A crowd variously estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 gathered at Owensboro, Kentucky on August 14, 1936 to watch the last ever public hanging in the United States. The fact that the prisoner was a young black man and that the sheriff overseeing the execution was a white woman intensified the interest of both the public and the Press. Reporters from across the country arrived to cover the event.

Rainey Bethea, aged 22, had been found guilty of raping a wealthy white widow, 70-year-old Lischia Edwards. After being arrested Bethea confessed to the crimes.

Under Kentucky state law at the time, conviction for robbery and murder would result in execution at the state penitentiary, but the prosecution, wanting the execution to take place at Owensboro, proceeded only with a charge of rape. This carried the possibility of public hanging, satisfying the popular lust for vengeance.

In a packed courthouse Bethea pleaded guilty. The prosecution still presented the facts to the jury as they would need to decide the sentence. There was no defence. The judge told the jury that their only job was to decide whether Bethea should get between 10 to 20 years in prison or the death sentence. It took less than five minutes for the jury to decide that Bethea should be hanged.

Many newspapers denounced the carnival of sadism saying that the crowds enjoyed it too much and expressed shame that such a thing could happen in Kentucky. Two years later the state abolished public executions.

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