Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976, three people have been executed in Kentucky.
Edward Lee Harper and Marco Allen Chapman both volunteered to be executed.
He had also confessed to her murder by strangling but the Commonwealth indicted him only on the rape charge since that was the only capital crime for which the penalty was public hanging.
It was to be the last public hanging in the United States; the execution was witnessed by thousands in downtown Owensboro.
The first person legally executed by the state of Kentucky was Jereboam O. Beauchamp who was hanged in 1826 for the murder of Solomon P. Sharp.