Ronald Lee Wolfe (September 3, 1930 – May 8, 1964) was the last person executed in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

for non-

homicidal ''Homicidal'' is a 1961 American horror-thriller film produced and directed by William Castle William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Orph ...

rape, and second-to-last put to death for crime other than murder (the last was

James Coburn James Harrison Coburn III (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American film and television actor who was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career.AllmoviBi ...

electrocuted Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coined ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

the same year for robbery). He was also second-to-last person executed in

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

before the U.S. moratorium on capital punishment.

Early life

Wolfe's mother disappeared when he was two weeks old and his father disappeared when he was 6 years old. He lived with his grandparents in his earlier years.

Crime, trial, and execution

Wolfe, a 33-year-old man, was put to death in

's gas chamber on May 8, 1964. He was convicted of brutal attack of an 8-year-old girl on October 18, 1959, near Troy, Missouri, just three days after his release from the federal penitentiary in Georgia for a car theft charge. Wolfe lured the girl away from a carnival with a candy bar.

"The evidence was such as to have warranted the jury in finding the salient facts to be that about 7:30 p. m., on the evening in question, defendant, by using a candy bar, lured the child into the car he was driving, and away from the Sacred Heart Church's Fall Festival in Troy which she was attending with her parents and three sisters and a brother; he drove her some three miles into the country where he parked the car, and admittedly made repeated *12 unsuccessful attempts to ravish the child, and otherwise had shocking relations (short of penetration) with her; the car was thereafter parked within about a hundred feet of a farm house, one of the occupants of which, at about 8:30 p. m., heard the car's motor idling, and looked out the window where in the darkness she discerned an object moving away from the automobile and toward the house; upon investigation this was found to be the prosecutrix, who was taken into the home, and forthwith returned to her family at the church picnic in Troy. She was taken to a hospital at once and examined, and her condition as described by the examining physician was such as to dispel any doubt of the fact that there had been penetration and extensive damage to the affected part by tearing."

Wolfe's case drew nationwide attention once again in 2008 when the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruled in

Kennedy v. Louisiana ''Kennedy v. Louisiana'', 554 U.S. 407 (2008), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits imposing the death penalty for the rape of a chi ...

to ban the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

for child rape. The court directly cited Wolfe in court opinions.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfe, Ronald 1930 births 1964 deaths American people convicted of child sexual abuse American people convicted of rape 20th-century executions by Missouri 20th-century executions of American people People executed for rape People from Clarendon, New York People executed by Missouri by gas chamber