The police department in Columbia, South Carolina, had to deal with a difficult call one day in 1944. Two young girls, one 11 and the other only eight, had been found dead in a ditch, beaten to death with an iron pipe while they were picking wildflowers. Now they were getting a call from an old woman whose 14-year-old grandson had just told her that he was the one who did it.
That boy’s name was George Stinney Jr., and when he came in, he directed them to the murder weapon. “I’m really sorry,” Stinney told the police. “I didn’t want to kill them girls.”
Stinney’s trial only lasted two hours, and today, some people insist he was framed. Either way, he was only 14 years old—the youngestAmerican sentenced to death in the 20th century. After spending 81 days in a prison cell 50 miles out of town, chosen out of fear that the people would lynch the boy if they could find him, young George Stinney was taken to the electric chair.
The boy was so short that they had to sit him on a Bible to reach the headpiece, and the straps were too big to hold him in place. He convulsed violently while the electric shock entered his body. Before he died, his mask fell off, revealing his terrified, tearful face to the crowd.
Stinney was exonerated in 2014. It was concluded that his confession was coerced and that he was wrongfully convicted without a fair trial.
(Listverse)
YOU ARE READING
Creepy Facts And Odd Stories
RandomJust a short collection of things you may not have heard of. (Stories, facts, and urban legends) All credit goes to Listverse and Google.
