1. Rainey Bethea worked for the Rutherford family and lived in their basement for about a year, and then he moved to a cabin behind the house of a man named Emmett Wells.
25 Facts About Rainey Bethea
1. 2.
Rainey Bethea worked as a laborer and later rented a room from a woman, Mrs Charles Brown.
3.
Since the value of the purses exceeded $25, Rainey Bethea was convicted of a felony, grand larceny, and consequently sentenced to one year in the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville.
4.
Rainey Bethea arrived there on June 1,1935, and his prison physical exam information describes him as 5 ft.
5.
Rainey Bethea gained parole half a year later on December 1,1935.
6.
Rainey Bethea climbed over the kitchen roof to Edwards' bedroom window.
7.
Rainey Bethea left the bedroom and hid the stolen jewels in a barn not far from the house.
8.
Rainey Bethea climbed into the room through the transom over the door and discovered that Edwards was dead.
9.
Since Rainey Bethea had a criminal record, the police could use the then-new identification technique of fingerprints to establish that Rainey Bethea had recently touched items inside the bedroom.
10.
When police officers questioned him, he denied that he was Rainey Bethea, claiming his name was James Smith.
11.
Rainey Bethea lamented the fact that he had made a mistake by leaving his ring at the crime scene, stating that he had removed the ring in order to try on Edwards's rings.
12.
On June 12,1936, Rainey Bethea confessed a second time, telling the guards where he had hidden the stolen jewelry.
13.
Owensboro police searched a barn in Owensboro and found the jewelry where Rainey Bethea said he had left it.
14.
Rainey Bethea was never charged with the remaining crimes of theft, robbery, burglary, giving a false name to police, or murder.
15.
Rainey Bethea asserted a Clyde Maddox would provide an alibi, but Maddox claimed he did not know Rainey Bethea.
16.
Rainey Bethea was then quickly removed from the courthouse and returned to the Jefferson County Jail.
17.
Back in Louisville, Bethea acquired five new African-American lawyers to try to save his life: Charles Ewbank Tucker, Stephen A Burnley, Charles W Anderson Jr.
18.
Once Thomas denied the motion to file a belated appeal, Rainey Bethea's attorneys filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Louisville.
19.
Rainey Bethea claimed that his five confessions had been made under duress and that he had signed one confession unaware of what he was signing.
20.
Rainey Bethea asked that she not make his name public.
21.
At the Daviess County Jail, professional hangman Phil Hanna of Epworth, Illinois, visited Rainey Bethea and instructed him to stand on the X that would be marked on the trapdoor.
22.
Rainey Bethea ascended the steps and stood on the large X as instructed.
23.
Hanna placed the noose around Rainey Bethea's neck, adjusted it, and then signaled to Hash to pull the trigger.
24.
Rainey Bethea fell 8 feet, and his neck was instantly broken.
25.
Rainey Bethea wanted his body to be sent to his sister in South Carolina so that she could arrange for him to be interred next to his father, but against these wishes, he was buried in a pauper's grave at the Rosehill Elmwood Cemetery in Owensboro.