’t ask for mercy, nor did she claim innocence. Instead, she maintained she had lost her mind. Her attorneys argued she wasn’t guilty by reason of insanity, claiming years of depression had hollowed her out and that the trauma of working as a nurse near the Oklahoma City bombing site had shattered what was left of her mental stability. Doctors testified she suffered from severe depression caused by childhood sexual abuse, failed relationships, financial struggles, and low self-esteem related to her weight.

“No matter how you sugarcoat it, no matter [that] she was depressed, she was this, she was that, [it] doesn’t make up for the fact that I took two innocent people’s lives that were my babies.”

Prosecutors saw it differently. They argued this wasn’t about pain or illness, but that Christina had become bitter and viewed her children as a burden. They accused her of locking them in their room while she went out drinking and singing karaoke, of calmly planning their murders, and that what she did was a deliberate choice rather than the result of mental illness. They painted her as a cold-blooded killer for whom her children had become an inconvenience.

It didn’t take the jury long to decide. Christina Riggs was found guilty on all counts. Then came sentencing. Her defense team tried to fight for her life, but Christina wouldn’t let them. She didn’t want help or negotiations. She stood in court and explicitly stated she wanted to die to be with her babies, asking for the death penalty. She gave up every appeal one after another until nothing stood in the way of her execution.

Execution and Final Moments

Christina was transferred to the McPherson Unit, home to Arkansas’s female death row. There, she waited in a small cell as her execution date drew closer. When the day finally arrived, she was moved to the Cummins Unit, where executions are carried out. She didn’t resist or ask for a delay.

On her final day alive, Christina received no visitors, though she was allowed to. Twelve hours before her execution, she was offered her last meal: a supreme pizza with salad, pickled okra, strawberry shortcake, and cherry lemonade.

On May 2, 2000, the execution process began. Christina was brought into the death chamber at the Cummins Unit around 8:40 p.m. The team struggled to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection, a procedure that took nearly 15 minutes during which Christina remained conscious, calm, and silent. Eventually, they found a vein in her arm.

Once strapped to the gurney, Christina spoke directly to her children:

“There are no words to express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies. There’s no way to make up for or erase the pain I’ve caused to everyone who knew and loved them.”

Her voice stayed steady as she added:

“Now I can be with my babies just as I always intended.”

Before the drugs began to flow, she gave one last message:

“I love you, my babies.”

Christina became the first woman executed in Arkansas since 1845, and to this day, she remains the youngest woman executed in modern U.S. history. She was pronounced dead at 9:28 p.m. Christina Marie Riggs was 28 years old.