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Walter Holmes

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For the British communist journalist, see Walter Holmes (communist).

Walter Holmes (died April 29, 1932) was a murderer who was executed in Kentucky's electric chair.

Crime and arrest

Holmes, a black man originally from Chicago, Illinois, murdered a farmer, 55-year-old Thomas Tillery, on April 3, 1931, by shooting him with two accomplices, Walter Dewberry and Charles Rodgers. The trio had been on a crime spree across Kentucky committing a series of robberies and assaults in Louisville, Fulton County, and some sections of southern Illinois. When first apprehended, they tried to claim that the three of them committed a robbery while an unknown man fired the shot that murdered Tillery, but no such man was ever found, and only Holmes, Rodgers, and Dewberry went to court.

Trial

The trial began on April 28, 1931, amid great racial tension. Dewberry's black attorney was beaten by a mob that felt angered by Dewberry's choice of a black civil rights attorney over a white court-appointed attorney; Dewberry's attorney requested a change of venue because of the violent atmosphere, but this was denied, and on May 3, 1931, Holmes, Dewberry, and Rodgers all received death sentences for their crimes.

The executions of the three convicts were scheduled for April 29, 1932, but Dewberry was given a stay of execution, so on that date, only Holmes and Rodgers were executed.

Execution

Walter Holmes was 31 years old when he was executed on the same night as his accomplice, 23-year-old Charles Rodgers, and another man, 23-year-old A.B. Cooksey, who was put to death for a completely unrelated murder of Police Chief John Ashby from Madisonville. The executions took place in the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, where Kentucky's electric chair was located.

While Cooksey and Rodgers were described as having gone to their deaths calmly and without incidence, Holmes did not. The day before the execution, Holmes had caused trouble for prison staff; he stabbed a guard with a homemade knife. On the day of the execution, after Cooksey and Rodgers had been executed, when guards went to Holmes's cell to take him to the execution chamber, he threw water on them. Then he brandished an iron pipe that he had broken off of a water pipeline and threatened the guards with it. After 90 minutes, the warden ordered the guards to throw tear gas bombs at Holmes. After three were used, Holmes surrendered and left his cell, smoking a cigarette.

Dewberry was eventually executed in the same electric chair over a year later, on November 10, 1933.

References

  1. "Negro Fights Execution; Stands Off Armed Guard with Iron Bar". The Spokesman-Review. Associated Press. 29 April 1932. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  2. Reference 3
  3. "Hold Three for Murder and Robbery in KY". Indianapolis Recorder. 18 April 1931. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  4. Wright, George C. (1 March 1996). Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940: Lynchings, Mob Rule, and "Legal Lynchings". Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. pp. 276–277. ISBN 978-0807120736. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  5. "Negroes Given Death Penalty". Daily Illini. Associated Press. 2 May 1931. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  6. "Grim Drama at Legal Killing of Negro Convicts". Oshkosh Daily Northwestern. Associated Press. 29 April 1932. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  7. "Grim Drama Marks Deaths Three Negroes At Western State Prison In Kentucky". The Bristol News Bulletin. Associated Press. 29 April 1932. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  8. "Doomed Man Routed from Cell by Gas". Hattiesburg American. Associated Press. 29 April 1932. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  9. Reference 7
  10. Reference 1
  11. Reference 6
  12. Reference 4
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