Youngest Woman on US Death Row Calls It 'Life Row'

Emilia Carr and fellow inmate Tiffany Cole don't believe they'll ever be executed
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 25, 2015 4:45 PM CST

One out of every 25 inmates on death row is innocent, according to PNAS—and Emilia Carr and Tiffany Cole say they're in that demographic. That's not the only thing they have in common: They're both among the youngest women on death row in the US (Carr, 30, is the youngest, while Cole, 33, is the third youngest), they both claim their boyfriends were the main perpetrators of the crimes they were convicted of, and they both have a relatively upbeat attitude about their time in prison. "We call it 'life row,' Carr tells Diane Sawyer in an interview with the two prisoners from Florida's Lowell Correctional Institution that will air Friday night on ABC. "Because we're not dying, we're living."

Cole was convicted of murdering two neighbors, who suffocated after being buried alive; Carr reportedly helped suffocate her boyfriend's wife with a plastic bag and duct tape. Both women insist to Sawyer they're victims of a class-skewed society. "How many rich people go to prison?" Carr says. "We're all people who are either minorities or didn't have … any money, any way to say, ‘Hey, let me buy my freedom.'" Carr especially misses her four kids and the "small stuff you take for granted." But they're both trying to make the best of their time behind bars, reading self-help books, connecting with God, and evangelizing to other inmates. And neither one believes execution is their destiny. "You can't have that mentality, because that means you've accepted this," Carr tells Sawyer. (More death row stories.)

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