National Affairs: Death of De Boe

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Livingston County had never seen anything like it. Fifteen 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 and the time the trap was sprung made news from coast to coast.

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.

"I tell you I was a robber—not a rapist," the 23-year-old culprit shouted. "I haven't got justice." He looked down on his trembling old 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 you? You see, folks, she don't speak. If I had $300 or $500 to give her, she would not have made the charges."

"Not for a thousand dollars!" rejoined scrawny Mrs. Johnson as she gave the fur piece about her neck an impatient jerk.

"You would, too!"

"No. I wouldn't!"

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 him.

The sun 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."

Finally he stopped. "I'll have to tell you-all good-by," he concluded. "Take your time," he told the sheriff. "Do a good job with that knot."

"Goodby, sister!" he shouted.

Swish! The body fell, jerked the rope taut. Then it spun a little, the toes of De Boe's shiny shoes poised a few inches above a puddle of water in the pit beneath the gallows.