Meet the Only Idaho Woman Currently Awaiting Her Fate on Death Row

Almost every Idahoan is familiar with the names of at least one of the names of an inmate on Idaho’s death row. You may even be familiar with some of the names of inmates that could find themselves on death row in the not so distant future. 

Of the nine inmates on Idaho’s death row, several have made national headlines. Most recently, Chad Daybell, who was found guilty of all first-degree murder and insurance fraud charges connected to the deaths of his first wife, Tammy and current wife’s two children, JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan.

READ MORE: Gruesome 2004 Idaho Case Featured on New True Crime Series

Judge Boyce wasted no time moving straight into the sentencing phase of the trial once the jury delivered their verdict. Daybell was sentenced to death on June 1, 2024. From Daybell and Lori Vallow’s extreme religious beliefs, suspicious deaths of their ex-spouses and accelerated courtship, the case attracted a lot of attention from true-crime buffs. 

Earlier the same year, Idaho made headlines becoming the third state to botch an execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. The medical team tasked with giving Thomas Creech his lethal injection failed to establish an IV line eight times before the warden called off the execution. 

Less than a year before that, Gerald Pizzuto Jr. was granted a stay of execution. It was originally scheduled for March 23, 2023 but the state wasn’t able to obtain the chemicals necessary for the legal injection. 

It’s possible that Bryan Kohberger and Skylar Meade may find themselves on death row, as well. Kohberger’s case has become as well known, if not more well known, in the true-crime community as the Daybells. He’s accused of killing four University of Idaho Students at an off campus home in November 2022. At press time, his defense team continues to argue that the death penalty should be taken off the table for their client before his trial begins. 

Meade was the inmate at the center of a seemingly made for the movies escape from custody at St. Alphonsus in Boise. After his escape, Meade is suspected of killing two men in Northern Idaho before ultimately being captured in Twin Falls. Meade’s trial is scheduled to start in February 2025 and will be a death penalty case. 

What do all of these people have in common? Every single one of them is a man. Idaho has executed three individuals since 1999. All three of them were men, too. 

Only One Woman is on Idaho’s Death Row

What mother could kill her own children? The answer in Idaho is Robin Row. In 1992, she set her family home on fire, leading to the carbon monoxide poisoning deaths of her husband, her 10-year-old sons and her 8-year-old daughter while they were sleeping. She killed them to collect life insurance money from outrageous policies she took out on her family.

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What's even sicker? It may not have been the first time Row did something like this to one of her children. According to an archived KTVB story shared on Murderpedia, it's possible that Row suffocated her 15-month daughter in 1976 and claimed the baby died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Four years later, she lost her six-year old son, Keith, in a cabin fire. Some evidence in that case, which was ruled accidental, suggests that it was more than possible that Row had locked the boy in a bedroom with an electric heater pushed against the bed. She ended up collecting $28,000 in life insurance for Keith. 

Row is housed in the Pocatello Women's Correctional Center, while the other inmates will live at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution until their execution day comes.