RABUN CO., GA - NEWSPAPERS - Murder of Arizona Moore and Leona Moore
                             1896

Submitted by Betty Edmonds (bettylee_98@hotmail.com), April 11, 2002

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The Toccoa Times, Friday, Jan. 3 1896
Keener will hang.
Monday night Judge Kimsey re-sentenced Seymour Keener, the Rabun 
County Murderer, who shot and killed his two pretty young lady 
cousins last spring. The date of the execution is set for Friday 
Jan. 17th, next week, when Keener will expiate (?) his terrible 
crime upon the gallows. The hanging will be conducted in private 
according to law at the jail in Clayton. --Cleveland Progress 



The Toccoa Times, Wed., Jan. 15 1896
Keener Respirated
Sheriff Dockins of Rabun County was in Town Today and reports that 
Gov. Atkinson has respirated for 30 days, W.S. Keener, the murderer 
of the Moore sisters in that county last summer, with one of which 
he was in love. He was to have been hung next Friday. Keener is to 
be tried by a lunacy board next week at Gainsville it is predicted 
that he will never hang.



The Toccoa Times, Feb. 12 1896
He is sane
The jury in the Keener case at Clayton last Wed. decided that 
Keener is sane and unless the Gov. takes a hand in it he will be 
hung next Friday.



The Toccoa Times
Keener Swings
Executed at Clayton for the murder of his cousins, Seymour Keener 
who killed the girl he loved and her sister too, one pleasant 
summer afternoon in 1895, had his neck broken on a scaffold at 
Clayton Friday, the Death sentance was imposed by the jury of Rabun 
Co. Superior Court a few months after the sweetest, pleasantest, 
and most popular young ladies of the County died in a grove near 
their home from pistol shot wounds inflicted by Keener. It was Miss 
Arizona Moore and Miss Leona Moore both Cousins of Keener whose 
tragic deaths caused the hanging. And it was the first legal 
execution the county has ever known. The death warrant was read by 
the Sheriff in the prsence of a half dozen persons. Keener never 
flinched as he heard the words of the law which he was to die. At 
12:30 He was called from his cell and escorted to the Gallows which 
had been erected in the enclosure. He walked with a steady step and 
went up the short stairway without a sign of the slightest emotion. 
He was stolid and apparently indifferent as the sheriff concluded 
reading the warrant. He laid out on the prison cot a new suit of 
clothes and underwear etc. At 1:14 o'clock the trap waf (?) sprung 
and Keener went down, the fall breaking his neck. 24 minutes later 
doctors pronounced him dead.



[Note from contributor: I found this quite by accident and wanted 
to share it. These people are not related to me and I know nothing 
more than what I posted above.]