Nine Black men electrocuted on a single day, February 9, 1934, in Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas

3 NEGROES DIE IN TEXAS CHAIR

HUNTSVILLE, Feb. 9 –(AP) - A triple electrocution at the state penitentiary here early today ended the lives of three Dallas negroes, convicted of murder.

The first to enter the death chamber was Jesse Mott, a physical giant, given the extreme penalty for the hammer slaying of Jones Tatum, a white man at the Dallas filling station Tatum operated.

BROTHERS EXECUTED
After Mott was pronounced dead, Bluitt Burkley and his brother, Thurman Burkley, paid with their lives for the killing of a young white woman, Miss Katheryn Prince, near Dallas, last August.

All three negroes met their fate without flinching. Mott, fortified with a tremendous meal, said goodbye to inmates of death row and walked into the death chamber with a smile on his face. The Burkley brothers, who had turned to religion with almost fantatical devotion, seemed convinced they had “made peace with God” and were on their way to heaven.

PAIR MURDERED
Miss Prince and her escort, Nace Carver, parked at night on a country road near Dallas. A pair of negroes slipped up on them. Carver was taken into a nearby woods and shot. He died three weeks later of his wounds. The negroes took Miss Prince into a cotton field and, after abusing her, killed her.

Mott, who stood six feet two inches tall and weight [can’t read faded type, 2x0] pounds, set a record for a last meal at the penitentiary. Prison officials said he ordered and ate between 40 and 50 biscuits, a beef steak weighing two and a quarter pounds, a dozen fried eggs, plenty of gravy, half a gallon of ice cream and a center cut of ham, which he had placed atop the huge steak.

Five Negroes Die for Slaying

MONTGOMERY, Ala., Feb. 9 (AP) – Swiftly and with little talk five negroes paid for their lives today for killing four men and a “cheating negro woman.”

Bennie Foster of Selma, the first to die, entered the death cell at Kilby prison here at 12:05 a.m. (C.S.T.) and 45 minutes later the last of the five was dead.

Nine negroes originally were sentenced to die today. However, one died in prison, the sentences of two others were commuted and the ninth negro was granted a 30-day reprieve.

Arkansas Negro Dies in Chair
TUCKER PRISON FARM, Ark., Feb. 9 - (AP) – Benny Butler, negro, was electrocuted at the state prison farm at dawn today for the murder of a negro woman in Craighead county.

Another negro, Luther Dean Jackson, sentenced to death in the hold-up slaying of Phillip Winedecker, North Little Rock grocer, and scheduled to die with Butler today, received a 60-day stay of execution from Governor Futrell late last night.

The San Antonio Light, Friday February 9, 1934, p. 3-A

[These three stories appeared in the left-most column on the same page of the paper, above advertisements for Youthful Straws (hats) for $2 and $3 and Spring Frocks on sale for $5 and $10 at Frost’s Thrifty Style Shop, 2nd floor. Another insert advertised an All-Star Spring Dress offering for $15 at Frost Bros. itself.

A small item in the third left-most column reported “Clemency Granted 4 Texas Convicts” with a single sentence dated Austin, February 9. “Four state convicts were released today under clemencies granted by Governor Miriam A. Ferguson.” - vr]