The Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy was the murder of Solomon P. Sharp in 1825. Jereboam O. Beauchamps was the first person legally executed in the state of Kentucky. He was convicted of killing Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke. The couple attempted suicide by drinking laudanum shortly before the execution.
About Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy in brief
The Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy was the murder of Solomon P. Sharp in 1825. Jereboam O. Beauchamp was the first person legally executed in the state of Kentucky. He was convicted of killing Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke. The couple attempted suicide by drinking laudanum shortly before the execution. They stabbed themselves with a knife Anna had smuggled into the cell. Beauchamps was hanged before he could die of his stab wound. The tragedy served as the inspiration for numerous literary works, most notably Edgar Allan Poe’s unfinished Politian and Robert Penn Warren’s World Enough and Time. In accordance with their wishes, the couple’s bodies were positioned in an embrace when buried in the same coffin. The next day, Cooke resolved to kill Sharp herself. She sent a letter to Sharp, allegedly destined for Bowling Green, only to find that he was not there and that she was not expected to kill him. Sharp was killed by a shot to the head, and Cooke was acquitted of complicity in the murder for lack of evidence. In 1825, the state’s attorney general named Adair Adair as the official who had killed Sharp. The state’s current attorney general is the grandson of Adair, who was killed in the battle of Frankfort in 1824. The case is still being debated in the U.S. Supreme Court, where the jury is still deciding whether or not to indict Adair for the murder. The jury has yet to reach a verdict.
The verdict is expected to be decided in the next few months. The trial is scheduled for November 7, 1825 in Frankfort, Kentucky, and the verdict will be announced on November 8, 1826 in Louisville, Kentucky. The execution date has not yet been set, but it is expected that it will be in the early morning of November 9, 1827. The victim of the murder is believed to be Solomon Sharp, a member of Kentucky’s New Court party. The murder took place during the Old Court – New Court controversy in Kentucky in the late 1800s. The Old Court party claimed Sharp fathered an illegitimate child with Anna Cooke, a planter’s daughter. Sharp denied paternity of the stillborn child, and public opinion favored him. At least one Old Court partisan alleged that Sharp claimed the child was a mulatto, the son of a family slave. The New Court partisans insisted that the allegation was concocted to stir Beaucham’s anger and provoke him to murder. As the courtship progressed, Cooke told Beau champ that, before they could be married, he would have to killSharp. BeauChamp agreed to her request, expressing his own desire to dispatch Sharp. He traveled to Frankfort to meet Sharp to gain an audience with him. He had recently been appointed attorney general by Governor John John Adair. The two men met in Bowling Green and had a duel, but Sharp refused to accept a duel.
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This page is based on the article Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
