Norma Padgett, who as a young housewife falsely accused four black men of raping her near Groveland, Florida, in 1949, has died at 92.
Her claims propelled a seminal criminal case that helped change the course of race relations and social justice in Central Florida and the U.S.
Padgett’s July 12 death, first reported by The Washington Post, was confirmed by a spokesperson for the probate court in Taylor County, Georgia, where she passed.
Padgett, and her husband Willie, contended the men, who went on to be known as the Groveland Four, approached them on a dark stretch of road near Okahumpka, after the couple’s car had broken down on July 16, 1949.
The four men were at first helpful, and then hit Willie, took his wallet, and then took Padgett in their car and raped her in the backseat, she told police at the time.
Padgett, who was living in Georgia at the time of her death, kept quiet about the case besides court hearings for nearly 70 years, spoke at a hearing of the Florida Clemency Board in 2019 and defended her accusation.
“You all just don’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.”
The most dramatic moment of that hearing – in which the board granted pardons to the Groveland Four, who are all dead – Beverly Robinson, a cousin of Samuel Shepherd, turned to Padgett and declared “You all are liars.”
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