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April 19, 2025 16 mins
In this chilling episode, we unravel the tragic case of George Stinney, a 14-year-old boy wrongly convicted and executed in 1944. Discover the flaws in the justice system that led to this devastating miscarriage of justice, explore the racial prejudices that fueled the case, and learn how his story resonates with current conversations about equity and reform. Join us as we uncover the truth behind one of America's most haunting true crime stories. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Bloodstained Backstories. I'm your
host Jason and I'm your host Summer. Today's story is
about George Jonas Steiny Junior, who was an African American
boy born on October twenty first, nineteen twenty nine. At
the age of fourteen, he was wrongfully convicted and then

(00:20):
executed for the murders of two young girls. Let us
dig deeper into this sad case involving children and the
wrongful death and conviction of a child himself.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
In nineteen forty four. George Steiny stood five feet one
inch twelve and weighed ninety to ninety five pounds. He
lived in a small home that had a chicken coop
in Alcola, South Carolina. He lived with his mother and
father and three siblings.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
George's father worked at the town sawmill, and the family
resided in in company housing. Atrula was a small working
class town. The white and the black neighbors were separated
by the railroad tracks. Their interactions were limited between the
white and the blacks, and at this time, schools and
churches were still segregated.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
On Launch twenty third, nineteen forty four, the bodies of
Betty June, Binnaker and Mary Emma Thans were found on
the African American side of Alcolou in a ditch. The
girls failed to return home that night.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
George's father assisted in the search, and the girls had
died a horrible death. They were both beaten with the weapon,
which was reported to be a piece of blunt metal
or a railroad spike. They had both suffered blunt force trauma,
resulting in the penetration of both girls' skulls. The medical
examiner reported the wounds had been inflicted by a blunt

(01:48):
instrument with the round had about the size of a hammer.
The medical examiner also reported that there was no evidence
of sexual assault to the younger girls, but she did
how slight bruising to her genitalia.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
The girls were riding their bicycles looking for flowers when
last seen. As the girls rode past the Steiny home,
they stopped and asked George and assistant Amy if they
knew where to find maypops, a local name for passion flowers.
Amy stated she was with George at the time. The
police later established the murders.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Occurred on March twenty fourth. The Wire Service reported that
the sheriff announced the arrest of George Deny and stated
that the boy had confessed and led officers to a
hidden piece of iron. John, Georgie's older brother, and George
were arrested on suspicion of murdering the girls. John was

(02:43):
released by the police, but they held on to George.
He was fourteen years old and not allowed to see
his parents until after the trial and the conviction. The
arresting officer, who submitted a handwritten statement, stated, I arrested
a boy named George Steiny. He made a confession and
told me where to find a piece of iron. The
piece of iron was found about fifteen inches from where

(03:05):
he said he put in the ditch and about six
feet from the bicycle.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
In nineteen ninety five, George's seventh grade teacher, a black man,
spoke in an interview about George. The teacher recounted, I
remember the day he killed those children. He got into
a fight with a girl at school who was his neighbor.
In those days, you didn't have to worry about children
carrying guns and knives to school, but George carried a
little knife and he scratched his child with his knife.

(03:33):
I took him outside, and we went for a little
walk and I talked to him. We went back into
the school in a submissive way. He begged for the
child's pardon.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
George's sister, Amy, denied all those allegations and contacted the teacher.
She asked him why he would say something like that.
She stated, he told me someone paid him to say it,
and Amy did not know who paid him, but those
were his exact words, because they paid me. The teacher
died shortly after the interview was published.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Following George's arrest, his father was fired from his job
at the sawmill, and the family had to move immediately
out of their company housing. The family feared for their safety.
George's parents did not see him again before the trial.
George had no support In the eighty one days in
confinement and trial. George was held out of jail in Columbia,

(04:26):
which was about fifty miles from Alcolu. Due to the
risk of lynching, George was questioned alone without his parents
or an attorney. The Sixth Amendment guarantees legal counsel, although
this is not routinely observed until nineteen sixty three, when
the United States Supreme Court ruled that it is required

(04:47):
to have representation through the course of criminal proceedings.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
On April twenty fourth, nineteen forty four, the entire proceedings
against George, including the jury selection, would take place. George's
court appointed council, Charles Plowden, was a tax commissioner that
was running for election to a local office.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Clowdin did not question the three officers who testified that
George confessed to the two murders. He did not try
to defend George. Plowden also did not question the prosecutor's
presentation of two differing versions of George's verbal confession. In
one version, George was attacked by the girls after he
tried to help one of them that fell into a ditch,

(05:28):
and he killed them in self defense. In the other version,
it was stated he followed the girls, attacking Emma first,
then Betty June. There is no written record of George's
confession except for the sheriff's statement.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
The prosecution prosecutors called three witnesses other than the three
police officers. They were Reverend Batson, who found the bodies,
and two doctors who performed the post mortem examinations. Discussions
about the possibility of rape due to the bruising on
Dick Nickers Genet were allowed.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
George's council did not call any witnesses, did not cross
examine witnesses, and to top it all, off offered little
or even no defense. The trial's presentation lasted only two
and a half hours.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
No Black Americans were allowed in the courtroom, although there
were more than one thousand white Americans. George was tried
before a jury of all white jurors. The jury to
the braded for less than ten minutes, and they found
George guilty of murder. The judge sentenced George to death
by electrocution. There is no transcript of the trial and

(06:37):
no appeal was filed by George's council.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
George's family, churches, and the NAACP appealed to the governor
for clemency due to the age of George. Some police
came from whites with affirminations of white supremacy, but discomfort
at the prospect of someone so young being executed. Others
urged the governor to let the execution precede as planned,

(07:03):
which he did. He did visit George in the death
house two days before his execution on June fourteenth, The
governor wrote a response to one appeal for clemency by stating,
I have just talked with the officer who made the
arrest in this case. It may be interesting for you
to know that Steiny killed the smaller girl to rape

(07:24):
the larger one. Then he killed the larger girl and
raped her dead body. Twenty minutes later he returned and
attempted to rape her again, but her body was too cold.
All of this he admitted himself. It was reported that
these claims were not cooperated by the girls autopsy and
that they were really rumors.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
From the time of george arrest to his execution, his
parents were only able to see him one time after
the trial, while he was held at the Columbia Penitentiary.
They were not allowed to see him any other time
due to the threat of lynching. The execution of children
as younger sport was virtually unheard of in the United States.
Many sources say that George was the youngest person to

(08:07):
be executed in the US in the twentieth century.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
George was executed in nineteen forty four at seven thirty am.
A Bible had to be used as a booster seat
because George was too small for the chair. His arms, legs,
and bodies were restrained to the chair. An officer asked
George if he had any last words, but he only
shook his head and said.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
George broke into tears when the executioner pulled a strap
from the chair and put it over George's mouth. A
face mask was placed over George's face, which did not
fit him, and he continued sobbing. The mass slipped off
when the lethal electricity was applied, revealing tears streaming down

(08:52):
George's face. It was stated years later by a person
who witnessed the execution that it was just a rumor
that the hood slipt away, and that they did not
put a Bible underneath him. George was buried in an
unmarked grave at the Calvary Baptist Church cemetery in LeCount
South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
In two thousand and four. A local historian who grew
up in Alcoliu started researching the case after he read
a newspaper article about it. His research gained the attention
of a few lawyers and many other people who contributed
countless hours of research and reviewed the historical documents. They
found witnesses and evidence to assist in exonerating George.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
A few attorneys representing George's family filed a motion for
a new trial on October twenty fifth, twenty thirteen. If
we can get the case reopened, we can go to
the judge and say there wasn't any reason to convict
this child. There was no evidence to present to the journey,
there was no transcript. This case needs to be reopened.

(09:55):
This is an injustice that needs to be writed. I'm
pretty optimist that if we can get withinesses to come forward,
will be successful in court. We hopefully will have witnesses
that's going to say that non family, non relative witnesses,
who is going to be able to tie all this
in and say that they are basically alibi witnesses. They

(10:16):
were there with mister Steiny and this did not occur.
Stephen mackenzie, lawyer.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
It was stated in interviews there has been a person
that has been named as being the culprit who is
now deceased. It has been said by that person's family
that there was a deathbed confession. It was rumored that
the culprit came from a well known prominent white family.
Members or a member of that family served on the

(10:45):
initial coroners in Questuri, which had recommended George be prosecuted.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
In an amicus brief, it was stated, there is compelling
evidence that George Steiny was innocent of his crimes for
which he was executed in nineteen forty four. The prosecutor
relied almost exclusively on one piece of evidence to obtain
the conviction in this capital case, the unrecorded, unsigned confession
of a fourteen year old who was deprived counsel and

(11:13):
parnal guidance and whose defense lawyers Shokoli, who failed to
call witnesses or preserve his right to an appeal.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
In January twenty fourteen, new evidence included testimony by George's
siblings that he was with them at the time of
the murders. Reverend Francis Batson gave an affidavit that when
he found the girls, there was not much blood in
or around the ditch, suggesting that they may have been
killed elsewhere and moved to the ditch. Wilfrid Hunter, who

(11:44):
was in the prison with George, testified that the teenager
told him he had been made to confess and that
he always maintained his innocence.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
On December fourteenth, twenty fourteen. Rather than approving a new trial,
a circuit court judge vacated George's conviction. It was ruled
that he did not receive a fair trial and was
not effectively defended, and his sixth Amendment rights had been violated.
The judge also ruled that George's confession was likely coursed

(12:16):
and thus inadmissible. The judge found the execution of a
fourteen year old constituted cruel and unusual punishment. His attorney
failed to call witnesses order to preserve his right to
an appeal. In reference to the legal process, the judge
stated that no one could justify a fourteen year old

(12:36):
child charge tried and convicted and then executed, all within
eighty days. In essence, not much was done for this
child when his life lay in balance.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
George's family and civil rights activists celebrated the overturning of
George's conviction. The relatives of both the girls expressed disappointment
at the court's ruling. Knowledge that George's execution at the
age of fourteen is controversial, they never doubted his guilt.
A niece to one of the girls claimed that she
and her family have extensively researched the case and argues

(13:13):
that people read the articles on the newspaper and that
they do not know the truth. She also alleges that
in the early nineteen nineties, a police officer who arrested
George had contacted her and said, don't you ever believe
that that boy did not kill your aunt. The family
did agree that George did not receive a failed trial
and that he should not have received the death penalty.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Since George's exoneration, Georgie Burke Junior, the son of a
wealthy white businessman, has been the subject of speculation as
a possible suspect of the murders. Burke died two or
three years after the murders of the two girls. George's
mother had worked for the Burke family for a brief
period of time, and George's sister recalled her mother once

(13:57):
coming home, saying that Senior Burke had made advance chances
on her. George's father had warned their mother to no
longer go back, and George's sister claimed to have heard
that the Burke boys framed George because his month there
did not want to give it up. The Senior Burke
conducted an initial search for the girls, and was the

(14:17):
owner of the area behind the church where the girl's
body was found. He was also the foreman of the
grand jury that indicted George and has been accused of
helping steer the blame off his son and onto George.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
George's case has been often referred to in debate over
the use of the death penalty in the United States,
especially in arguments against the death penalty, due to the
common belief that George was innocent and wrongfully executed. Can
you just imagine though being arrested, tried, and executed within

(14:52):
eighty days, All within eighty days. Now it just takes
even years and years and years to even go to trial.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Shouldn't have happened without any evidence either, And the fact
that he was fourteen today, most fourteen year olds wouldn't
be executed. That's more of an adult sentence, So was
he tried as an adult without proper as a representation.
That's not fair to George's family either, And they didn't

(15:20):
receive any compensation after he was exonerated, which is also disturbing.
They lost their son, their name was dragged through the mud,
and then oops, sorry, we're wrong, and it's Okay, don't
worry about it. None of that is right in this case.
Let us know what you think about it, and it's

(15:43):
wrongfully convicted and overturned conviction after the fact that the
person was already dead. Thanks for tuning into Bloodstained Backstories.
Don't forget to follow us on social media to stay updated,
share your thoughts, and connect with fellow crime enthusiasts. You
can catch us anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts

(16:05):
on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or your go to platform, and
make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never
miss an episode. Join us next week as we uncover
another chilling case. Until then, stay safe and stay curious.
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