Norma Padgett, who as a fresh wife falsely accused four black people of raping her close Groveland, Florida, in 1949, has died at 92.
Her assertions sparked a groundbreaking legal case that altered how culture relations and social justice in Central Florida and the United States were handled.
Padgett’s July 12 dying, first reported by The Washington Post, was confirmed by a director for the probate court in Taylor County, Georgia, where she passed.
Padgett, and her husband Willie, contended the gentlemen, who went on to be known as the Groveland Four, approached them on a black stretch of road near Okahumpka, after the woman’s car had broken down on July 16, 1949.
The four people were at first useful, and subsequently hit Willie, took his bag, and therefore took Padgett in their vehicles and raped her in the back, she told police at the time.
At the time of her suicide, Padgett, who was residing in Georgia, kept silent about the event despite her roughly 70 years of experience. In 2019, she addressed a reading of the Florida Clemency Board and defended her claim.
” You all just do n’t know what kind of horror I’ve been through for all these many years”, she said, from her wheelchair. ” I’m begging you all not to give them pardon, because they done it”.
Beverly Robinson, a niece of Samuel Shepherd, turned to Padgett and said,” You all are liars. You all are liars. You all are liars,” which was the most dramatic moment of that reading, in which the committee granted clemency to the Groveland Four, who are all deceased.
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