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Background

Linda Carty was born in St Kitts on October 5th, 1958. She came to the United States in 1982, when she was 24. She studied pharmacology at the University of Houston for a year and worked as a teacher.

She went down the wrong path in 1992 when she was convicted of stealing a vehicle and impersonating a federal agent. She was given ten years of probation, but she had to become an informant for the drug enforcement agency.

During her time as an informant, she assisted in two arrests, but law enforcement stopped dealing with her after she caught a drug case.

A plan develops

In early 2001, Carty noticed her neighbor, 20-year-old Joana Rodriguez, was expecting a baby.

In early May 2001, Carty and her husband split up; Carty quickly informed him she was pregnant, even though she wasn’t.

She started plotting a way to get her hands on Rodriguez’s baby so she could save her relationship.

On May 13th, 2001, Carty met Chris Robinson and Marvin Caston through a friend.

She told the men that Rodriguez’s apartment had 1000 pounds of weed and money in it. She followed up by accusing Rodriguez of having an intimate relationship with her husband. Then she talked about cutting Rodriguez up and stealing her baby.

She seemed obsessed with getting Rodriguez’s baby, and when Caston realized she was talking about kidnapping and murder, he decided not to get involved.

On the other hand, Robinson really thought the apartment had weed and money in it, so he chose to work with Carty and recruited two other men into the plot.

On May 15th, 2001, Carty told a neighbor she was pregnant and that her baby would be delivered the next day. The neighbor thought that was weird because Carty didn’t look pregnant.

Murder of Joana Rodriguez

Just after Midnight on May 16th, 2001, Robinson, Gerald Anderson, and Carlos Williams invaded Rodriguez’s apartment while Carty waited outside in the parking lot.

The plan was to steal the money and drugs and kidnap the pregnant woman. The trio quickly discovered Rodriguez had already had her baby days earlier.

The three maniacs beat and tied up Rodriguez’s husband and another male who was in the apartment. They searched the home for money and drugs, but didn’t find anything.

They put Rodriguez in the trunk of a vehicle, and they handed the baby over to Carty. They went to a second location, and Carty ordered the men to tie up Rodriguez and tape her mouth.

The men followed Carty’s orders and hog-tied Rodriguez, put a bag over her head, and put her in the trunk of a car, leaving her to die of suffocation.

Investigation

After police learned of the violent home invasion and kidnapping, they started questioning people at the apartment complex.

Carty became a person of interest right away after detectives learned she told everyone she was having a baby, even though she did not look pregnant. Investigators also discovered she was seen with a car seat and many other baby items in recent days.

Authorities called Carty, and she agreed to come in for questioning. She thought she could outsmart the cops by revealing that she rented a car and loaned it to some men she knew. Carty told detectives the men must have used it along with her daughter’s car to commit the crime.

Carty said she was innocent and not involved in the crime, but she took the police to the home where both vehicles were parked.

Authorities found Rodriguez dead in one vehicle and the baby alive in the other. Carty was arrested, and soon, so were her accomplices.

Legal proceedings

Chris Robinson pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping and was sentenced to 45 years. Gerald Anderson pled guilty to the same charge and was sentenced to life. Carlos Williams went to trial and was convicted of kidnapping; he received 20 years.

Carty tried to claim her codefendants were drug dealers and framed her because they found out she used to be an informant, but the evidence told another story.

She was convicted of capital murder on February 18th, 2002. Two days later, she was sentenced to death.

At 66 years old, she will likely never be executed.