Outskirts Press, INC.

Imagine waking up one morning at the age of 18 and realizing that you have just become the youngest woman in Georgia awaiting the electric chair.

Just hours after her birth, Janice Buttrum was sold by her prostitute mother to an alcoholic couple who raised her in squalor. Janice soon found herself a product of the foster care system. At the age of 15, she married her knight in shining armor, 26-year-old Danny Buttrum, and quickly became the victim of domestic abuse. Janice began a descent into the abyss that eventually would lead to her and Danny stabbing a young woman to death in a hotel room, while their own 19-month-old daughter watched the carnage unfold. Janice was convicted of murder in 1981 in the city of Dalton, Georgia—the youngest woman sentenced to death in the state. She has spent 36 years behind bars—including ten years on Georgia’s death row, and for five of those years, she was the sole prisoner. Now, after all this time, Janice may soon have the opportunity at life outside of prison.