Will Lockett

Petrie Kimbrough (May 1888 – March 11, 1920), better known by his alias Will Lockett, was an American serial killer who killed three women and one girl between 1912 and 1920 in three states and tried to kill a woman in his native Kentucky. He was executed for killing 10-year-old Geneva Hardman, whom he killed by crushing her head with a stone. Lockett pleaded guilty to the crime, and admitted to three other murders before his execution.

The case is notable for the fact that the authorities used brute force to prevent white mobs from lynching Lockett, who was black. When a mob tried to storm the courthouse, the Kentucky National Guard and the state police opened fire on them, shooting over 50 people. Six people, including five members of the lynch mob, were killed. The Brooklyn Eagle remarked that the incident was "the first time south of Mason and Dixon's Line that any mob of this sort had actually met the volley fire of soldiers." When the mob returned, now with 10,000 people, they were confronted by over 1,200 U.S. Army soldiers armed with tanks and machine guns, and snipers, who had been requested by the governor. Brigadier General Francis C. Marshall declared martial law, secured the area, forced the mob to leave, enacted citywide censorship, and had military patrols guard various parts of the county, including the black districts.

Murder of Geneva Hardman and riots Geneva Hardman was a 10-year-old white schoolgirl who lived in Lexington, who became Kimbrough's last victim.

On February 9, 1920, riots erupted in Lexington, with lynch mobs numbering between 5,000 and 10,000 people trying to storm the courthouse and kill Lockett. However, they were prevented from reaching him when the police and National Guard opened fire, shooting more than 50 people. Rioters William Hiram Ethington, James D. Masengale, John Van Thomas, John M. Rogers, and Major L.M. King, and bystander Benjamin F. Carrier, were killed. The father of William Ethington, James Hiram, later complained that while the troops at the front, mostly teenagers with minimal experience, had fired over the heads of the rioters, the police officers and soldiers shooting from the upper floors of the courthouse had fired directly into the mobs. In a letter to the Lexington Herald-Leader, he complained that the soldiers and police didn't empathize with the mob.

"I can not thank those that shot from the window where the first shot came from. For every time a shot was fired I could see a man fall and they were killing men that did not have anything to protect themselves with and did not wish to hurt anyone but wanted to get that negro who murdered little Geneva Hardman. I think that if those men had taken it home to themselves and could have thought 'If it had been my little daughter that had been mangled up by a brute like that,' they certainly could not have killed the boys as they did."

The mob dispersed after the soldiers started firing machine guns into the air. The actions of the police and the Kentucky National Guard were praised by the NAACP, with W. E. B. Du Bois referring to the shootout as the "Second Battle of Lexington".

Fearful of prosecution, only 21 wounded rioters went to the hospital.

Marshall also attempted to have certain members of the crowd indicted for inciting the riot. A report said that most of the crowd were curious bystanders, but "there were undoubtedly among the crowd various men, mostly from other counties than Fayette, intent on lynching Lockett." Marshall handpicked jurors whom he knew would have no trouble convicting the rioters. However, the grand jury was discarded on the grounds that the indictments would be thrown out on constitutional grounds. A second grand jury was convened. It had secured testimony against some individuals guilty of inciting the crowd. However, on February 26, 1920, they concluded that handing down indictments with subsequent trials would "only tend to aggravate an already tense situation, engender more passion and bitter feelings in the County and State, and keep alive such as now exists."

On March 11, 1920, the day of his execution, Kimbrough barely showed any emotion as the black cap was lowered onto his face. Shortly thereafter, Collier, the prison executioner, turned on the electric current, which killed the prisoner within 15 seconds without a hitch. The execution was witnessed by Hardman's two brothers, 17 other civilians of Lexington, eight soldiers, and 12 prison guards. Kimbrough's body was buried in the prison cemetery.