Two women on death row put faith in God, believe they will not be executed

Tiffany Cole (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

Two women on death row in Florida believe their executions will be stayed,  and professed that they have given their lives to God. 

Tiffany Cole and Emilia Carr are inmates at Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, convicted of first-degree murder. They refuse to believe that they will be killed. 

"You can't have that mentality (that you're going to die), because that means you've accepted this," Carr told ABC News' "20/20" with Diane Sawyer. 

"You've already died... you're already dead if you accept that," Cole added. 

Seven years ago, Cole, 33, was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of a couple she lived next door to in South Carolina. She and three others robbed the Sumners before tying them up and burying them alive in Georgia. 

Cole admitted to digging a grave, but said she didn't know the Sumners would be placed in there. She also does not believe she should die for her role in the crime. 

"It's legal murder," she told Sawyer of her death sentence. 

"How many rich people go to prison?" Carr, 30, added.

Emilia Carr (Photo: Marion County Sheriff's Dept.)

"We're all minorities. We're all people who are either minorities or didn't have any, money - any way to say, 'Hey, let me buy my freedom,' because it's not free in this country.

"Unfortunately, equality is an illusion," she said. 

Carr is the youngest female in the United States on death row. She was convicted in 2011 of the 2009 murder of her boyfriend's wife, Heather Strong. Allegedly, Carr and the boyfriend suffocated Strong with a plastic bag and put her in a Florida storage unit. 

The mother of four maintains her innocence, however. 

"Wouldn't there have been physical evidence?" she asked. "I mean, duct tape is some sticky stuff, yet there's no finger prints, no DNA, no hair."

Despite her alleged innocence, and being unable to see her children, Carr said she has found peace.

"I think about them every day," she admitted. 

"Before I really even came to know God, that was the hardest thing for me to cope with day in and day out, was being away from my kids. When I got here, my hair was falling out just from stress."

Cole also said God and self-help books have changed her life. 

"It's not over," she said. "There is forgiveness and there is hope."

Both women have filed appeals-- a process that can take 10 to 12 years. 

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