George Stinney was a fourteen year old boy from Alcolu, South Carolina and he was convicted of first degree murder. He was the youngest person on record to be executed in America. He was arrested and tried for the murder of two little white girls, Betty June Binnicker, aged 11, and Mary Emma Thames, aged 8. The small town these three children were from, Alcolu was a hard working yet segregated town divided by railroad tracks. One day Betty June and her friend Mary Emma road their bikes over those tracks in search of a particular flower known as "maypops". They passed the Stinney house and asked George Stinney and his sister Katherine if they knew where they could find some. The girls were never seen alive again.
They were found the following morning in a ditch, both with severe head wounds. George told someone during the search that he had spoken to the girls on the day they were killed. Admitting that he and his sister were the last people to see the girls alive, George Stinney was arrested on that basis alone.
After being interrogated by several white men in a locked room by himself, George Stinney confessed to the murder. According to said confession Stinney stated that he wanted to have sex with Betty June but couldn't with Emma there, so he went to kill Emma. Both girls fought back so George decided to kill them both with a railroad spike that was found in the same ditch as the bodies. Fourteen year old George Stinney was not only able to kill these two girls by himself, but he was able to shatter their skulls into at least 4-5 pieces.
He was charged with first degree murder, and because their was no Miranda rights in 1944, George was questioned without a lawyer present and his parents were barred from the room. There was no written confession and there is a report that states George was offered ice cream if he confessed to the crime. The town of Alcolu, which was at first gripped with grief was now out for blood. George had to be taken to Charleston for his safety and his family left town during the night as they feared for their lives.
George Junius Stinney Jr. was tried as an adult, convicted of murder and was sent to the electric chair by an all white "jury of his peers" after they deliberated for just ten minutes. I can't even imagine what his last hours of life were like. Walking to the chamber of execution for a crime almost everyone surely knew he couldn't have done, his small frame being strapped into a chair that was meant for men twice his size, and using a Bible as a booster seat. One or two adults got away with killing three children on March 23, 1944, Betty and Emma on that day, and though George was electrocuted on June 16, 1944 his fate was sealed on that March day as well.
I'm not a religious man, never claimed to be but in this case I hope Betty, Emma, and George are all playing together in a field of flowers. And I hope their murderer suffers for all eternity.
Crying. Tears silently streaming down my cheeks. For those children and their parents. It sickens me how a mob mentality took another child from the comfort of his parents home to cold brutal injustice.
ReplyDeleteI simply can't find words deep enough for this. Maybe there are none.
BWB is not an often an easy or joyful read. But it is truth, which needs to be said and heard. No matter how many years go by, there are events, moments, tragedies that simply can not and should NEVER be erased from our consciousness. How will we ever understand today, if we do not look back and completely face our country's past. I know some people may not want to hear or chose to read your words. They may even condemn you for them. However, no one (or few anyway) think to themselves that the Jewish community should forget the Holocaust.
Thank you for not letting us forget George Stinney Jr. May we never forget.