Henry-Butts County GaArchives News.....Leonidas Johnson – The Rapist April 29 1884
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 May 1, 2004, 1:54 am

Middle Ga. Argus
Leonidas Johnson, the rapist of Henry County, was sentenced on last Wednesday 
by Judge J. D. Stewart in Henry Superior court to be hanged on Friday, May 
23rd.  This is another demonstration of the fact that criminals are to learn 
that justice will sooner or later be meted out to then.  We have all the time 
contended that this black devil should be hung, and now rejoice that the time 
is near at hand.

Middle Ga. Argus – Week of April 29, 1884
……………………………………………………………………………… 
Leonidas Johnson, the Henry county rapist was publicly hanged on Friday in the 
presence of an immense crowd variously estimated at from 5000 to 7000 people.  
He was taken from the county jail at 1125 and conveyed under a strong guard to 
the scaffold about four hundred yards north of the courthouse.  He was in good 
spirits and seemed not to realize the awful doom which so soon to meet him.  He 
walked up the steps to the platform of the scaffold with a firm step without a 
tremor and when asked if he had anything to say, arose and in a discordant 
manner, between many long pauses warned the people not to follow in his 
footsteps, saying that he was guilty of the crime for which he was to be hanged 
and was willing to die – that he was prepared to meet his God.  He called for a 
colored preacher named Davis who gave out a hymn and Johnson says in a clear 
voice after which Davis offered up a prayer.  At 1235 the black cap was placed 
over his head , his arms fastened behind him, the noose was placed around his 
neck, the trap door was knocked from under him and he swung off into eternity, 
without a friend to shed a tear over the vile wretch.  He died in thirteen 
minutes from strangulation and his body was turned over to Dr. Auten, of 
Atlanta, to whom he had sold it for the small sum of fifteen dollars.  Then the 
vilest wretch that ever blackened the annals of Georgia with crime met his just 
desert at the end of a rope.

Middle Ga. Argus - May 27, 1884

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