Posted on 08/14/2011 5:27:47 PM PDT by KyGeezer
OWENSBORO, Ky. - Bob Howe points to an overgrown, muddy patch of land in a cemetery in Owensboro, gesturing to where the grave of the last man publicly executed in the United States may be.
"I think it was over there," said Howe, an 81-year-old lifelong Owensboro resident and retired county coroner. "I used to pass it on the way to school. That's what I was told. It was over there somewhere."
The grave is anonymous and unmarked, like other places associated with Rainey Bethea's hanging Aug. 14, 1936. On the 75th anniversary of the execution, it is something some in Owensboro would like history to remember differently.
Bethea, a farmhand and sometime criminal, went to the gallows near the banks of the Ohio River before a throng of people estimated at as many as 20,000 strong. The execution drew national media coverage focused on a black man being executed by a white, female sheriff with the help of a professional hangman.
"It was not a carnival in the end," insisted 85-year-old James Thompson, the son of then-sheriff Florence Thompson.
Still, Kentucky lawmakers cited the negative publicity surrounding Bethea's hanging in ending public executions in the state in 1938. Kentucky was the last state to do so. Later, Gov. Albert B. "Happy" Chandler expressed regret at having approved the repeal, claiming, "Our streets are no longer safe."
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
I do not presume to comment on this particular case, but I have to say — ‘Law & Order’ worked.
Tar & feathers, hangings, ‘shoot ‘em if you catch them in the act’ — sometimes it is not good to throw out EVERY old tradition.
tongue in cheek, sort of.
Journalists lie.
Just what they do.
Actually, if they dropped the accused four to five feet, it’s a pretty humane way of execution. It just looks brutal. But if they merely suffocated them, that would be pretty bad.
Owensboro is better known for the Moonlight Barbecue than the last hanging.
Guess what he did to get hung.
I can think of some congress critters that need hangin...
Just saying...
Drama Queens!
Hell, no apologies necc. Hang em, fry em, inject em, they’re traitors to the country.
Stand by for plenty of this for the next 15 months.
Perry Smith and Dick Hickok were hanged in Kansas. It must have been in the 60’s. Probably not considered public tho.
Did their hanging fit the MSM template of white person hangs blackman ?
If not not newsworthy today to stir up old racism issues
Can't think of any two people more deserving of hanging too.
Great book, but Capote's "man-love" for Perry Smith is demented.
I went to Wikipedia and read the story on this hanging. It is pretty interesting.
The guy was hanged for rape. He confessed 5 times then denied his confession.
The Sherriff was a woman who got her job because her husband had it previously, It was the Sheriffs job to do the hanging, but an ex-policeman volunteered to do it for her. Then a man who had supervised many previous hangings showed up to make sure it was done right.
He placed the guy on the scaffold and called to the ex-policeman to trip the door, but the ex-policeman was drunk and some other guy standing next to him actually did the deed.
In any case the guy was guilty and justice prevailed. Nothing to be haunted about.
If not not newsworthy today to stir up old racism issues
The 75th anniversary of the last public hanging is reasonably newsworthy, no matter who was involved.
I used to live only a couple of hundred yards from where the Clutter family is buried. Also used to shoot on property owned by the KBI, later FBI agent who caught Smith and Hickok.
I agree, they were totally deserving of being hanged. Yes, the book made the characters a bit too sympathetic. It still was good reading tho.
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