John A. Bennett

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Arthur Bennett
Born(1935-04-10)April 10, 1935
Virginia, U.S.
DiedApril 13, 1961(1961-04-13) (aged 26)
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S.
Buried
Fort Leavenworth Military Prison Cemetery
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S.
AllegianceUnited States of America
Service/branchSeal of the United States Department of War.png United States Army
Years of service1953–1955
RankPrivate (E-1)
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Criminal statusExecuted (April 13, 1961; 60 years ago (1961-04-13))
Conviction(s)First degree child rape, attempted first degree murder
Criminal penaltyDeath

John Arthur Bennett (April 10, 1935 – April 13, 1961) was an United States Army soldier who remains the last person to be executed after a court-martial by the United States Armed Forces.[1] The 19-year-old African-American private was convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl in Austria.[2] Despite last minute appeals for clemency and pleads to President John F. Kennedy by the victim[a] and her family to spare his life, he was hanged at Fort Leavenworth in 1961.

Early life[]

Bennett was the fourth of eight children born to a family of sharecroppers in Chatham, Virginia.[3] His schooling finished in the fourth grade. Despite being epileptic, he managed to enlist in the U.S. Army when he was 18.[2]

Military career[]

Although he dropped out of the Ordnance Corps for academic deficiency, he became an ammunition handler and a truck driver with the US Army's 11th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion (11th AAA Battalion) at Camp Roeder near Salzburg in Austria.[3][4]

Crime and court-martial[]

In 1954, just days before Christmas, a heavily intoxicated Bennett left Camp Roeder to find a brothel.[1] Witnesses reported seeing him wandering around, entering random civilian homes asking for a girl (or according to some, for a woman) named Margaret or Margot.[5] He even entered one house asking the local occupants if they had chickens. Later that evening, at Siezenheim, he met an 11-year-old girl returning from an errand for her parents. In a confession he gave to US Army MPs, he said:

I walked part way into the field with her and then I carried her the rest of the way about 25 yards. She appeared as though she wanted to go with me. The reason I carried her was because we were too near the road and I wanted to go further into the field. I sat her down in the field . . . I laid down on top of her then and inserted my penis into her vagina. My penis was too big for her vagina and she started kicking. I put my hands under her buttocks and forced my penis into her vagina the rest of the way. I had intercourse with her for about 5 minutes. She screamed twice . . . I didn't hit her, slap her or anything like that. After we started to have intercourse she tried to get up but she wasn't strong enough . . . and I laid on top of her because I was enjoying the intercourse. I wish to state that I did not force her at all.[5]

Although Bennett had repeatedly raped the girl before strangling her and dumping her body in a stream, the child survived. An American officer and his wife testified that she came to their home pleading for help. She was in a disheveled state, wet and dirty, with blood on her legs. When asked what happened, she responded, “a Negro had choked me.” Later, while the victim was being cleaned up, she stated that the man had taken off her underwear and stuck something in her. Bennett was arrested by MPs at the base movie theater a few hours later.

Bennett was tried at a general court-martial at the Lehener Kaserne, the former military barracks of the 59th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial-Royal Landwehr in Salzburg, on February 8, 1955.[3] The military court heard medical testimony from a doctor who examined the victim at the officer's home, and another who saw her later that day at the nearby hospital. Both agreed she had been sexually assaulted.[1]

A month later the court-martial found Bennett guilty of First Degree Child Rape and Attempted First Degree Murder; he was sentenced to death. The death sentence was upheld by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 2, 1957.[3]

Execution[]

After his sentence was stayed two times by lower courts, the United States district court in Kansas overturned the rulings on appeal in 1960. On February 27, 1961, the newly appointed Secretary of the Army Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr. ordered that the sentence should be carried out.[2] Days before Bennett's scheduled execution, the victim and her parents wrote to President John F. Kennedy, asking for clemency for Bennett. Kennedy took no action on the appeals and let Eisenhower's death warrant stand.[2] Bennett was hanged at United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on April 13, 1961.[2] As of 2021, he remains the last person to be executed following a United States Armed Force court-martial.[1]

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ The victim was 18 years old by the time of Bennett's execution

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Reid, Tim (April 30, 2005). "Private was hanged in 1961 for raping girl". The Times. London. Retrieved May 6, 2010. Days before Christmas 1954, and very drunk, Bennett crossed a field searching for a brothel outside his army base. Instead he came to a group of private homes before finding an 11-year-old local girl, who was returning home from Christmas shopping.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Serrano, Richard A. (July 12, 1994). "Last Soldier to Die at Leavenworth Hanged in an April Storm". Los Angeles Times. p. 14. Retrieved October 1, 2008.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Pvt John Arthur Bennett". www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  4. ^ "11th AAA Battalion (AW) (SP)". www.usarmygermany.com. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b "United States v.Bennett, 21 C.M.R. 223, 228 (C.M.A. 1956)" (PDF).

External links[]

Retrieved from ""