Brooke Hart
American heir and murder victim
Died when: 22 years 151 days (268 months)Star Sign: Gemini
Brooke Hart (June 11, 1911 – November 9, 1933) was the eldest son of Alexander Hart, the owner of the L.Hart & Son department store in downtown San Jose, California, United States.
His kidnapping and murder were heavily publicized, and the subsequent lynching of his alleged murderers, Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M.
Holmes, sparked widespread political debate.The lynchings were carried out by a mob of San Jose citizens in St.James Park across from the Santa Clara County Jail, and were broadcast as a "live" event by a Los Angeles radio station.
The killings of the suspects were tacitly endorsed by Governor James Rolph Jr., who said he would pardon anyone convicted of the lynching.
Scores of reporters, photographers, and newsreel camera operators, along with an estimated 3,000 to 10,000 men, women, and children, were witness to it.
When newspapers published photos, identifiable faces were deliberately smudged so that they remained anonymous; the following Monday, local newspapers published 1.2 million copies, twice the normal daily production.
This incident is sometimes referred to as "the last lynching in California", although Clyde Johnson was lynched near Yreka in August 1935, and the last true California lynching is said to have occurred on January 6, 1947, in Callahan, but the name of the victim has never been released and the event cannot be confirmed in any printed news publications.
