November 28, 1933, St. Joseph, Missouri a mob of white men attacked the Buchanan County jail where the sheriff was holding 18-year-old Black man Lloyd Warner for suspicion of assaulting a white woman.
As usually happened in the era the law arrested a Black man
and jailed him and word spread throughout the White community and they decided
to, “make this Black boy suffer” as leaders of the mob said.
While the Governor had sent in the National Guard apparently
the mob was still too large and armed for them or law enforcement to stop the
mob. The sheriff offered to surrender Warner if the mob would leave the jail
and his men alone, and they agreed. Warner had already gone on record with his
public defender that he was innocent this of course was irrelevant to the mob.
Sheriff Otto Theisen held off the mob for three and a half
hours, hiding Mr. Warner in a crawl space and denying he was in jail. He
was also the one to request aid from the governor and Missouri State Police.
According to new reports of the incident, the mob had also invaded the sheriff’s
home and ransacked it but fearing the mob would eventually break in and kill
the other 11 black men in the jail, Mr. Theisen gave Mr. Warner to the crowd.
The mob drug warner a few blocks and hung him from a tree, at
this time a crowd of 5,000 to 7,000 people were there to witness the execution.
For the bloodthirsty mob, the hanging was not brutal enough or quick enough as
they set Warner on fire while alive.
Eventually, after an investigation 8 men were suspected of the
crime, with former St, Joseph’s police John Zook charged but he was cleared of
charges, and no one else was ever charged even though there was a state police
investigation
Lucille Mitchell, who had at least four other children in
addition to Lloyd, was forced to bury her son with no funeral – "no
mourners, no ministers, and no flowers," in the words of a Black
undertaker. On January 15, 1934, she filed a lawsuit for $10,000 against the
United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company and the local sheriff for
permitting the mob to take possession of Lloyd and lynch him. However, there is
no evidence to suggest that her suit was successful.
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