Daily Star's biggest headlines straight to your inbox!The last public hanging was labelled the “worst display” after being carried out to a huge stadium-like crowd by a drunken executioner.The public execution of Rainey Bethea on August 13 in 1936, was in front of a media circus and a rumoured capacity of 20,000 people in Owensboro, Kentucky, the US.
Bethea, who was 26 or 27 when he died, confessed to the rape and murder of a 70-year-old Elza Edwards on June 7, 1936, after breaking into her house.He had already been previously convicted of stealing a purse and sentenced to two years in the Kentucky State Penitentiary.Bethea committed the crime that led to his execution while out on parole.The man who was tasked to pull the trigger on.
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