Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Last Public Execution in America Owensboro, Kentucky 1936


 Rainey Bethea was the last person to be publicly executed in the United States. Bethea, who was a black man, was charged with the rape and murder of a 70-year-old white woman named Lischia Edwards, and after being convicted of her rape, he was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky. Mistakes in performing the hanging and the surrounding media circus contributed to the end of public executions in the United States.

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