August 14, 1936
The last-ever public execution in the United States took place on August 14, 1936, when Rainey Bethea was hanged in the town square in Owensboro, Kentucky. Bethea confessed to the rape and murder of a 70-year-old woman named LIschia Edwards. Mistakes in the hanging, as well as the surrounding media circus, led to the end of public executions in the U.S.
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