Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Lisa Cunningham is the only Australian woman to ever face the death penalty in the United States. The Adelaide mum could be executed by lethal injection over the first degree murder of her stepdaughter.
This epic legal battle, underway in Arizona, is anything but clear-cut. Cunningham was charged after seven-year-old Sanaa died in hospital, which she claims was because of poor medical treatment.
But prosecutors are accusing Cunningham and her husband of systematic child abuse and neglect.
If convicted, she and her co-accused husband Germayne, 43, who is a former Arizona robbery squad detective, could both face the death penalty. Ms Cunningham would be the first woman to be executed in Arizona since the 1930s, and the first Australian woman ever to be executed in the US.
Lisa Cunningham mother of six who’s inside the maximum security wing at Estrela women’s jail in Arizona.
Behind the barbed wire and brick she’s facing death by lethal incection.
charge with the murder of her seven year old stepdaughter sanaa .
Lisa is the first Australian women in US history to be facing the deaf penalty.
lisa’s husband former police officer Germayne ,sonaar’s biological father were arrested and charged with first degree murder.
Lisa’s defense : there was never any crime . there was no murder, there was no homicide she died from from pneumonia.
as you’ll see there are two very different versions of what had led Lisa to the doorstep of deathrow.
her supporters say little sanaa was the victim of a devastating mental illness and severe health problems
and lisas pleas for help fell on deaf ears.
Lisa is not a criminal . she’s a mother , a good mother . but others will argue in court this Aussie mum is guilty of the cruel neglect and callous of her sick child.
that child should not be dead , something in the room stinks and the fingers are all pointing in a particular direction . there is something there is something else you could have done to save this child’s life.
how on earg did am im from Adelaide end up here , inside the toughest women’s jail in Arizona Lisa cunningham is being treated as one of the state’s most dangerous felons in solitary confinement 23 hours a day and ordered to have no contact with any of her children .
unless she can somehow convince the court that she’s innocent , she could become the first australian in US history to be executed .
Lisa’s oldest daughter Sierra is 21 and has s put her life on hold to campaign for her mother’s release ,because Sierra is a key witness she’s banned from visiting Lisa in prison.
she also grieving the loss of her little sister Sanaa.
Lisa grew up in the working -class suburb of Murray Bridge near Adelaide attending the local high school .
Her adolescence wa sa struggle with her parents separating when she was 10 and an older brother dying of a drug overdose. she helped raise her little sister katie who has down syndrome.
Lisa grew up having difficulties knowing what that’s about with a sister that had fairly marked disabilities.
when Lisa was 24 she met a visiting american airman Russell Anderson they were married
and soon after welcomed their first baby Sierra.
they moved to Arizona where their son Jovian was born.
But Lisa discovered Russell was being Unfaithful, she find out that he had a little bit of a wandering eye and she tried so hard to keep things going for the sake of the children .
But when the marriage broke up to make ends meet Lisa wnet to work in a prison as a guard and a chaplain, it’s where she met police detective Germayne cunningham and fell in love .
he had two children Neriah and her younger sister sanaar
Lisa and Germayne went on to have two children together,now there were six kids to look after .
Lisa left her job at the prison to become a stay at home mum in this house in a middle-class suburb of Phoenix.
and Lisa made sureto capture her big family ,taking hundredsof photos.
But everything wasn’t okay with Sanaa around the time of her six birthday the family became alarmed about sudden changes in her behavior.
In july 2016 sanaa is diagnosed with acukte schizophrenia
Lisa and Germayne say she is tearing at her skin and hearing voices urging her to kill.
the couple insists they are doing all they can under the watchful eye of child safety authorities.social workers visit the home twice.
but as sanaa’s health goes from bad to worse , suspicions will soon be raised about whether Lisa and Germayne are really the loving parents they claime to be.
2016 Adlaide mother lisa cunningham is living in suburbun Phoenix Arizona with her husband germayne and their and their six children. being a mom is a role she loves.
But the joys of motherhood are being tested, places sixy year old stepdaughter sanaa has been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia, according to her older sister sierra she’s a danger to her self and others.
In the last few months of 2016 sanaa’s behavio rapidly deteriorates.
sanaa would rinate and defecate on the floor , she would do it in her bedroom she would,she would to it in her bed , she would do it wherever she could and then she would smear it .
Lisas laywer Eric Kessler has studied sanaar’s medical closely to understand the difficulties
Lisa and Germayne faced caring for their little girl.
sanaa would get on her knees ,her bare knees on the floor and spin , continuously spin until the skin on her knees rubbed robbed off . she would scratch at herself, she would cut herself
she would scratch at her own eyes to the point that Lisa and her husband would to buy goggles these are some difficulties that the cunningham’s had to adress.
And exactly how the cunningham’s adressed sanaa’s many health problems will soon come under scrutiny.
these neighbors recall being asked to help punish sanaa by allowing her to pick up dog droppings in their backyard.
by early 2017 Lisa says Sanaa is showing no sign of getting better ,she has cut and sores on her body that haven’t healed .
Lisa says she doesn’t know what to do or where to turn next.
and so far nothingis working.In january a psychiatrist prescirbes a cotroversial adult antipsychotic medicine called Risperdal.
It happens to be that doctor at least according to the medica lrecords did not personally evalutate the child. the doctor that prescibed that drug . that’s what the record show.
and then not long after the drug was administered to sanaa, sanaa began to have additonal physical problems,she became zombie-like.
by friday february 10 ,2017 Lisa says sanaa appears to be coming down with the flu.
according to Lisa, she called sanaa’s psychiatrist twice to say she had a runny nose,she was little off but the doctor was not alarmed.
the flu-like symptoms continued all saturday and into the evening.
but hours later at aaround 1.00 am on the sunday morning , Lisa discovers sanaa unconscious in her bed.
she’s rushed to hospital , five hours later sanaa dies. the cause of death , sepsis an infection in her bloodstream .Possibly the result of her wounds or acute bronchitis .
according to Lisa nobody took it seriously ,when sanaa began to be schizphrenic,nobody took it seriously because everybody said it was unusual,that it was rar.
but they still diagnosed sanaa with it they still gave Rispedal and when sanaa died of the symptoms of risperdal the parents killed her . lisa says nobody was murdered here , nobody was killed .and nobody was incuded.
at first that’s how authorities view sanaa’s death , nothing suspicious.
But sveral months later , police decide to take a closer look .what they find ends with Lisa and Germayne facing the death penalty .
The other children removedfrom the home and placed in care.
At first there is nothing supsicious about the death of Sanaa cunningham.A blood infection and pneumonia the likely cause.
But questions are being raised about wheter her stepmother Lisa and her father Germayne have done enough for sanaa.
Bishop Quacy smith led the funural service for sanaa .
“you could have had this chils institutionalized, put in medical for said where she examined all day but instead she was left to defectate on herself, eat dog hair,eats food with maggots on it out of a trash can. straitjacketed virtually and tied to a water container in a laundry room. and you tell me . you did all you could do ? i don’t by it “
-Quacy smith
as former police officer and as a veteran of the unitedstates marine corps.as a former federal investigator , as a layer sworn to to practice in the courts of this country and says there is something else you could have done to save this child’s life
he’s also the lawyer for her biolgical mother Silvia norwood
Lisa and Germayne’s treatment of Sanaa comes under intense scrutiny as police investage what life is really like in the family home.
this is the first time television cameras have been inside this home, what the prosecution alleges in this facts tendered in court is that this was effectively a house f horrors for little Sanaafor two years leading up to her death.
today another family lives in the modest home . four bedrooms to stories and a gravel backyard.
Police say it was june or July 2016 When neighbors noticed Sanaa out here in this backyard for hours, raking rocks and picking up dog feces with her bare hands wearing only a diaper.
during the same timframe police alleged Germayne and Lisa were forcibly restraining Sanaa using zip ties and handcuffs.
the prosecution facts alleged that when Sanaa was not bound in the garage she was confined here – the laundry room
which police say had been retrofitted to house her. it’s claimed that Lisa and Germayne would bind Sanaa’s arms while putting a men’s long -sleeve shirt on her and tying the arms behind her back.
It was on the morning of February 11 2017 when Lisa noticed that 7 year old Sanaa was cold to the touch. she put her in a pack and play , similar this one and surrounded with warm bottles of water to heat her up .
Lisa told police that when she took Sanaa ‘s teperature it was so low it didn’t register on the thermometer.
Sanaa was rushed to the hospital where she died later that day.
it took another ten months before investigators they had evidence ,Sanaa had been so neglected and abused
Lisa and Germayne were guilty of murder.
Police say though that it was the case that this little girl was becoming an enormous emotional burden and a financial one too.
But the prosecutors argue the fairest thing to Sanaa the ultimate act of love would ghave been to put her in the care of people properly trained to look after her .
Lisa cunningham is behind bars in Arizona’s toughest women’s jail.
Lisa and her husband Germayne are facing a death penalty charged with the murder of their seven year old daughter Sanaa
And this is the man who wants them executed ,county attorney Bill montgomery.
But at the moment Arizona’s death penalty system has stalled .
Joseph Rudolph Wood II
the last execution by lethal injection 2014 was a disaster . Wood gasped and snorted for an hour and fifty-seven minutes after the drugs were injected, and the entire procedure took almost two hours; experts said the execution should have taken about ten minutes.
Behind this wall is Arizona’s death row compound inside is a collection of some of the worst humans this state has produced, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and serial killer.
Now if prosecutors get their way -Lisa cunningham could end up here too. she would be marched through this Iron gate through to the holding cells to what they call housing unit 9 .
or in other words -the death chamber.
This is the room where Lisa Cunningham would die .
The prisoner is laid out on a bed with mechanical arms supporting her or him .
they’re strapped down.
and then the drugs are administered
Usually the first drug administered at least historically has been done so for the prupose of putting the inmate to sleep.
just into deep sleep and then subsequent drugs are administered to actually stop the inmate from brathing and the inmate essentially suffocates.
Lisa cunningham is not on death row yet ,but if she’s found guilty and prosecutors have their way it’s where she’ll end up .
But Lisa has a fear worse than death – never again being able to see her children.