On this day in 1943, a South Carolina woman named Sue Logue was executed along with her brother-in-law, George Logue, and a down-on-his-luck plasterer named Clarence Bagwell. The Logues had hired Bagwell to kill their neighbor, who had previously killed Sue Logue’s husband over a feud concerning a dead calf.
What makes this story interesting is that before Sue Logue’s arrest, she had been having an affair with an Edgefield County school superintendent named Strom Thurmond. Yes, that Strom Thurmond. Logue was a teacher in Thurmond’s district, and rumor has it that the two had once been “caught in the act” in the future senator’s own office. When police surrounded Logue’s house to arrest her, Thurmond — by now a local judge — even intervened in the standoff to ensure that she came quietly (no pun intended).
What makes the story even more interesting is that before Logue was to be executed, Thurmond rode with her from the Columbia women’s penitentiary to the prison which housed Death Row, and even managed to “get it in” one last time before his mistress was executed.
From “Ol’ Strom: An Unauthorized Biography of Strom Thurmond“:
Randall Johnson, a black man who supervised “colored help” at the State House and often served as driver and messenger, drove Sue from the women’s penitentiary to the death house at the main penitentiary in Columbia. In the back seat with her, he said many years later, was Thurmond, then an Army officer on active duty. They were “a-huggin’ and a-kissin’ the whole day,” said Johnson, whom Thurmond later as governor considered a trusted driver… In whispered “graveyard talk” — the kind of stories not to be told outsiders — the word around SLED (State Law Enforcement Division) was that Joe Frank said his aunt Sue was the only person seduced on the way to the electric chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, South Carolina politics.
“The Logues had hired Bagwell to kill their neighbor” – Did the neighbor do the killing or was it prevented?
Ladies and gentlemen, South Carolina politics…when SC was controlled by Democrats, they mean (to leave out).
Are you seriously trying to compare segregationist Democrats from the 50s and early 60s with modern-day Democrats? You don’t know much about the history of our political parties, do you? Hint: Strom Thurmond was a Republican senator for 39 years, and ran as a third party candidate for president. Many of the Democrats from back then switched to Republican because of their opposition to the civil rights movement within the Democratic party.
Modern day Democrats are just as vicious and intolerant as the Democrats of the 50′s & 60′s…They’ve just changed the targets of their ire….
And, gee, notice how Strom stopped supporting segregation a couple of years after he joined the Republican Party in the mid-60s?
South Carolina politics, dude you should be giving ole Strom a thumbs up, all he wanted to do was keep other whities out of his stash. As Logan implied they came quietly. The man is dead, so is his willie, leave him alone.
Joe
Your Miss S.C. just lost to a Miss NY, a sympathetic recipient, and there is a POTUS that made a fool of the Catholic Church, enacted Heath care not affordable, and issuing gun control tomorrow, and you waste time writing about Strom T. garbage. Get a grip on reality.
What does the Miss America pageant have to do with South Carolina politics?
It is just as corrupt as you imply South Carolina politics as being. Dude follow the money. And while you following get your copy of
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf
and read it. Use both sides of your brain for a change.
Joe,
Miss NY was really from Alabama – Get over it
This is a pretty sick article, but I’m not surprised. He denied his black daughter publicly for years. Majority of SCs politics is old white dirty money. The only good he’s done was pass legislation on SCs interstate systems. SC shot themselves in the foot yrs ago by not allowing the state to grow business wise. NC is smoking y’all in the dust!
Strom Thurmond was a dog! Read the ‘real’ story!
Excellent goods from you, man. I’ve understand your stuff previous to and you are just extremely great. Lucas and Peyton http://www.plushycnfanclub.org/forum/read.php?tid=208075&displayMode=1