Inmate Name: Virginia Twenter
Charge: First-degree murder ? two homicides
Sentence: Death penalty for one homicide and life without parole for the other homicide; reduced to two life terms without parole
Prison: Chillicothe Correctional Center, Chillicothe, Missouri

Virginia was born in Oceanside, California in 1961, the eldest of three children. Her father had been a military man and Virginia claims he could be domineering and abusive. Six years later, Virginia?s mother and father filed for divorce and her father married Marilyn, who became Virginia?s stepmother. Marilyn had three children of her own and in 1972 the family moved to farmland near Sedalia, Missouri where her father and stepmother owned a restaurant and bar.

When Virginia was 16, she dropped out of high school and married a local teenager, Hugo. Hugo got a job as a farmhand in Oceola and the newlyweds moved 200 miles away from her father. Virginia had a baby boy, and on her father?s insistence, the new family moved back to Sedalia and Hugo took a job at the Sedalia fire department. They had a second child, but they were having trouble making ends meet and began taking loans from Virginia?s father. The financial strain took a toll on their marriage, and the couple divorced. In 1987 Virginia got a job at a fast food restaurant but continued having financial problems; her car was repossessed and the bank threatened to foreclose on the house. In the spring of 1988, when Virginia asked her father once again for financial help, he denied her. Evidence shows that she had recently defaulted on a $3,000 loan from her father and he threatened to garnish her wages. Virginia claims she finally persuaded her father to loan her money. A teller at the local bank later testified that right before his death, Virginia?s father walked into the bank and said, in case anything happened to him, he had planned to make a large deposit to his daughter?s account.

On the morning of May 5 Virginia?s father was found dead in his home, having been shot once in the back. Police also discovered Virginia?s stepmother dead in a field, shot once in the chest. Virginia was the prime suspect in the double homicides. There was circumstantial evidence linking her to the murders and her alibi during the time the murders took place was not solid. At the trial, the prosecution presented the circumstantial evidence and she was found guilty of both murders. She was given life without parole for her father?s murder and the death penalty for her stepmother?s murder. Hours after the verdict, Virginia attempted suicide.

Virginia appealed her case and in 1991 a judge ruled that she did not receive a fair trial. Her sentence was reduced to two life terms without the possibility of parole. In 2005, attorneys Mark Thomason and Philip Gibson took on Virginia?s case as a state of Habeas Corpus, or a claim of innocence. They have been investigating leads they claim were not followed up by her original defense attorneys. Virginia maintains she is innocent.

Life in prison has been rough on Virginia. She has had almost no contact with her children or siblings and believes that she will ultimately be exonerated.