White woman who falsely accused the Groveland 4 of rape in Jim Crow-era South dies at 92.
Norma Padgett Upshaw alleged that the four men – Ernest Thomas, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin – sexually assaulted her in Groveland, Florida, about 30 miles west of Orlando, when she was 17. The group, later known as the “Groveland Four,” became a symbol of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Jim Crow-era Florida.
Padgett Upshaw died of natural causes on July 12 in Taylor County, Georgia, according to documents filed in Probate Court. The Washington Post was first to report her death.
There were doubts about Padgett Upshaw’s testimony from the beginning, but in the Jim Crow era, a jury convicted the men without evidence of a crime. Circuit Judge Heidi Davis in Lake County, Florida, issued in November 2021 granted the state permission to posthumously dismiss the charges against Thomas and Shepherd and overturned the convictions of Greenlee and Irvin.
In 2019, then-Florida Governor Ron DeSantis granted posthumous pardons to the Groveland Four.
“For seventy years, the history of these four men has been miswritten because they were convicted of crimes they did not commit. As I have said before, while there is a long road ahead, it is never too late to do the right thing,” DeSantis said in the statement at the time.
Padgett Upshaw claimed that her car broke down in Groveland on the night of July 16, 1949, and that the four men stopped and raped her.
After their arrest, Shepherd, Greenlee and Irvin were tortured until the police obtained confessions from two of them. Thomas managed to escape and was killed after a massive manhunt.
Greenlee received a life sentence.
Shepherd and Irvin were sentenced to death. While they were being transported from the county jail to face a new trial, the sheriff shot both of them, claiming they were acting in self-defense. Shepherd died at the scene, while Irvin survived by playing dead. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
After the trial, in which the judge officially rehabilitated the four men, Carol Greenlee, Greenlee’s daughter, appeared in front of the cameras at an emotional press conference.
“I will not hate, but love and embrace all those who did not know back then that my father was a caring and loving person who did not rape anyone. I stand here today to say thank you,” she said.
CNN’s Dianne Gallagher & Amir Vera contributed to this report.
The Groveland Four – including Charles Greenlee – were posthumously rehabilitated in a trial in 2021. After the rehabilitation, Greenlee’s daughter expressed gratitude to all those who did not know who her father really was during the trials.
