Jim West
Jim West was a Black man held in the Shelby County jail in Shelbyville, Kentucky. Early on Sunday, January 15, 1911, about fifty masked men took him and two other Black men from the jail, and a newspaper report said the deputy jailer hid the keys before handing them over to the mob's leaders. Accounts of how he died differ: one report said a rope broke and that he and Wade Patterson were shot many times, while others said he was hanged, and when the reports were written his body had not been found and a rumor said he had been burned. A special grand jury was investigating the lynching.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched (neglect alleged). A mob took Jim West from the Shelby County jail in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in January 1911, and the deputy jailer, Ernest Hornback, said he hid the keys before handing them over to the mob leaders.
Reported by: Ernest Hornback, Deputy Jailer (the agency that held him); Associated Press (reporters).