The lynching of Marie Thompson of Shepherdsville took place in the early morning on June 15, 1904, in Lebanon Junction, Bullitt County, Kentucky, for her killing of John Irvin, a white landowner.
Marie Thompson was a black sharecropper who worked on land owned by John Irvin, a white man.
Irvin began to accuse the boy of stealing the pliers, verbally berating him, and kicked him several times in the back.
[1] One man used a sledgehammer to beat at the large padlock keeping a heavy iron bar in place across the door of the jail.
[2] After the white County Sheriff and his deputies promised to protect Thompson if the mob returned, the group of black people dispersed.
Meeting no response from law enforcement, they took Marie Thompson from her cell, dragging her by a rope tied around her neck, and tried to hang her from a tree in the jail yard.
[1][page needed] Thompson quickly twisted her body around, grabbed hold of one of the lynchers by the collar, snagged his knife, and cut the hemp rope.
"[4] Thompson's defense showed that black families at the turn of the century South were still prepared to protect their own from offenses by whites.
The Lexington Herald published on 8 September, 1905, states on page five that Thompson stood trial and was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary.
Having betrayed the promise to protect Marie Thompson, the Sheriff and his deputies, and the whites in Lebanon Junction feared that local black people would seek revenge.