Ronald Wolfe (rapist)
{{use mdy dates |date=December 2021}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name = Ronald Lee Wolfe
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1930|09|03}}
| birth_place = United States
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1964|05|08|1930|09|03}}
| death_place = Missouri State Penitentiary, Jefferson City, Missouri, U.S.
| death_cause = Execution by gas chamber
| criminal_status = Executed
| criminal_penalty = Death
| conviction = Rape
| other_names = Ward Jewel Hopkins
Albert John Strouse
Jewel Karvey Hopkins
| image = Ronald Wolfe.jpg
| caption = Wolfe on March 2, 1960
}}
Ronald Lee Wolfe (September 3, 1930 – May 8, 1964) was the last person executed in the United States for non-homicidal rape,{{cite web |url=http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/RAPE.htm |title=Rape Where Victim Lived |accessdate=2011-12-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090512175820/http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/RAPE.htm |archivedate=2009-05-12 }}{{Cite web |url=https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_child_rape |title=Court bans death penalty for child rape |agency=Associated Press |first=Mark |last=Sherman |access-date=2017-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720004435/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_child_rape |date=June 25, 2008 |archive-date=2008-07-20 |url-status=dead }} 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).{{Cite web |url=http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/NOT%20RAPE%20OR%20MURDER.htm |title=Executions Other Than Murder or Rape Related |access-date=2008-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080922232707/http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/NOT%20RAPE%20OR%20MURDER.htm |archive-date=2008-09-22 |url-status=dead }} He was also second-to-last person executed in Missouri before the U.S. moratorium on capital punishment.{{Cite web |url=http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/MISSOURI.htm |title=Missouri Executions |access-date=2008-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516202212/http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/MISSOURI.htm |archive-date=2008-05-16 |url-status=dead }}
Early life
Wolfe's mother disappeared when he was two weeks old and his father disappeared when he was 6 years old.{{Cite news |date=1964-05-11 |title=Wolfe life |pages=31 |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99961272/wolfe-life/ |access-date=2022-04-18}}{{Cite news |date=1963-11-24 |title=Wolfe life |pages=38 |work=Springfield Leader and Press |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99961740/wolfe-life/ |access-date=2022-04-18}} He lived with his grandparents in his earlier years.{{Cite news |date=1964-05-07 |title=Wolfe life |pages=6 |work=Moberly Monitor-Index |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99961842/wolfe-life/ |access-date=2022-04-18}}
Crime, trial, and execution
Wolfe, a 33-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 three days after his release from the federal penitentiary in Georgia for a car theft charge. Wolfe lured the girl away from a carnival with a candy bar.{{Cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OBMpAAAAIBAJ&pg=729,3361384|title=High Court Delays Execution of Ronald Wolfe |work=The Southeast Missourian |agency=Associated Press |date=February 16, 1961 |access-date=December 6, 2021 |via=news.google.com}}
"The evidence was such as to have warranted the jury in finding the salient facts to be that about 7:30 p. m., on the evening in question, defendant, by using a candy bar, lured the child into the car he was driving, and away from the Sacred Heart Church's Fall Festival in Troy which she was attending with her parents and three sisters and a brother; he drove her some three miles into the country where he parked the car, and admittedly made repeated *12 {{Cite web |title=State v. Wolfe |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/1961/48188-0.html |access-date=2023-03-30 |website=Justia Law |language=en}} unsuccessful attempts to ravish the child, and otherwise had shocking relations (short of penetration) with her; the car was thereafter parked within about a hundred feet of a farm house, one of the occupants of which, at about 8:30 p. m., heard the car's motor idling, and looked out the window where in the darkness she discerned an object moving away from the automobile and toward the house; upon investigation this was found to be the prosecutrix, who was taken into the home, and forthwith returned to her family at the church picnic in Troy. She was taken to a hospital at once and examined, and her condition as described by the examining physician was such as to dispel any doubt of the fact that there had been penetration and extensive damage to the affected part by tearing."Wolfe's case drew nationwide attention once again in 2008 when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy v. Louisiana to ban the death penalty for child rape. The court directly cited Wolfe in court opinions.{{cite web |url = http://www.thejusticecenter.org/cap/pdfs/JAfinal.pdf#page=5 |title = Joint Appendix, Kennedy v. Louisiana (Case 07-343) |publisher = Supreme Court of the United States |page = 3 |access-date = May 4, 2014 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161020053327/http://www.thejusticecenter.org/cap/pdfs/JAfinal.pdf#page=5 |archive-date = October 20, 2016 |url-status = dead }}
References
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Category:American people convicted of child sexual abuse
Category:American people convicted of rape
Category:20th-century executions by Missouri
Category:20th-century executions of American people
Category:People executed for rape