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Her death, by lethal injection, is the 11th execution since the Trump administration resumed use of federal capital punishment in July after a 17-year hiatus.

Under a pseudonym, Ms. Montgomery — who had falsely told others that she was pregnant — expressed interest in buying a dog from Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a rat terrier breeder in Skidmore, Mo. But after she arrived at Ms. Stinnett’s house, Ms. Montgomery strangled her, used a knife to cut her abdomen and extracted the fetus, then claimed the child as her own.

and turned 16 last month on the anniversary of her mother’s death. At least some of those close to Ms. Stinnett or the case said Ms. Montgomery’s execution was a just conclusion to a crime that had haunted the northwest Missouri community for years.

Mr. Chaney rejected the idea that the abuse suffered by Ms. Montgomery should have led to her life being spared, saying many people endured trauma without committing heinous crimes.

“I think, you know, it’s not right always to say an eye for an eye, but I think the community’s hurt enough that it would definitely help with some closure.”

Still, Ms. Montgomery’s lawyers cited the repeated physical and sexual abuse she endured as a child in pleas for leniency, arguing that President Trump would affirm the experiences of abuse survivors by commuting her sentence to life imprisonment.

According to a quarterly report from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, just 2 percent of those inmates on death row are women. With Ms. Montgomery’s execution, there are now no women on federal death row.

Her lawyers had claimed that she was incompetent for execution, citing mental illness, neurological impairment and complex trauma

But the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to proceed, as it has done with the previous 10 inmates executed by the Trump administration. On Tuesday, the court overturned both stays, the remaining barriers to her execution, and rejected each of Ms. Montgomery’s requests for reprieve.

“Because this administration was so afraid that the next one might choose life over death, they put the lives and health of U.S. citizens in grave danger,” she said, in part. “We should recognize Lisa Montgomery’s execution for what it was: the vicious, unlawful and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power. We cannot let this happen again.”

If the prisoners do not succeed in their pleas for delays or clemency, their deaths could be the last federal executions for some time. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose inauguration is set for Jan. 20, has signaled his opposition to the federal death penalty.

The statute does not apply to a state’s procedural rules on issues like scheduling the execution date, the government told the justices. In a two-sentence order, the court lifted the D.C. Circuit’s stay. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan indicated that they would have left the stay in place.

A third case involved whether Montgomery was ineligible for the death penalty due to mental illness. Montgomery’s attorneys argued that she had bipolar disorder, suffered intense hallucinations and continued to experience psychological effects of severe childhood sexual abuse.

Finally, Montgomery argued in a fourth case that the Justice Department violated a federal regulation when it scheduled her execution.

“If the date designated for execution passes by reason of a stay of execution, then a new date shall be designated promptly by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons when the stay is lifted.”

Montgomery was the first woman to be executed by the federal government since 1953. No other women are currently on federal death row.

Montgomery also became the 11th person to be put to death by the federal government since last July, when the Trump administration ended a 17-year moratorium on federal executions.

Ms Montgomery's motion to stay execution is granted to allow the court to conduct a hearing to determine Ms Montgomery's competence to be executed.

"Ms. Montgomery's current mental state is so divorced from reality that she cannot rationally understand the government's rationale for her execution.

"As the court found, Mrs Montgomery 'made a strong showing' of her current incompetence to be executed. "Mrs Montgomery has brain damage and severe mental illness that was exacerbated by the lifetime of sexual torture she suffered at the hands of caretakers," the attorney added.

It is the second time that Montgomery's execution has been postponed. Her execution date was originally set for last December - but a stay was put in place after her attorneys contracted Covid-19

The last woman to be executed by the US government was Bonnie Heady, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Federal executions had been on pause for 17 years before President Donald Trump ordered them to resume earlier last year.There are suggestions that Montgomery now may even escape the death penalty entirely, as President-elect Joe Biden - who is due to take office on 20 January - has said he will seek to end federal executions.

"after waiting almost two decades to resume federal executions, the Government should have proceeded with some measure of restraint to ensure it did so lawfully."

The crimes were carried out in Maryland which has since dropped the death penalty. Higgs was executed at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., and was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m., according to the Associated Press. In a statement following the execution, Shawn Nolan, an attorney for Higgs, called him "a fine man, a terrific father, brother, and nephew" who "spent decades on death row in solitary confinement helping others around him, while working tirelessly to fight his unjust convictions."

"There was no reason to kill him, particularly during the pandemic and when he, himself, was sick with Covid that he contracted because of these irresponsible, super-spreader executions,"

Corey Johnson, 52, was executed Thursday night. He had also contracted COVID-19 while in prison, and his attorney argued that executing him following the infection would have been "cruel and unusual punishment." Lisa Montgomery was executed early Wednesday. She was the only woman on federal death row and the first female prisoner to be put to death by the U.S. government since 1953.

The executions come days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has opposed the federal death penalty. On Monday, Senate Democrats unveiled legislation that would abolish it.

"The government completed its unprecedented slaughter of 13 human beings tonight by killing Dustin Higgs, a Black man who never killed anyone, on Martin Luther King's birthday,

In his final words, Higgs repeated his claim to innocence. "I'd like to say I am an innocent man," he said, mentioning the three women by name. "I did not order the murders."Higgs was the third to die at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana this week including Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row on Wednesday.

A court had ordered a stay of execution for Higgs and another inmate, Corey Johnson, on Tuesday after they contracted Covid-19 on death row - with lawyers arguing damage to their lung tissue would cause painful suffering during their executions.But the Department of Justice immediately appealed and won the case. Johnson was put to death on Thursday.

Higgs was convicted in the killings of three women in a wildlife refuge in 1996, but until his death denied ordering their murder. He died by lethal injection at 01:23 local time (06:23 GMT) on Saturday.His execution is the 13th carried out since July when the US government ended a 17-year hiatus on federal executions.It comes just days before President-elect Joe Biden, who is against the death penalty, is sworn in.

There has been criticism of the Trump administration's rush to carry out the sentences - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions during a presidential transition.

Higgs was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for overseeing the 1996 kidnapping and murder of three women: Tanji Jackson, Tamika Black and Mishann Chinn.

A final bid to halt Higgs's execution then failed on Friday when the US Supreme Court's conservative majority voted 6-3 to clear the way the sentence to be carried out.