The Kaintuckeean

One hundred years ago today, Will Lockett was executed for the murder of Geneva Hardman. The execution took place at the State Penitentiary in Eddyville, which is the same place where executions are still conducted in Kentucky.

Electricity of Sufficient Intensity

Following the trial in the matter of Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Will Lockett, the clerk of the Fayette Circuit Court – John H. Carter – directed that the condemned “be conveyed as expeditiously, privately, and safely by the sheriff of Fayette County, to the state Penitentiary in the town of Eddyville, Kentucky.”

The directive further required that before sunrise on March 11, 1920, Lockett would be executed in the following manner. The warden (John B. Chilton) “shall cause to pass through the body of said defendant, a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause the death as quickly as possible, the application of which current shall be continued until the defendant is dead.”

A serial killer?

While in Eddyville, Will Lockett’s cell on death row was under the watchful eye of three soldiers sent by Governor Morrow. A manned machine gun was also set up at the penitentiary. Inside Lockett’s cell, however, the condemned seemed “more easy” and spent most of his day praying and reading the Bible. The Danville Advocate-Messenger reported on March 9, 1920, that Lockett wanted to “get right” before his execution and was even baptized by a minister from a black church in Eddyville right there in a “bathtub in the prison annex.”

At peace with himself in those final days before his execution, Will Lockett also confessed to other crimes. Lockett gave Warden Chilton a different identity: Petrie Kimbrough.

If Kimbrough was Lockett’s true identity, it is likely that he was born in May 1888 as the son of Charles and Tina Lockett (according to the the 1900 census). Lockett was married in 1914 and the newspaper announcement identified his parents then as Charles and Lena Lockett. A 1917 draft card utilizes a birthday in January 1887. If the same individual, it would seem that Kimbrough adopted the Lockett identity after leaving his childhood home in Christian County, Kentucky.

What did Lockett do to “get right”? He apparently confessed to the warden of having committed four murders. His other victims were

• Mrs. George Rogers, 40, of Carmi, Illinois in 1912
• Eliza Moorman, 25, of Evansville, Indiana in 1917
• Sallie Anderson Kraft, 55 of Camp Taylor, Kentucky, in 1919

The precise names and facts surrounding the crimes may have been hazy to Lockett as he confessed to them at the state penitentiary. Names, dates, and other details were imprecise. There were, however, stories and deaths related to three women which strongly paralleled these additional alleged victims. Although the similarities do exist, their mere existence does not confirm Lockett’s involvement in the deaths. Nor does it acquit him.

He did confess before his trial for the murder of Geneva Hardman and was sentenced to death. On March 11, 1920, Will Lockett became the thirty-second person to receive the death penalty in the electric chair at Eddyville (previously, executions were generally hangings in the county of the trial).

This post contains excerpts from Peter Brackney’s The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington’s Mob Riot of 1920 (The History Press, Charleston, SC: 2020).

For more information about the book or to schedule an event with the author, click here.

Who opened fire on the crowd outside the courthouse during the trial of Will Lockett on February 9, 1920? The melee killed six and injured many more. Answering that question was a question for a grand jury that was impaneled.

As Lexington was under martial law, the military governor of the city – General Francis Marshall – issues a proclamation ordering Judge Charles Kerr of the Fayette Circuit Court (the judge who presided over the Lockett trial) to “impanel a special grand jury … to investigate the occurrence on Monday … and the actions of those who resisted the authorities.” The grand jury convened on Saturday, February 14.

Twenty-four prominent citizens were selected to serve on this jury and from this pool, twelve were sworn. The makeup of the grand jury was wholly male, white, and well-connected. After being sworn in, the testimony of about twenty witnesses was heard. County Attorney Hogan Yancey advised the jurors that “if a man leads a mob and a death results (as was the case here), that man is guilty of murder in the first degree.”

After a week’s time, the jurors were all dismissed as there was “doubt as to whether the Jury Commissioners may select a special grand jury” which led toward a second grand jury being impaneled and ordered to assemble at the courthouse at 9:00 a.m. on February 21, 1920. To the hour, it was one week after the first grand jury had assembled and twelve days since the Lockett trial. During the entirety of this time, Lexington remained under martial law.

On February 22, 1920, the last of the federal troops left Lexington and martial law was lifted. Peace seeming to have been restored, the second grand jury returned no indictments recounting that the murder of Geneva Hardman “shocked the whole community” and that ultimately the issuance of indictments would “aggravate an already tense situation, engender more passion and bitter feelings in the county and State and keep alive such as now exists.”

This post contains excerpts from Peter Brackney’s The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington’s Mob Riot of 1920 (The History Press, Charleston, SC: 2020).

For more information about the book or to schedule an event with the author, click here.

Five score and one week ago, Geneva Hardman was killed on her way to school. Five days later, the confessed accused was convicted and sentenced to die. News of the killing, the trial, and the ensuing riot achieved national attention. As a result, correspondence from across the country (as well as locally) was directed to Geneva’s grieving family.

The family retained these letters over the decades that followed. Some were from relatives who had moved away and others were from complete strangers. One letter, in particular, stood out. It was written by Agnes Plummer of Providence, Rhode Island.

Ms. Plummer was a “friend unknown” to the Hardman family; she knew nothing of the family beyond that which she read in her newspaper. The envelope was addressed to: Mr. and Mrs. Hardman (Parents of little Geneva Hardman who was murdered by negro Lockett) c/o Lafayette County Court House, Lexington, Ky.

For those who have been following this centennial series, you will recall that Geneva’s father had died almost nine years earlier and that her mother had not remarried. Further, Lexington is located in Fayette (not Lafayette) County.

Inside the envelope, a typewritten letter encouraged “Mr. and Mrs. Hardman to go to “our Redeemer for consolation.” The religious prose in 69-year-old Agnes Plummer must have been a comfort to the Rhode Islander who herself was grieving from burying six of her own children.

Some of Plummer’s “heartfelt sympathy” was lost by her use of the typed form letter, which crossed out in pen any typewritten masculine identity of the victim. For example, a sentence from the letter from Plummer to Hardman read as follows: “And if you would but believe and be able to realize that if you could see your beloved son daughter in that supremely happy state of existence, you would not wish him her on the earth again,” where the italicized words were penciled in above the marked-out masculine terms.

This author’s assumption that the Plummer letter was a form letter was confirmed when I discovered an identical letter written eight years earlier included at length in Nita Gould’s book Remembering Ella about the 1912 murder of an 18-year-old woman in northwest Arkansas.

It was the only form letter in the mix. In The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington’s Mob Riot of 1920, I’ve included several of the letters received by the family in the wake of Geneva’s murder. Her school and church also passed resolutions expressing their condolences to the family.

Whether from those who knew Geneva Hardman and her family, or whether from “unknown friends” who simply learned of the events that transpired from newspaper accounts, there was an outpouring of support expressed to Mrs. Hardman and family during their time of tragedy.

This post contains excerpts from Peter Brackney’s The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington’s Mob Riot of 1920 (The History Press, Charleston, SC: 2020).

For more information about the book or to schedule an event with the author, click here.

Early on the morning of February 9, 2019, local authorities stretched a steel cable around the perimeter of the old Fayette County Courthouse in downtown Lexington. The day would result in a guilty verdict and a sentence of death against defendant Will Lockett, a man convicted in the killing of Geneva Hardman just five days earlier.

At about 1:15 in the early morning hours, Lockett was transported from the state capital, Frankfort, where the accused had been held awaiting trial. At 9:00 a.m., the trial in the matter of Commonwealth v. Will Lockett was called to order.

State and local authorities were assembled around the courthouse that morning. Inside, Judge Charles Kerr presided. The evening the crime was committed, the accused confessed his guilt. As a result, the jurors only determination would be one of sentencing. The question was whether Will Lockett would be executed for his crime or whether he would be sentenced to a life term of imprisonment.

Representing Lockett were two attorneys. While one of them, Samuel Wilson, was reading Lockett’s plea of mercy, gunshots rang out.

The shots were fired from outside the courthouse. Order was largely maintained inside the courtroom; the jury was instructed to deliberate and reach its finding without leaving the jury box. But outside, the guardsman and the assembled lynch mob exchanged in gunfire that resulted in many casualties including the deaths of six in the crowd.

With this state of lawlessness, the governor called for the presence of federal troops. By mid-afternoon, martial law was declared in Lexington, Kentucky, as federal troops planted on the courthouse lawn. Within minutes, the assembled crowd estimated at ten thousand strong was dispersed at the presence of federal troops with fixed bayonets marching down Main Street.

Lexington would remain under martial law for nearly two weeks.

This post contains excerpts from Peter Brackney’s The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington’s Mob Riot of 1920 (The History Press, Charleston, SC: 2020).

For more information about the book or to schedule an event with the author, click here.