On June 16, 1944, in the execution room in South Carolina, USA, George Stiney, a 14-year-old black teenager, was escorted step by step to the electric chair.
His face was full of tears, and he kept crying, "I didn't kill them, I didn't kill them..."
He clutched the Bible tightly in his arms and begged God in despair: Please, save me, I did not kill, I was wronged...
The white cop didn't listen to his cries,
The white judge did not listen to his cries,
The white executioner did not listen to his cries,
Nor did God listen to His cry.
With his mouth blocked and his head connected to 5380 volts, George died in pain in the summer of his 14th birthday, becoming the youngest death row inmate in American history.
George's death made people clap their hands and praise the justice. However, 70 years later, the appearance of a diary reveals the truth of the burial, and people learn that George, who died in terror and pain, was wronged, and the real murderer was someone else.
So, what is going on in this case? Why was George wrongfully killed? Who is the real culprit?
Two white girls were murdered, and a 14-year-old black teenager was identified as the killer
The case that led to George's unjust murder occurred on March 24, 1944, when the United States had not yet passed the Civil Rights Act, and the "black and white" apartheid system was still prevalent in many regions. The location of the crime, the small town of Alcruz, South Carolina, is one of the areas that strictly adhere to the apartheid system.
In this small town, black people live in black areas and white people live in white areas, separated by a railway track, showing a "black and white" distribution.
The town adheres to the principle of "white supremacy", black people are strictly required to stay in the black area, can not step into the white area, the white people enjoy absolute freedom and rights, where they want to go.
On the day of the crime on March 24, the spring was warm and the sky was clear, and two lively and cute white girls, enjoying the spring breeze and freedom, rode out of the house on their bicycles with joy.
The two little white girls, one 11 years old named Betty Jane Pinnacle, and the other 8 years old, named Mary Emma Thomas. They excitedly planned to pick a flower called passionflower, which is said to have petals like lotus flowers and crowns like tassels, which are very beautiful.
Betty and Mary first turned the lawn of the white area around, but found no trace of passionflower. So they crossed the railroad tracks and came to the black quarter.
Here, Betty and Mary meet 14-year-old black teenager George Stenay and his sister.
Betty and Mary asked them if they knew where the passionflowers were, and George told them that there was a lawn in the black area with a lot of beautiful flowers, and maybe there was a passionflower they were looking for.
So Betty and Mary got on their bikes and left happily.
At this time, they did not know, but it was just a very ordinary step on the green flowers, and what awaited them was the abyss of death.
At this time, George did not know, but it was just an ordinary guiding conversation, but it made him bear a huge grievance and die in pain and despair.
Betty (left) and Mary (right)
In the early morning of March 25, the local police received a report that Betty and Mary had not returned overnight and had mysteriously disappeared.
During the investigation, witnesses told police that betty and Mary rode their bicycles across the tracks yesterday to the black quarter.
When disappearances are linked to skin color and race, everything becomes radical and absurd.
Two white children had an accident in the black area, and the local police and white residents were extremely angry. They rushed to the negro area with great momentum, and scanned everyone here with angry eyes, as if every negro here was a heinous thug, the culprit that led to the disappearance of Betty and Mary.
Subsequently, a priest finds the missing Betty and Mary in a ravine in the black quarter.
However, the two lively and cute little girls who were bouncing around had now become two cold corpses.
After examination, the police found that both men had wounds on their heads caused by blunt objects. Due to the excessive force of the blow, the skull was broken into several pieces.
Police also found that Betty, 11, had been assaulted before her death.
Since George's home was near the ravine where the body was found, witnesses came forward to say they saw George and Betty talking yesterday. The police named George as the prime suspect and took him to the police station for interrogation.
George Stenay
Normal interrogation should be based on evidence to draw the result of whether the suspect is guilty or not. Absurdly, however, George's interrogation began with his guilt, looking for evidence to prove it.
At the time, the already strained relationship between whites and blacks became even more strained by the murder. Upon hearing that two white girls had been violated and killed by "lowly" blacks, the local white people, despite the fact that the truth was undecided, unilaterally identified George as the murderer. Furious, they rushed to the police station, shouting that they would kill George with their own hands and hang him alive.
Under the influence of public anger, the police rushed to close the case and rushed to launch a "murderer" to meet the anger of the people.
Therefore, the police ignored the doubts and determined that George was the murderer of Betty and Mary.
The priest who found the body had pointed out to the police that there was very little blood in the place where the body was found, that the body should have been carried, and that the ravine was probably not the scene of the murder.
The forensic examiner also pointed out that no skin tissue or clothing fibers were found in Betty and Mary's nails. Moreover, the fatal wounds on the back of Betty and Mary's heads were caused by the vigorous swing of the heavy weapon, and the thin and small George did not seem to have such a huge strength.
However, the police ignored all these suspicions, and they launched a series of evidence based on the result that "George is the murderer".
George
Someone pointed out with conclusive evidence: "George is a violent person, he just scratched the face of a female classmate at school a few days ago, and his blood is full of sin." ”
Someone else said, "George fought with people at both ends for three days, and this time he must have wanted to have a relationship with Betty and was resisted, so he killed Betty and Mary fiercely." ”
Based on these rumors, the police determined that George had a criminal mentality and met the conditions for committing the crime.
During a search of George's home, police found a 4.5-meter rail nail. The track nail, which George had picked up and collected, was identified by the police as a tool for committing the crime.
Iron track nails
After less than an hour of interrogation, a policeman named Newman claimed to have obtained George's confession, and george's murder was widely informed to the public.
But in fact, from the beginning to the end, George never issued a written confession, except for the helpless verbal admission when he was lured by Newman to "admit that he had something to eat", George insisted from beginning to end that he was wronged and did not kill anyone.
However, under the concept of racial discrimination, driven by public opinion, and wrapped in anger, no one wants to listen to George's grievances.
The white people don't listen, the white police don't listen, the white lawyers and judges don't listen.
George fingerprints
George is executed in an electric chair, and a diary uncovers the truth of the wrongful conviction
George became a recognized murderer, his father was fired from the factory, his family was deported, and he spent his hardest month in a cramped cell 160 miles from home.
On April 24, 14-year-old George was put on a public trial.
At the age of 14, he is still a teenager protected by the Protection of Minors Act in China, but in the laws of South Carolina, the 14-year-old is already an adult.
In the trial courtroom, whether it was the judge, the jurors or the lawyers that George's parents had painstakingly hired, they were all white. They surrounded george, black and skinny, and in less than 10 minutes the trial was completed, sentencing george to death.
In order to get the white lawyer who did not prove or defend the whole time, George's parents spent all their savings and owed a bunch of debts. Therefore, when George was sentenced to death, they could no longer afford to pay the high cost of appeal and could only abandon the appeal in tears and despair.
On June 16, George, dressed in a prison uniform and holding a Bible, was escorted by the executioners to the execution room to execute the death penalty in an electric chair.
George (2nd from left)
The electric chair death penalty is a very cruel punishment, usually prepared for the most vicious criminals. On that day, the electric chair designed for adults welcomed a thin and small 14-year-old teenager.
At the time, George was 155 tall and weighed 40 kilograms. So when he was thrown into the electric chair, the executioners found that he could not even reach the helmet on his head.
George's face was filled with tears of horror, and he cried and said: I did not kill them, I did not kill them.
He clutched the Bible in his arms, begging for God's mercy, hearing his grievances, and getting him out of this terrible chair.
However, God did not hear His begging.
The Bible in George's arms was removed from the mat under his ass by the executioner, allowing his head to reach the executioner's hood. However, even if the hood was touched, the mask on his face was still too large for George.
At the beginning of the execution, as soon as the 5380 volt voltage was turned on, the mask slipped from George's face due to excessive size, and George's face was covered with tears of panic. The executioners had to suspend the execution and put on George's mask again.
The second execution began, and the mask slipped off again. This time, the executioners did not stop the power supply. Four minutes later, George, the youngest death row inmate in American history, a 14-year-old black teenager, died in horror and pain.
Stills from the George case adaptation of the film
George was dead, the case was closed, and the angry white people were satisfied, clapping their hands and praising justice, saying that George deserved it.
However, in fact, this suspicious case, which has been identified as "ironclad", is also doubtful by many people.
The victim's sister once mentioned in an interview with reporters that although everyone in the society at that time generally believed that George was the murderer, there was actually not enough evidence to prove this.
She said everything had become ridiculous since George was listed as a suspect, and that even if George was to be executed, it would have been after the evidence had been perfected.
By 1988, the American writer David Stott had written a novel called Carolina's Secret, which was based on George's case.
David Stott looks at the whole case from the perspective of an author, making bold conjectures and artistic creations about the various doubts of the case.
Movie stills
As soon as this novel was released, it caused a great sensation in society, and naturally, the George case also attracted the review and attention of many people.
After a detailed understanding of the case, many people felt very absurd, and they raised several major questions:
Why was the interrogation conducted in secret?
Did the interrogation police act of coercion and deception?
Why are all the trial courts white?
In the case of imperfect human and physical evidence, George was hastily sentenced, is the punishment process really reasonable and legal?
In the face of such doubts, the police, judges, and jurors of that year all pretended to be deaf and dumb and did not respond.
In 2004, George's family appealed the George case, but it was not taken seriously. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that the discovery of a diary finally revealed the truth of the case.
A dying confession diary was inadvertently discovered by a local resident, in which the deceased white resident detailed the entire process of killing Betty and Mary and throwing their bodies into a ditch near George's house.
What is even more shocking is that the relatives of the white residents were among those who tried George that year.
The discovery of the diary caused an uproar in society, the fact that George was wrongfully killed was clear, and the police had to stand up and re-investigate. But it's clear that they're not willing to admit their mistakes. As a result, the investigation of the case was very slow, and George's snow was also delayed.
It was not until December 17, 2014, 70 years after George's wrongful killing, that his rehabilitative verdict was officially heard.
In court, George's younger siblings, who were forced not to appear in court, finally sat on the witness stand to testify for George in their old age. After the trial, the court acquitted George!
George's siblings are in court
70 years of grievances, the end of the snow!
This justice, this justice, came too late and too late.
The 14-year-old boy, george who died in horror, pain and despair, had long since turned into a dead bone, a piece of yellow earth.
Summary and Reflection:
The diversity of species, the diversity of skin color, this is the honorary sign of the prosperity of human beings on the earth, but in the eyes of some people with prejudice and arrogance, different people with different skin colors have become a distinction between noble and low, which is very absurd and ridiculous.
It is because of these inherent prejudices and discrimination that they are rude, they are irrational, and they cruelly kill an innocent 14-year-old in disregard of the facts.
Ridiculous, deplorable, pathetic!
In fact, as early as 1964, the United States passed the Civil Rights Act, which legally abolished apartheid. However, legal justice does not lead to inner justice, and racism has always been a deep-seated belief in the minds of many Americans.
This country, which claims to be a "beacon of global freedom", a country that declares in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal", still has a long way to go to achieve racial equality.