Introduction
John Arthur Bennett (April 10, 1935 – April 13, 1961) was a United States Army soldier who was convicted and executed for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Austrian girl. As of 2016, he is the last person to have been executed by the U.S. military after court-martial.
Biography
Bennett was born in Virginia to a family of African-American sharecroppers. He was epileptic, but managed to enlist in the U.S. Army when he was 18. Days before Christmas 1954, a heavily intoxicated Bennett left his base to find a brothel, but chanced upon an 11-year-old Austrian girl. He raped her in a meadow and tried to drown her. He was soon arrested, tried and convicted by a court-martial of First Degree Child Rape and Attempted First Degree Murder one month later and sentenced to death four times. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Bennett's death warrant. Days before Bennett's scheduled execution four years later, the victim and her parents wrote to President John F. Kennedy, asking that Bennett's life be spared. Kennedy took no action on the appeals, letting his predecessor's death warrant stand. Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1961.