Rainey Bethea
Rainey Bethea (c. 1909 - 14 August 1936) was the last person publicly executed in the United States of America. He had raped and murdered a woman named Lischia Edwards during a burglary, although he was only charged with her rape. A media circus surrounding the execution and mistakes during it contributed to the end of public executions in the United States.
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Biography
Bethea was born around 1909 in Roanoke, Virginia. He arrived in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1933 and worked as a labourer. Over the course of the next few years he received minor criminal convictions for offences such as theft, breach of the peace and being drunk and disorderly.
On the morning of 7 June 1936, Bethea broke into the home of Lischia Edwards in Owensboro by climbing over the rooftops and entering through her bedroom window. Edwards woke up at the sound of Bethea's entry, at which point Bethea raped her and choked her to death. He then retrieved several of Edwards's rings, in the process removing his own celluloid prison ring so he could try them on. He left the scene without the prison ring, stashing the stolen jewellery in a nearby barn. The crime was discovered later that day by neighbours, who called the local coroner Delbert Glenn.
After a quick investigation, coroner Glenn found Bethea's prison ring at the scene. Bethea was declared a suspect after several witnesses confirmed they had seen him wearing the ring. As Bethea was a convicted felon, his fingerprints were on file and could be matched to several items at the scene which Bethea had touched during the burglary. A four-day manhunt occurred for Bethea, during which he eluded capture multiple times.
On the Wednesday following the murder, Bethea was observed hiding in the bushes near the River Ohio, but was gone by the time police arrived. The labourer who had spotted him managed to follow him to a nearby drug store and inform a policeman he came across, but Bethea escaped. He was spotted yet again later that afternoon trying to board a ferry; this time he was unable to escape before police arrived and was cornered by the river bank. He attempted to deny that he was Bethea, claiming his name was "James Smith". Police, mindful of the risk that the public could lynch Bethea, played along with the false identity until Bethea was brought back to the police station, where he was identified by a distinctive scar on the left side of his head.
Bethea soon made a full confession to the crime, telling police where to find the stolen jewellery. The Daviess County prosecutor only charged Betha with rape, as this carried the penalty of public hanging whereas murder and robbery were both only punishable with a private execution. Bethea pleaded guilty, but the state still presented its case in order to seek the death penalty. A jury only took four minutes to sentence Bethea to death. Bethea appealed, claiming his defence team had forced him to plead guilty and he had confessed under duress, but his appeal was rejected.
Bethea's death warrant was signed by Governor Albert Chandler on 6 August. His site of execution was later moved, necessitating a second death warrant, which was signed by Lieutenant Governor Keen Johnson. On 14 August Bethea mounted the scaffold outside the Daviess County Jail. However, the executioner, Arthur L. Hash, was drunk and failed to pull the lever that would drop Bethea through the trapdoor. After a few minutes, one of the guards was forced to pull the lever instead. Bethea dropped 8 feet through the trapdoor and instantly broke his neck. His body was interred in a pauper's grave in Rosehill Elmwood Cemetery, Owensboro. The media circus surrounding the execution lead to Kentucky abolishing public executions two years later, ending public executions in the United States.