The last widely recognized public execution in the United States took place on Aug. 14, 1936, in Owensboro, Ky. Rainey Bethea, a 22-year-old Black man, was hanged before an estimated crowd of 20,000 people. Bethea had been accused of raping…
My Dad witnessed the last ‘legal’ hanging in America
My dad, Tom Moody, was there. Aug, 14, 1936. Owensboro, Ky. The last legal public hanging in America. “My brother and I got up before dawn and hitchhiked into town,” he said many years later. “There were lots of cars going that…