Chapter Twenty-Four
It wasn’t hard to find Urban Parhem.
He was at the tiny white-painted brick building that started life as the first courtroom for North Bend County, now called the Old Old Courthouse. It served as home to the historic society, which was basically Urban and a few people he quietly bossed around.
He looked up when I entered, started to smile, then went neutral.
After a variety of blows late last year, our friendship hadn’t fully repaired itself. We talked, but we didn’t commune.
“Hi, Urban. I came by hoping for anything you know about the background of Damon Swindell—”
“I heard you and Clara are looking into the circumstances of his being found dead yesterday morning. Shocking.”
Despite the bruise on our friendship, I knew he meant the death was shocking, not that Clara and I were looking into it. He knew us well enough to expect it and I believed he approved.
“—and any information on the area around Gallows Path that might help.”
“Ah, Gallows Path. It has quite the history.”
Figured he’d latch onto the history of a place before the death of a man.
It might end up being of interest to our case or it might be the toll he extracted for whatever else he told me.
“Does it?” I dutifully asked.
“Perhaps the best-known current iteration of Gallows Path is as part of a ghost tour in Williamsburg, Virginia, which presents information on pirates, among others, hanged in colonial days. Similarly, in Salem, Massachusetts, the Gallows Hill, long associated with the witch trials, was reached by what was known, at least informally, as Gallows Path.”
Surreptitiously, I squeezed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger.
“Virginia and Massachusetts in the Colonial period. What about gallows here? And more recent?”
“As you might be aware, the last public hanging in the United States was in Owensboro in 1936.”
Somehow, I had not been aware of that.
I was confident he was aware of my unawareness.
“Owensboro,” I repeated. “That’s not far from here, right? On the way to Louisville?”
“You’re thinking of Owenton. The historical event I mentioned occurred in Owensboro, which is southwest of Louisville, on the Ohio River.”
So much for my knowledge of Kentucky. But I knew how to play this game.
“Owen must have been quite the guy to have two towns named after him.”
“Owenton and its county, as well as Owensboro were named for Colonel Abraham Owen, who was an early surveyor in Kentucky, and a member of the state constitutional convention in 1792. He died at the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.”
I piped up with, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” That was the extent of my knowledge of John Tyler’s presidency, other than placing it between Andrew Jackson and the Civil War.
“That was the campaign song for William Henry Harrison.”
Not John Tyler? I knew less than I’d thought.
Before I revealed that ignorance by asking why people backing Harrison sang about Tyler, Urban said, “They capitalized on Harrison’s image as the victor in the Battle of Tippecanoe against the Shawnee tribe in Indiana. That became his nickname.”
The light bulb went on. Tippecanoe referred to Harrison’s service, while Tyler was his vice-presidential candidate — the afterthought, too.
“William Henry Harrison had the shortest presidency so far,” Uban continued. “Spoke two hours in the rain without an overcoat or hat at his March 4 inauguration, then repeated that ill-advised action afterward. Died April 4. Also was the last president to have been born before the Revolution.”
I’m sure a brilliant response to those history tidbits existed, but it didn’t pop into my brain.
“There is also an Owingsville in Kentucky, though that is not named after Colonel Owen, but for a man named Owings. He and another man each owned significant holdings nearby. When it came time to name the community, they wagered that whoever built a finer home would have his name used. Owings won.”
Wondering if it was my imagination or he was exacting a higher toll than usual, I asked, “Do any of these places connect to Gallows Path?”
“Not that I am aware of for Owingsville or Owenton, however as I was saying before you led me astray—”
I bit my tongue.
“—the last public hanging in this country was in Owensboro, which certainly connects to gallows, though I know of no connection to our Gallows Path. Except . . .”
He stared into space.
I could let this go. He’d said no connection.
I should let it go.
“Except what?” came out of my mouth.
He’d been waiting for that.
“Before we discuss that, you need a grounding in the events of 1936, when a 70-year-old woman named Lischia Edwards was robbed, raped, and murdered in her home. A 26-year-old black man named Rainey Bethea was arrested for the crimes, though tried and convicted solely for rape.
“To get to the punishment aspects of the case, it is necessary to go somewhat further back.”
Of course it was.
“Electrocution had replaced hanging for all death sentences in the state until a 1920 rape of a nine-year-old girl in Lexington. Outrage over that case prompted an exception to electrocution for those convicted of rape. They were to be hanged in the county where the crime was committed, with the sheriff carrying out the execution.”
“Did they charge him—”
“Rainey Bethea.”
“—with rape on purpose so he’d be hanged instead of electrocuted?”
“How can we know the intent of others across the distance of time? Or necessarily with contemporaries.”
Was that second sentence an apology? Or at least a reference to the residual wariness between us?
As an apology, it stunk.
As a reference, it was . . . a step.
To keep us from getting more off track, I said, “So he was found guilty of rape.”
“The jury deliberated four and a half minutes to return a verdict with the death penalty,” he said.
“Four and a half minutes?”
He continued without heeding my astonishment. “There were appeals and rejections of those appeals in a time frame inconceivable in our current judicial system. The crime he was convicted of occurred June 7. He was hanged Aug. 14.”
Trial, appeals, execution in nine weeks? Inconceivable was right.
“Was he railroaded?” I asked bluntly.
“Could we know that from this distance of time?”
I looked at him at this second reference to the distance of time.
He did not return it.
“Rainey Bethea confessed five times — all without representation. Coerced? Possibly. One of his confessions included where Lischia Edwards’ stolen jewelry was and it was found there.”
The years I lived with Kit taught me a lot of things, including how to spot potential holes. Could the jewelry have been found, then the location written into one of the five confessions made without representation?
Not a huge leap. But one that landed us back in the morass of Could we know that from this distance of time?
“The execution warrant specified that he was to be hanged in the courthouse yard,” Urban continued. “The county said it had recently gone to considerable expense to plant shrubs and flowers there, so the site was moved to an empty lot nearby.”
“Which allowed a larger crowd?” Kit’s skepticism midwifed my question.
He lifted one shoulder. “There certainly was a large crowd. Reports of the number varied greatly — as did reports on all aspects of the event — with ten- to twenty-thousand being the most frequent. Either would require many coming from out of town.
“That hanging drew attention in part because it was expected to be the first execution by a woman. The sheriff of Daviess County — that is with a double s at the end.”
“Named after somebody named Daviess?”
I regretted the question as soon as it came out.
“As it happens, no. There was an error made by the State Clerk’s office, which was never corrected.
However, it was not the double s at the end.
The county was meant to honor one Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, that’s D-A-V-E-I-S-S — E-I, not I-E.
He was an early U.S. Attorney in Kentucky, married the sister of John Marshall.
He also died at the Battle of Tippecanoe.
I cannot vouch that it was the reason he had a county named after him — nearly named after him.
He was quite an interesting character. In court, he dressed as a backwoodsman, was known for his sarcasm, and for calling judges such things as Your Stupidity, Your Pomposity, Your Asininity. But I digress.”
And darned if I hadn’t noticed.
“As I was saying, that 1936 public hanging in Owensboro drew added interest because the sheriff was a woman.”
“How did that happen?”
I know, I know, I invited another digression. In my defense, when I told Kit about this, if I didn’t know that answer, I’d never be forgiven. And I wanted to know.
“The sheriff had died in April of pneumonia and his wife, Florence Shoemaker Thompson, became sheriff under the widow’s succession practice of the early part of the Twentieth Century.
You might be most familiar with it from when male members of the U.S.
House or, more rarely, the Senate died and the widow filled the remainder of the term. ”
Or I might not be familiar, but this time I didn’t highlight that.
“That a woman would execute the condemned man by releasing the trap door was a sensation.
As it happened, a former Louisville police officer volunteered for that duty.
However, he arrived drunk, according to witnesses, including the experienced hangman, who expressed disgust with the conduct of the execution.
The hangman said he shouted to the volunteer to Do it!
But he did not, leaving it to a deputy to trigger the trap door.
“The inflow of spectators and the gawping about the woman sheriff added to widespread disapproval. The event sparked a revulsion of feeling throughout the country, resulting in the end of public hangings.”
“How does all this connect to our Gallows Path?”
“Ah,” he said, sounding pleased. “Except for a woman being sheriff, it could have been North Bend County. The last here occurred mere weeks before Rainey Bethea’s hanging in Owensboro.
Two local men were charged with attacking a young woman traveling through the county with her family.
They stayed at an inn in the southwest corner of the county.
The young lady went for a walk and never returned.
“After a brief search, the sheriff’s office found her body, along with items that led to two local men, both described as stumbling drunk when they headed in the direction that would have intercepted the young lady.
“The trial was nearly as short as Bethea’s.
The twist was that after conviction, but before sentencing, the judge allowed one of the convicted men out on bail, reportedly because he was the only child of a wealthy family and needed to put his affairs in order — as opposed to the other, whose family was poor. ”
“Allowed out on bail after being convicted of murder?”
“Of rape. As with Rainey Bethea, they were not charged with murder. That defendant was never heard from again. His parents remained here, in straightened circumstances while their property crumbled around them.”
“Because the bail was forfeited?”
He made a noncommittal sound. “The other man was hanged in an area used for gatherings at the end of what became known as Gallows Path. This man by the name of Felix Alsup was the last publicly hanged in North Bend County, as I said, shortly before Bethea.”
His glance prepared me for an incoming bombshell.
“The judge in the case was a direct ancestor of Damon Swindell. After that case, he appeared to live in greatly improved circumstances.”
“That’s why the escapee’s family was broke? From paying off the judge?”
That explained Donna’s disdain for the Swindell family tree.
“How can we know—?”
“—across the distance of time. Right. But even if Damon’s judge ancestor was corrupt — and it sure sounds like he was — you think Damon’s killing could have something to do with his ancestor being involved with a hanging in 1936?”
“I did not express an opinion on that. I merely acceded to your request for information and provided a connection between the background of Damon Swindell and the road called Gallows Path.”