This week in 1945

January 13th, 2013 by admin

“I have nothing to say except that I am innocent. It’s easier to convict a Negro than a white person. So long everybody.”

— Robert E. Folkes, convicted of murder, gas chamber, Oregon.
Executed January 5, 1945

Folkes, age twenty-three, was convicted of slashing a woman’s throat on a Southern Pacific train while working as a cook. The Associated Press described him as “the first condemned man to see the chamber,” as Folkes was the first prisoner to ever walk into the Oregon gas chamber without a blindfold on.

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