Priscilla Ford, 75; Was the Only Woman on Nevada’s Death Row
Priscilla Ford, 75, the only woman on Nevada’s death row, died Saturday at Southern Nevada Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas. She had been suffering from emphysema.
Ford was convicted of killing six people and injuring 23 after she drove her Lincoln Continental down a crowded Reno sidewalk on Thanksgiving Day 1980. Expert medical witnesses said Ford was suffering from a variety of mental illnesses, but prosecutors maintained that she knew the difference between right and wrong.
Washoe County Assistant Dist. Atty. John Helzer said after Ford’s death, “She was angry that day [of the killings] and what she did was what she attempted to do. She stayed angry and probably died angry.”
Ford had exhausted her state appeals but still had federal appeals with which to challenge her sentence.
Her death leaves 83 men on Nevada’s death row.
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