Death of Shedrick Thompson

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Shedrick Thompson, an African-American man from Fauquier County, Virginia, was 39 years old in 1932. In July of that year, his white neighbors and employers, Henry and Mamie Baxley, said Thompson attacked them—beat Henry, and allegedly raped and robbed Mamie. Thompson fled into the mountains as a huge manhunt began, with hundreds of volunteers, bloodhounds, and a $250 reward.

Two months later, his badly decomposed body was found hanging from a tree. Before a deputy sheriff could arrive, a mob burned the body and reportedly took Thompson’s teeth as souvenirs. The official verdict from the coroner was suicide, describing a method in which Thompson tied a rope to a tree limb and slid off the branch. Rumors spread that a lynching had occurred, but authorities denied it.

Many people doubted the suicide finding. Governor Harry F. Byrd Sr., who had pushed Virginia’s anti-lynching law in 1928, publicly defended the suicide verdict and urged that Thompson not be listed as a lynching. The coroner and a grand jury stuck with suicide, though some locals admitted after finding the body that they had helped burn it.

In 2016, journalist Jim Hall re-examined the case and published a book, The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia. Hall’s work helped bring renewed attention to Thompson’s death, and the Equal Justice Initiative added his name to its database of lynching victims. Thompson’s name is also inscribed on Fauquier County’s memorial to lynching victims at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

A 2018 documentary, The Other Side of Eden, features five people who say Thompson was lynched, reinforcing the claim that the case involved a racial killing rather than a suicide.

Thompson had served in the Army during World War I, training in Arkansas and fighting in France, before being honorably discharged. He had married and worked as a farmhand, and was the third of nine children of Fannie and Merrington Thompson. He grew up in Fauquier County, where the shadow of the case still lingers.