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Women on Death Row: Sammantha Allen
Warning: this post contains descriptions of child abuse.
Sammantha Allen and her husband, John, are both on death row. They are the first Arizona couple to face the death penalty.
The Phoenix couple were two of five adults arrested for a heinous crime involving a 10-year-old girl and what Police Chief Joe Yahner called “an unspeakable tragedy, one of the worst we have ever seen.”
The story really begins with someone else. Sammantha had a younger cousin named Ame Deal.
Ame Deal
Ame Deal was born on July 24, 2000 in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Her mother and father, Shirley and David, had two other children together by this time. Shirley admitted that she was “honestly unsure” if Ame was David’s daughter, but he was listed on the birth certificate as her father.
The Deal family moved around a bit, and it seems as if Shirley and David separated several times. At one point, Shirley moved in with her mother before rejoining with David and his family in Midland, Texas. His mother, Judith Deal, and sister, Cynthia Stoltzman, also lived there.
Signs of Abuse
Life was difficult for Shirley in Midland. David’s family allegedly used her as a slave, hit her, made her stay up all night, and called her…
