Seven More Messed-Up American Executions

Part 2 of 3: 1900–1936

The hanging of Rainey Bethia in Owensboro, Kentucky, August, 1936. It was the last public execution in America. AP File photo.

Tom Horn, Nov. 20, 1903

A vengeful and crooked Deputy Marshall in Cheyenne, Wyoming seemed to have a real problem with Tom Horn, an Army scout who had gained some infamy when Geronimo surrendered to his party in 1886. When 14-year-old Willie Nickell, the son of a prominent Laramie County sheep rancher, was found shot…