Houston, Jan 29 (IANS): A Texas woman convicted of killing and robbing her neighbour will be executed by lethal injection Tuesday, the first woman to be put to death in the US since 2010, a media report said.

A jury in Dallas, Texas, had found former nursing home therapist Kimberly McCarthy guilty of the gruesome killing of her 71-year-old neighbour, Dorothy Booth, July 21, 1997, reported Xinhua citing the Houston Chronicle.

McCarthy, 51, allegedly entered Booth's home in Lancaster, Texas, under the pretence of borrowing some sugar. She stabbed Booth five times, according to the Texas attorney general's summary of the case.

She also reportedly cut off Booth's left ring finger in order to take her diamond ring, which was later pawned.

McCarthy was also believed to be responsible for two similar murders a decade earlier.

In one murder, she used a meat tenderizer as a weapon and another used a claw hammer, according to the Attorney General's summary.

McCarthy's execution would be the first since a Virginia inmate, Teresa Lewis, became the nation's 12th woman put to death since capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. During the same period, 1,309 men have been executed, according to the report.

McCarthy would also become the first woman executed in Texas in more than eight years and the fourth overall in the state, which executes the most people in the nation. Some 492 prisoners were reportedly executed in the state since capital punishment resumed 30 years ago.