Triple Tragedy in Alcolu: The execution of 14-year-old George Stinney, Jr., accused of the murders of Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames.

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South Carolina Deaths, 1915–1965," database with images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FGBH-P91: 18 July 2017), Betty June Binniker, 24 Mar 1944; citing , Binniker, Betty June, 1944, Department of Archives and History, State Records Center, Columbia; FHL microfilm 1,943,933. In July 1982, the city of Waco, Texas was horrified by the brutal murders of three teenagers, two girls and a boy. Deputy Truman Simmons got the idea that local store owner Muneer Mohammad Deeb hired three men (including David Wayne Spence) to kill a woman named Gayle Kelly. But Gayle Kelly was not even one of the victims. Deputy Simmons claimed that the killers had mistaken one of the girls as Kelly, and then killed the others because they were witnesses. George Stinney Fund Will Provide Reparations for the Families of Those Wrongfully Executed in South". rehumanizeintl.org. January 13, 2022. a b "He was 14 when he was executed. 70 years later, this boy has been exonerated". The Independent. December 18, 2014 . Retrieved September 24, 2019. Timothy Evans stands as a testament to the unfortunate situation of people with mental illness in the legal system. Evans was always slow to meet his developmental milestones growing up and he suffered from tubercular sore on his right foot. The sore never healed and would often keep him out of school. By the time he left school, he was still completely illiterate. As an adult, he struggled to find work, finding that his foot prevented him from working in the coal mines. In 1947 he was living in London when he and his wife Beryl had a daughter, Geraldine Evans.

George Frierson stated in interviews that "there has been a person that has been named as being the culprit, who is now deceased. And it was said by the family that there was a deathbed confession." Frierson said that the rumored culprit came from a well-known, prominent white family. A member, or members of that family, had served on the initial coroner's inquest jury which had recommended that Stinney be prosecuted." Nonetheless, many of the civil rights activists who climbed the Clarendon County courthouse steps to protest the child’s burning felt that those in power hadn’t done enough to remember the area’s racist history — or atone for it. The viral Facebook post is also accurate in its claim that Stinney's family was forced to leave the town of Alcolu after George's arrest. In her 2014 ruling, Judge Mullen wrote: "Collectively, the testimony [of Stinney's siblings] recounts that the Stinneys were forced to immediately leave town to Pinewood and then Sumter following the Defendant's apprehension, fearful that locals would seek violent revenge against the Stinney family." Speaking to NBC News in 2011, Stinney's brother Charles said, "We had to leave that same night." As the interviews with the police continued, Ross told them of a number of witnesses who were at his saloon and could testify that he had never left the bar. These witnesses were never questioned. On January 12, 1921, Ross was arrested and charged with murder. At the trial, a jailhouse witness who had a history of committing perjury told the jury that Ross had confessed to him.An all-white jury deliberated the murder case for only 10 minutes before pronouncing George Stinney Jr. guilty of rape and murder, plus they didn’t recommend mercy for him. As a result, Judge P.H. Stoll of Kingstree pronounced Stinney’s death sentence on April 24, 1944. Stinney walking into the execution chamber 9) Protests and campaigns to save Stinney a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p McVeigh, Karen (March 22, 2014). "George Stinney was executed at 14. Can his family now clear his name?". The Observer . Retrieved June 28, 2021. A deadly mystery that has haunted Alcolu for 74 years since began then, in the moments that the two girls stepped onward in their quest. a b c Barbato, Lauren (December 17, 2014). "The Youngest Person Executed In America, George Stinney Jr., Almost Certainly Wasn't Guilty". Bustle.com. This documentary comes from Sound Portraits Productions, a mission-driven independent production company that was created by Dave Isay in 1994. Sound Portraits was the predecessor to StoryCorps and was dedicated to telling stories that brought neglected American voices to a national audience.

Not on the walls? Photographs, newspaper clippings, anything that mentions the three dead children. “Mostly, we want to remember the good that happened in Alcolu,” Richburg explained. Judge Explains Her Decision in George Stinney Jr. Case". wltx.com. February 19, 2015 . Retrieved September 7, 2022. Nia DaCosta's 2021 film Candyman features Stinney in a cameo as one of the souls trapped in the Candyman "hive": in his Candyman form, Stinney rides a bicycle with his hand in a hook. Stinney was previously featured in DaCosta's 2020 promotional short film of the same name, his death and resurrection depicted in the form of shadow puppetry. [49]Police arrested George Stinney, then 14, and his older brother Johnny, for the murders. Johnny was released but George was held and charged for the murders. His trial, by an all-white jury, lasted one day, and he was found guilty. He had not been allowed to see his family before the trial and he was questioned alone without an attorney. During the trial Stinney's defense offered no cross-examination, did not call witnesses and offered virtually no defense. The jury deliberated for ten minutes before he was found guilty and sentenced to death. After Feltwell’s arrest in February 1944, no expense was spared in his defense, including the appointment of three attorneys. They consulted a nationally known criminologist, employed a lie detector test and committed Feltwell to a state hospital in Columbia to determine his sanity. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. An assistant captain asked Stinney if he had any last words. Stinney replied, “No sir.” The prison doctor prodded, “You don’t want to say anything about what you did?” Again, Stinney replied, “No sir.” Pan, Deanna and Jennifer Berry Hawes. "New Details Emerge About an Alternate Suspect in Alcolu Girls' Murders." The Post and Courier. 28 March 2018. I don’t either. I guess they just don’t talk about it. It’s 75 years ago that it happened, and I guess they’ve just moved on.”

Spence, Deeb, and two other men were arrested with no evidence to prove their guilt. There were no witnesses that placed them at the scene. Despite the brutality of the murders and the belief that the girls had been raped, there was no physical evidence that tied any of the three men to the murders. The only thing that linked the men to the murders were some supposed jailhouse confessions that other inmates claimed that the men had made. Many of these men later recanted their stories and admitted they had been offered lighter sentences or the opportunity to have sex with their wives or girlfriends in the district attorney’s office. A South Carolina judge did not declare Stinney "innocent" or exonerate him in 2014; she overturned his conviction on the basis that his trial and execution violated his constitutional due process rights. Origin a b Edwards, David (October 3, 2011). "New evidence could clear 14-year-old executed by South Carolina". The Raw Story. Archived from the original on May 30, 2016. Three of Stinney's surviving siblings testified Tuesday that their brother spent the day that the girls vanished with his family and could not have killed them. It was like a cloud just moved away,” said Stinney’s sister, Katherine Robinson. “When we got the news, we were sitting with friends… I threw my hands up and said, ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ Someone had to be listening. It’s what we wanted for all these years.”Charles, 83, a widower with five grown-up children, left Sumter for the Air Force before becoming bishop of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of New York's most deprived neighbourhoods. He has spent his life trying to put it all behind him, he said, to "stop opening old wounds". Robertson, Campbell (December 18, 2014). "South Carolina Judge Vacates Conviction of George Stinney in 1944 Execution". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 12, 2015. Yet, the mystery of who killed the girls still lingered. When asked who the people of Alcolu thought might have killed them, if not George Stinney, the women looked at one another. After confessing, Newman said, George led officers to the spot in the woods where he had hidden the spike.