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It is difficult to comprehend what it must be like to be stuck in a prison cell year after year while you wait for the day you will be legally executed.

But the women mentioned below know exactly how that feels having been stuck on Death Row for decades.

Their crimes are abhorrent and were deemed punishable by death, and below we take a look at five of the longest serving female inmates in America who are edging closer to their final breaths.

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Linda Carty

We will start with Linda Carty who has the unfortunate tag of being the only British woman awaiting execution in the US.

The gran, 64, is approaching her 22nd year behind bars after being found guilty of the abduction and murder of a mum who she had killed so she could steal her newborn son.

Carty, a former school teacher born on the island of Saint Kitts before it gained independence from the UK, orchestrated the kidnapping of her pregnant neighbour Joana Rodriguez.

The heartbreaking abduction happened in Houston, Texas, and the aim was to cut the baby from Joana’s body.

However, Joana had given birth two days before they were both snatched. Her lifeless body was later discovered in the boot of a car while the baby was found alive in a separate car.

Carty still maintains her innocence and speaking to Susanna Reid for an ITV documentary, she said: “If I were guilty of this crime, I would have taken my punishment. Anyone who knows the system knows Texas does not admit when they are wrong.

"I’ll fight until the end. If I lose my life I know I have people behind me who will not stop until they clear my name.”

Linda has appealed several times and her case has been investigated by Mick Jagger’s ex-wife Bianca Jagger and she is also being supported by Reprieve, a human rights group.

But a dose of lethal injection is now the most realistic option for the gran who is often visited by her daughter and teenage grandsons.

Branda Andrew

It is coming up to 20 years since a sex-obsessed former Sunday school teacher was placed on Death Row for the murder of her husband.

She was married to her childhood sweetheart, Rob Andrew, and they had two kids together, but she grew bored of the mundanity of life and began a number of affairs.

And it was during her third fling with fellow Sunday School teacher James Pavatt when they formed an evil plot to murder Rob in order to steal his life insurance money.

Pavatt blasted the victim with a shotgun before Andrew finished him off with a second shot to the chest before the pair pretended to be victims of an armed robbery.

But after fleeing the country, they were arrested three months after the funeral after trying to cross the Mexican border back into the states.

Pavatt was the first to be found guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and he is due to be finally sentenced to death next July.

Andrew meanwhile was convicted in 2004 of the same charges – despite trying to pin the blame on her Sunday School lover.

Her former partner will face death next year while Andrew could have a date soon after a federal appeals court recently upheld her murder conviction after an appeal.

Blanche Taylor Moore

Another woman still pleading her innocence is Blanche Taylor Moore who is the oldest woman on Death Row in North Carolina and has been there for almost 33 years.

The 90-year-old possible serial killer was nicknamed the Black Widow because she had a habit of poisoning the people in her life between 1966 and 1985.

But it was her relationship with Raymond Reid, who she started dating months after her husband’s death, that landed her in prison.

In 1986, the church goer was convicted of murdering Raymond by poisoning him with arsenic and she was also suspected of doing the same to four others, including her alcoholic father.

She was eventually cleared of poisoning her first husband, James Taylor and another lover, Reverend Dwight Moore, but she was sentenced to death for killing Raymond.

Her bonkers case was later made into a film called Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story.

Robin Lee Row

Perhaps a life on Death Row was always on the cards for Robin Lee Row who was convicted of switching off a smoke alarm before starting a fire that killed her husband and two young children.

The evil mum is approaching her 30th year awaiting death after wiping out her family on February 10, 1992.

Her daughter was eight and her son was 10 when she doused a liquid accelerant all over the apartment before sparking the killer blaze.

Bizarrely, her other son also died in a similarly devastating way 12 years earlier when his blankets caught fire from a portable heater.

It was argued in court that she caused the fatal home fire to collect insurance money and the convict, now 66, is now the only person in Idaho currently on Death Row.

Darlie Routier

Darlie Routier has been on Death Row for 26 years after being convicted of murdering her five-year-old son inside her family home in June 1996.

She is now 53-years-old and has maintained her innocence in the decades following the sickening crime.

Darlie was sleeping downstairs with sons Devon, six, and Damon, five, while her husband was with their baby upstairs.

But in the night, Routier screamed down the phone to 911: “Somebody came in, they broke in. They just stabbed me and my children. My little boys. They're dying. Hurry. My God my babies are dying. They're dead. Oh my God. Devon is already dead. oh my god. I don't even know who did this.”

Devon was knifed in the chest repeatedly and died quickly while Damon was later pronounced dead in hospital.

The mum meanwhile was stabbed in the throat and was reportedly another 2mm away from bleeding to death.

However, prosecutors claimed forensics found evidence to suggest Routier was lying and she was the one who committed the atrocity, rather than a mystery intruder.

She was found guilty of first-degree murder of Damon and has been waiting for her date of death ever since.

And speaking to Susanna Reid on an episode of Death Row’s Women, she said: “I did not murder my children and I did not attack myself. If they choose to kill me, they will have to answer to that. That's my innocent blood that will be on their hands.”

• Exclusives
• Death Row
• Susanna Reid

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