At the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the 34 men on death row who have shown good behavior can leave their cells to play cards and games with each other in a common area and have had access to an outside space for recreation, a garden and activities such as a book club.
At the women’s unit at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, Lisa Jo Chamberlin’s clean prison record hasn’t earned her similar privileges.
She lives in total isolation and, since Dec. 30, more restrictions. Chamberlin is the only woman on Mississippi’s death row, where she’s been the past decade.
“This is the worst treatment I have seen by far,” said the Rev. Jeff Hood, who communicates with death row prisoners around the country and has witnessed nearly a dozen executions.
More restrictive conditions have nearly been deadly. Chamberlin was on suicide watch at least twice in 2025 as her mental health declined. At one point, she said she considered whether to sign papers to let her execution proceed, but then ultimately decided not to.
Chamberlin said she enjoys peace, quiet and time to herself and has turned to activities like writing, reading the Bible, sharing her story and passing the time as she continues to appeal her case and await a possible execution.
She said doesn’t mind being on her own, but Chamberlin doesn’t want to be isolated.
“I have to do everything by myself because I’m the only woman on death row,” Chamberlin said in a phone interview with Mississippi Today.
She has spent all of her prison sentence at the women’s prison in Pearl.
Last May, Chamberlin saw a change in her custody level and was able to gain some privileges, including a tablet to make calls and send messages. Chamberlin said those greatly improved her quality of life. She said the tablet was a gamechanger.
At the end of the year, she noticed more restrictions to her time out of her cell and access to areas where she previously was able to go. She said she has been confined to her cell for 48-hour periods before being let out to shower and use the community microwave.
She is no longer able to walk laps around the unit and access video calls because with her new housing and custody status, Chamberlin can’t go to certain areas.
Prison records list her location as Unit 720 Max, which is closed custody that requires close supervision and security control. Those in close custody anywhere in the prison system are confined to a cell or dormitory unit with similar level custody prisoners, according to MDOC’s inmate handbook.
Chamberlin said the women’s prison superintendent told her the reason for the change in privileges and restrictions: You are on death row, so you will be treated like the men on death row.
Kate Head, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, did not respond to a request for comment.
Chamberlin was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of two people in Hattiesburg.
She and co-defendant and former partner Roger Gillett were arrested in Kansas on a tip that they stole a car and were manufacturing drugs at his family’s farm. As authorities searched the farm, they found a freezer taped shut containing the dismembered bodies of the victims: Vernon Hulett, who was Gillett’s cousin, and Linda Heintzelman, who was Hulett’s girlfriend. Chamblerlin and Gillett had lived with the victims in Hattiesburg.
Separately, Chamberlin and Gillett were convicted and sentenced to death in 2006. Years later, the Mississippi Supreme Court vacated his death sentence because due process rights were violated when the jury considered an invalid aggravating factor. He was resentenced in 2018 to life without parole.
Chamberlin has pursued her own appeals, including a third petition for post-conviction relief in August, which the state opposes and has asked to be dismissed. As of January, the case has been submitted without argument.
Death row inmates of any gender are housed in a facility or unit deemed appropriate by the MDOC commissioner, and the status requires the highest level of supervision available, according to the MDOC inmate handbook.
Advocates helped get Chamberlin into a less restrictive situation, only to have it taken away, Hood said.
He and other advocates said they want similar privileges and housing situations for Chamberlin as the death row men have, but that is not happening. Instead, they see unfairness in Chamberlin’s imprisonment compared to the experience of the men on death row in Mississippi and women on death row in other states.
For years, death row prisoners at Parchman have been housed in Unit 29, but last year they were moved to Unit 17, which is fenced in and recently remodeled, said prison reform advocate Mitzi Magleby.
The unit is also where the gas chamber, electric chair and the gurney used for lethal injection are located.
An MDOC spokesperson did not respond to questions about how men are housed on death row and why they were moved. Prison records for each man on death row list their location as Unit 17.
Nationwide, as of October, 47 women were on death row, with the majority in California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Mississippi is among seven states with just one woman with a death sentence, and it’s not the only state with apparent disparate treatment of women facing execution.
Antoinette Frank, the only woman on Louisiana’s death row, has been held in conditions resembling solitary confinement since her 1995 triple homicide conviction, The Guardian reported. She is separated from the general prison population, has experienced extended lockdowns and doesn’t have access to in-person classes.
She was part of a group of death row prisoners who sought clemency in 2023. The Louisiana state Board of Pardons denied all of them.
After a 15-year hiatus, Louisiana has resumed executions. The state’s attorney general has filed requests to set execution dates for five on death row, including Frank.
Hood, the death row spiritual adviser, is also in contact with Tennessee’s Christa Pike who spent years in restrictive housing until 2024. Since her 1996 murder conviction, Pike was essentially in solitary confinement before she sued the prison system in 2022.
As part of the lawsuit settlement, she has been allowed to work, have more interaction with women in general population and have the ability to earn opportunities that the death row men already have access to, according to the Death Penalty Information Center and local reporting.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has scheduled her execution for Sept. 30, which would make her the first woman to be executed in the state in more than 200 years.
Chamberlin said she is exploring legal action around the conditions of her confinement.
Advocating for herself is something Chamberlin said she has done during her nearly 20 years in prison. She said it’s tiring, but she considers herself a survivor.
“I’m going to make a way out of no way,” she said.
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