Word: boe
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...hundred people gathered at Smithland, the county seat, from all over southwestern Kentucky. A 16-year-old girl had her neck broken when a car turned over hurrying through the dawn to get there on time. A professional executioner had been brought in from Illinois. And William Thomas De Boe had dressed himself as if he were going down to Paducah for a dance when he marched up the 13 steps to the scaffold to become the first white man hanged for rape in Kentucky's history. What took place between the time he reached the gallows...
Since Kentucky law specifies that rapists must be hanged, not electrocuted, in the county where the crime was committed, and since the Livingston County jail is not big enough to accommodate a scaffold, De Boe's execution took place outside in the jail yard. The surrounding fence was so low that the gallows was in plain view of the crowd. De Boe smiled and nodded to friends and neighbors, remarked: "This fresh air sho' do feel good." The sheriff then gave him 30 minutes in which to speak his last words...
...father, whom someone was holding up, and on his red-eyed sister, who had spent three days trying to get Governor Laffoon to pardon her brother. "I don't see that woman around here. Where is she at? Is Mrs. Johnson in the crowd?" Nine times De Boe called for Mrs. Johnson, the Iuka merchant's wife he was convicted of attacking when he robbed her husband's store. "Oh, there she is," said De Boe when someone pointed her out. "Well, how do you feel about it. woman? Is this going to satisfy...
This colloquy finished, William Thomas De Boe began abusing the prosecutor and witnesses at his trial, scolding the women in the crowd for coming to "see this," warning the men against "wrong life and bad company." Singling out a relative of Mrs. Johnson, he rebuked the man for trying to get on the jury that convicted...
...climbed higher in the sky, his 30 minutes were up, but De Boe kept on talking. "And you people up here in Livingston County. I'm glad I'm not going to have this dirt in my face. I'm going to sleep in McCracken County. A man can get justice there...