Word: bethea
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...DENNIS A. BETHEA Hammond...
Added attraction at the execution of 22-year-old Rainey Bethea, who raped and strangled a 70-year-old white woman, was Kentucky's only female sheriff, plump, matronly Mrs. Florence Thompson. When her husband died four months ago. Governor Albert Benjamin ("Happy") Chandler passed his job on to her. It thus became her duty to spring the trap under Bethea. A devout Roman Catholic, Sheriff Thompson consulted her priest, learned from him that nothing in canon law prohibited her from sending the blackamoor to his legal death. Protestant churchmen concurred. Nevertheless, soft-hearted Sheriff Thompson sighed: "I suppose...
...clock the sky was dove grey. The crowd grew impatient, began to yip: "Let's go! Bring him out!" At 5:20 a.m. Bethea, his stomach bulging with chicken, pork chops and watermelon, was pushed through the crowd to the base of the platform. "I don't like to die with my shoes on." he said, sitting down on the bottom step and taking them off. Up the 13 steps to the platform he walked. Then for the first time the crowd learned that Sheriff Thompson could not nerve herself to her job. Fingering the trap lever instead...
...everything was ready. At 5:28 there was a swish, a snap. Doctors climbed through the supports, felt Bethea's pulse. The spectators closed in. At 5:44½ a. m. physicians pronounced Bethea dead. With a yell the spectators charged from every side, eager hands clawed at the black death hood. In a moment it was torn to shreds. The lucky ones stuffed the bits of black cloth proudly into their pockets. Slowly the crowd straggled away...
...Washington 25 to 7. South. Alabama kept its record clean by pushing through the Florida line and grabbing Halfback Red Bethea whenever he started to run. Alabama 20, Florida o. Vanderbilt completed only four passes against Georgia Tech, but one of them fell into the arms of fleet Harold ("Now-I") Askeu and decided things. 6 to 0. Unbeaten Georgia's touchdown in the third period matched the one New York University had made in the second. Then Vernon ("Catfish") Smith place-kicked the point that won an exciting game, 7 to 6. Georgia rates behind Alabama because Florida tied...