Name Ronald Wolfe | ||
Ronald Wolfe was the last person executed in the United States for non-homicidal rape, and second-to-last put to death for crime other than murder (the last was James Coburn, electrocuted in Alabama the same year for robbery). He was also second-to-last person executed in Missouri before the U.S. moratorium on capital punishment.
Wolfe, a 34-year-old man, was put to death in Missouri's gas chamber on May 8, 1964. He was convicted of brutal attack of an 8-year-old girl on October 18, 1959 near Troy, Missouri, just 3 days after his release from the federal penitentiary in Georgia.
Wolfe's case drew nationwide attention due to United States Supreme Court ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana, which banned death penalty for child rape, and was directly cited in court opinions.