Kimberly McCarthy drew her last breaths Wednesday evening in Huntsville, Texas and was pronounced dead at 6:37 pm. She died 20 minutes after she was administered a single lethal dose of pentobarbitol. She became the 500th person executed in Texas since the re-start of the state's death penalty in 1982.

Of the 500 people executed in that state during that period, McCarthy is the fourth woman to die via the death penalty. Texas is one of 32 states that still impose the death penalty and that state leads the nation in executions, having carried out 40% of them since capital punishment resumed in the U.S. in 1976.

Her final words before receiving the lethal injection were, “This is not a loss. This is a win. You know where I’m going. I’m going home to be with Jesus. Keep the faith. I love you all,” she said.

McCarthy was convicted of killing her neighbor, 71-year-old Dorothy Booth on July21, 1997 in Lancaster, Texas. According to court documents, McCarthy went to her neighbor’s house under the pretense of borrrowing a cup of sugar. Once inside, McCarthy stabbed the elderly woman five times. During the incident, prosecutors pointed out that the woman was mortaly wounded but still alive, when McCarthy cut off the woman’s finger to steal her diamond ring. She would later pawn the item of jewelry at a pawn shop. After cutting off her finger McCarthy continued to attack the old woman until she finally killed her.

Investigators found her name on the pawn shop receipt for the ring. The prosecutors related how McCarthy stole Booth’s Mercedes and drove to Dallas and went to a pawn shop then continued on to a Crack dealer’s house to buy cocaine with the $200 she received for the ring. Prosecutors also admitted as evidence the butcher knife found in McCarthy’s home that still had Booth’s DNA on it.

At her trial, McCarthy put the blame for the killing on two crack dealers that she identified as “Kilo” and “JC.” it was never determined if the two people ever existed.

McCarthy was found guilty of the crime in 1998 in Dallas. But, in 2001, her conviction was overturned because her lawyer, that she had requested, was not present at the time of her questioning by police. She would go to trial a second time in 2002 and she would be convicted of the crime again, and was once again sentenced to death. This time, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the verdict.

It would be revealed in the punishment phase of the former nursing home therapist’s trial, that she was also believed responsible for the deaths of two other elderly women a decade earlier.