Owensboro and America’s Last Public Execution

On August 14, 1936, thousands of people arrived in Owensboro, Kentucky before sunrise. They came to watch a man die. Rainey Bethea's hanging would become known as the last fully public execution in American history. Estimates placed the crowd between 10,000 and 20,000 people, nearly the size of Owensboro itself at the beginning of the decade. But what happened that morning, and what America remembers happening, may not be exactly the same thing. In this episode of Yore Town, Matt and Megh uncover the murder of Lashia Edwards, the evidence that led authorities to Rainey Bethea, the strange legal distinction that allowed his execution to happen publicly, and Sheriff Florence Thompson, whose role turned the case into a national media sensation. Then came the crowd. Reporters described Owensboro as a carnival built around a man's death. Local residents and newspapers pushed back, arguing that the national press exaggerated the spectacle and unfairly branded their city. Ninety years later, the photographs remain, along with an uncomfortable question: Why did thousands of ordinary people want to watch? This is the story of Owensboro, Kentucky, the place where America held its last fully public execution and then stopped inviting the public to watch. Yore Town: The strange, dark, and unbelievable true stories of real places. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.