This is a picture of the last legal public hanging in America.

This is a picture of the last legal public hanging in America.


Rainey Bethea was convicted of rape after confessing to the crime and sentenced to death by hanging in Owensboro, Kentucky on August 14, 1936. Had he been convicted of murder, of which he was also charged, he would have faced life imprisonment or at the worst the electric chair, but an obscure law in Kentucky at the time required for convicted rapists to be hanged in the county in which the crime occurred. The law was amended in 1938.. It is estimated that 20,000 people showed up to witness this event.

One more interesting note: the sheriff of Daviess County, Kentucky at the time was a woman, Flo by prence Shoemaker Thompson.

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