Black boy who was executed for murder of 2 white girls may be retried 70 years after his death

A 14-YEAR-OLD black boy who was executed for the murder of two white girls could be retried posthumously nearly 70 years after his death.

George Stinney

George Stinney was strapped to an electric chair in South Carolina in 1944 and was the youngest person to be put to death in the US over the past century.

He was accused of killing two girls, aged seven and 11. The teenager reportedly confessed and was convicted by an all-white jury in a trial lasting less than a day. There were no lengthy appeals and he was electrocuted 84 days after the crime took place. The request for a new trial includes sworn statements from two of Stinney's siblings who say he was with them on the day the girls were killed.

Stinney's now elderly sister, Annie Ruffner, who was seven at the time, said she and her brother were grazing their cow when the girls appeared and asked them where they could find maypop flowers. According to Mrs Ruffner, her brother told them he did not know – and the girls left.

The girls' bodies were found the next morning in a ditch. Stinney's confession and the transcript from the trial have since disappeared.

#Irish Independent