Final 24 Hours of Christina Riggs + Last Meal + Last Words Before Her Execution

This is one of the most disturbing execution cases in the history of the United States. On the 4th of November 1997, something happened inside a small apartment in Sherwood, Arkansas. It would shock the whole nation. Christina Marie Riggs spent less than 2 years on death row. On the 2nd of May 2000, she was executed by lethal injection.

 She became the first woman executed in Arkansas in over 150 years. She was also the youngest woman executed in the United States in modern history. She was just 28 years old. But it wasn’t just her execution that made headlines. It was what she did before it. What she did to her own children was so unforgivable, so hard to understand that even she could not live with herself afterward.

This story contains details that are deeply disturbing and emotionally heavy. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. Before we go further, hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications. You don’t want to miss how this story ends because what happened that night in Sherwood, Arkansas is something you won’t be able to forget.

 This is the complete story of Christina Riggs. Justin Dalton Thomas was born in June 1992. His mother, Christina, raised him mostly on her own. His birth father was not part of his life. Two years later, Christina married a man named John Riggs. In December 1994, the couple had a daughter together. They named her Shelby Alexis Riggs.

 For a short time, the family lived together in Sherwood, Arkansas, but the marriage did not last. According to court records, Christina later said that Jon had struck Justin in the stomach. She pointed to this incident as one of the reasons she left him. The couple divorced and Christina was left to raise both children alone.

Justin and Shelby had different fathers. Neither father was consistently present in the children’s daily lives. Court records describe a normal domestic routine. Christina fed the children, bathed them, and put them to bed. Justin attended daycare while his mother worked. Reports later noted that daycare staff had complained about his behavior.

Behind this routine, Christina was under enormous pressure. She was a single mother. Money was tight. She worked long hours as a nurse to support her children. According to statements she made later, one fear troubled her deeply. She worried that if she died, Justin and Shelby would be separated. Because they had different fathers, she believed they might be split up and raised apart from one another.

 This fear, combined with her financial strain, and the weight of raising two children alone, would soon become the seed of a decision no one could have predicted. Christina Marie Riggs was born on the 2nd of September, 1971 in Lton, Oklahoma. She grew up in Oklahoma City. By the time she became an adult, Christina had built a career in healthcare.

 She trained as a licensed practical nurse and worked in home health care before joining Arkansas Heart Hospital. She held that nursing position for 2 years. Her co-workers described her as professional, dedicated, and reliable. She was known for her compassion toward patients and her attention to detail, but Christina’s life had not always been steady.

 She later said she was sexually abused as a child. By the age of 14, she had already started using alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. At 16, she became pregnant. She carried the baby to term and placed the child up for adoption, a decision that stayed with her for years afterward. There was another event that would later come up in her case.

 In 1995, Christina worked as a nurse near the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. She was reportedly exposed to the trauma of treating victims from that attack. This experience would later be raised as a factor in her declining mental state. To everyone around her, Christina looked like a capable, trustworthy nurse.

 She showed up. She did her job well. She earned the trust of her colleagues. None of her co-workers suspected what she carried out of that hospital. The 4th of November, 1997 started like any other Tuesday at Arkansas Heart Hospital. Christina Marie Riggs clocked in for her shift as usual. But that afternoon, something was different.

 Around 3:00 in the afternoon, Christina made several trips to the medication storage area. According to hospital records, she accessed morphine, potassium chloride, and other controlled substances. She quietly concealed these medications on her person. Christina was not planning to return to work. At approximately 4:15 in the afternoon, she clocked out for the last time.

 None of her co-workers suspected anything unusual. She got into her car and drove straight to her mother’s house. Carol Thomas, Christina’s mother, had been watching her two grandchildren while Christina worked. 5-year-old Justin and 2-year-old Shelby were there when their mother arrived. But Carol noticed something was different about her daughter that afternoon.

 There was a heaviness in Christina’s eyes. There was a distance in her voice. “Is everything okay?” Carol asked. “Yes, Mom.” “Everything’s fine,” Christina replied. She handed her mother some money she owed her. Then she gathered the children, buckled them into their car seats, and drove the short distance back to their apartment.

 Carol had no way of knowing what her daughter had already decided to do that night. Christina had already made her plan. In addition to the drugs she took from the hospital, Christina had earlier obtained amatryptalene, a powerful anti-depressant from a local pharmacy. Combined with the morphine and potassium chloride from her workplace, she now had everything she believed she needed.

 Back at the apartment, Christina went through her normal evening routine. She prepared dinner. She played with the children. She gave them their baths. To anyone watching, it would have looked like an ordinary evening. A mother caring for her two young children. But behind this routine, a plan was already set in motion.

 Around 8:00 in the evening, Christina crushed several tablets of amatipptalene. She mixed the crushed medication into the children’s food. Justin’s dose was hidden inside a piece of candy given to him as a reward for being good. Shelby’s dose was mixed into her food. The medication was meant to make the children drowsy. It would make them calm.

 It would make them less aware of what was coming next. Neither Justin nor Shelby had any idea what their mother had already decided. Before we continue with what happened next, take a second to hit that like button. It helps more people find this story. Now, let’s go back to that apartment in Sherwood, Arkansas. By 10:00 at night, both children were sedated.

 Justin lay in his bed, and Shelby lay in her crib. Christina tucked them in, kissed their foreheads, and told them she loved them. The children smiled at her, unaware that this would be their last night alive. Christina sat in the living room and waited. She needed the medication to take full effect. In her pocket were syringes filled with potassium chloride, the same chemical used in lethal injection executions.

 Around 11:00 at night, she entered Justin’s room first. Christina injected her son with potassium chloride, but she had made a critical mistake. She had not properly diluted the solution. As the chemical entered his body, Justin’s eyes flew open. The pain hit him instantly. According to court records, Justin began to cry out.

 He did not understand what was happening. He only knew that he was in pain and his mother was the one causing it. “Mama, no! Mama, please!” he cried. Christina panicked. She grabbed another syringe filled with morphine, hoping it would calm him down. Did not work fast enough. Justin continued to cry and struggle. In her panic, Christina picked up a pillow.

 She pressed it over her son’s face and held it there. Justin struggled against her, but he could not overpower her. After several minutes, he stopped moving. He was gone. Christina then walked to Shelby’s room. Her 2-year-old daughter was still asleep, deeply sedated by the medication. After what she had just witnessed with Justin, Christina could not bring herself to use the injection again.

 Instead, she lifted Shelby from her crib and held her close. Then, she placed a pillow over her daughter’s face. Because Shelby was already so deeply sedated, she barely stirred. Within moments, she stopped breathing. Both of Christina’s children were dead. Christina carried their small bodies into her own bedroom. She laid them side by side on her bed and covered them with a blanket as if they were only sleeping.

Then she sat down and wrote three letters. One was addressed to her mother, Carol. One was addressed to her sister. One was addressed to her ex-husband, John Riggs. After finishing the letters, Christina turned to her own plan. She swallowed 28 tablets of amatipptalene, far more than a lethal dose.

 Then she injected herself with the remaining potassium chloride. She collapsed on the floor beside the bed where her children lay. It was supposed to end there. All three of them together, but Christina Riggs didn’t die. On November 5th, 1997, Carol Thomas woke up with a terrible feeling she could not shake. She tried calling Christina several times throughout the morning. There was no answer.

 By early afternoon, her worry had turned into dread. At around 4:00 in the afternoon, Carol drove to Christina’s apartment. She had a key for emergencies, and this felt like one. The apartment was silent. Too silent. There were no sounds of children playing, no television, nothing. Christina, Carol called out. No response.

 She walked down the hallway toward the bedrooms. That is when she found them. In Christina’s bedroom, two small figures lay motionless on the bed, tucked in as if sleeping. But something was wrong. They were too still. On the floor beside the bed lay Christina, unconscious but breathing. Carol immediately called 911. My grandchildren, they’re not breathing.

 My daughter, she’s on the floor. Please hurry, she said. According to court records, police and paramedics arrived within minutes. Emergency workers determined that both children had been dead for hours. They were pronounced dead at the scene. Christina was still alive, though barely. Paramedics rushed her to Baptist Memorial Hospital.

Doctors worked quickly to stabilize her. Against her own plan, Christina Riggs was going to survive. Back at the apartment, detectives began processing the scene. They found syringes, empty medication vials, and traces of morphine and potassium chloride. Beside these, they found three handwritten letters that explained everything Christina had planned.

 The evidence made one thing clear. This was not an accident. It was a planned act, followed by a failed attempt to end her own life. Detectives contacted the hospital with clear instructions. No visitors were to see Christina Riggs. She was now the primary suspect in the deaths of her two children. Christina’s family acted quickly.

 Shortly after midnight, they hired an attorney. The attorney called the police department with a clear instruction. Do not question their client without a lawyer present. The police did not follow this instruction. On the morning of November 6th, two detectives entered Christina’s hospital room. They read her Miranda rights. They turned on a recording device.

 Then they began asking questions. Christina did not ask for a lawyer. She did not refuse to answer. She didn’t ask for a lawyer. She didn’t refuse to talk. Instead, in less than 8 minutes, Christina began telling detectives exactly what she had done. In under 8 minutes, Christina’s confession was complete.

 She admitted to stealing the medications from the hospital. She admitted to crushing the amatipptalene and giving it to her children. She admitted to injecting Justin with potassium chloride and watching him suffer. She admitted to smothering both children with a pillow. Every detail was recorded, word for word.

 Detectives compared her confession against the physical evidence already gathered. Hospital records confirmed she had accessed morphine and potassium chloride on her final shift. The pharmacy confirmed her purchase of amatipptalene. The three letters found in her apartment matched the plan she described. Medical examiners confirmed the cause of death for both children matched her account exactly.

 Nothing in her confession contradicted the evidence. Every piece fit together. By the end of the day on November 6th, 1997, Christina Marie Riggs was formally charged with two counts of capital murder. The death penalty was on the table from the very beginning. The trial of Christina Marie Riggs opened in 1998. The courtroom in Palaski County was packed with media, spectators, and family members from both sides.

Christina entered a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Her defense team argued that she was not a cold-blooded killer. They said she was a woman broken by years of untreated trauma. They brought in psychiatrists who testified that Christina suffered from severe depression and post-traumatic stress.

 They pointed to her childhood, her reported sexual abuse, her substance use at 14 and her teenage pregnancy at 16. They also pointed to her exposure to the Oklahoma City bombing while working as a nurse. The defense argued that Christina had developed a distorted belief. She believed her children were unwanted and would suffer if she was gone.

 Christina herself took the stand. She spoke quietly, often in tears. I kept thinking, “Who’s going to take care of them when I’m gone,” she told the court. “In my mind, nobody wanted them. I thought the kindest thing I could do was take them with me.” The prosecution presented a very different picture. They called witnesses who said Christina had been seen at karaoke bars while her children were left locked in their room.

They argued that this was not a woman destroyed by illness. It was a woman who planned using her medical training and carried out a premeditated act. The jury deliberated for several hours. They returned a unanimous verdict. Guilty on both counts of capital murder. During the sentencing phase, Christina stopped her own attorneys from presenting further defense.

 “I don’t want life in prison. I want the death penalty,” she told the court. “I want to be with my babies.” The judge granted her request. Christina Marie Riggs was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Christina was transferred to the McFersonson unit, the state’s facility for female death row inmates.

 Unlike most people sentenced to death, she did not fight to stay alive. Within 2 years of her conviction, she had waved every appeal available to her. “I took my baby’s lives,” she said in a prison interview. “Now I want to give mine. It’s the only thing left I can do.” Her execution date was set for May 2nd, 2000.

 On May 1st, Christina spent her final full day at the Cumins unit where the execution chamber was located. She declined all visitors, no family, no friends. She spent most of the day alone, reading and writing. At 6:00 in the evening, she was asked for her final meal request. She chose a supreme pizza with extra cheese, a garden salad, fried pickled okra, strawberry shortcake, and cherry lemonade. She ate most of it.

 At 8:00, the prison chaplain visited her. She declined formal religious services, but spoke with him briefly, and as she expressed remorse for what she had done, but said she wanted to proceed with the execution. “I’m ready,” she told him. “I’ve been ready since the day I woke up in that hospital.

” At approximately 8:30 in the evening on May 2nd, Christina was escorted into the execution chamber. She was strapped to the gurnie. Because she had worked as a nurse, she understood exactly what was happening. For nearly 15 minutes, medical staff struggled to find a usable vein in her arms. She remained silent through each attempt.

Eventually, a vein was found in her right arm. At 9:10 in the evening, she was asked for her final words. “There are no words to express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies.” She said, “I love you, my babies.” At 9:12 in the evening, the three drug sequence began.

 At 9:28 in the evening, Christina Marie Riggs was pronounced dead. She acted alone. There were no accompllices and the case ended with her. Justin and Shelby were buried together in Arkansas side by side as they had been in life. Their grandmother, Carol Thomas, the one who found them that terrible day, has rarely spoken publicly about the case since. Questions still remain.

 Could this have been prevented? Were there warning signs that friends, family, or co-workers missed? A mother struggling with depression? A history of childhood trauma? A woman quietly falling apart while still showing up to work everyday? We will never know for certain what could have changed the outcome? What we do know is that on November 4th, 1997, two children went to sleep, trusting their mother completely.

 They never woke up. Christina Riggs said she wanted to be with her children again. In the end, the state of Arkansas made sure of exactly that. What moment in this story hit hardest for you? Was it Justin’s final cries, Carol’s discovery, or Christina’s own words before her execution? Let us know in the comments below.

 If this story moved you, hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and turn on notifications so you don’t miss the next case. Thank you for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.