'THE LYNCHING OF CLEO WRIGHT'
This article comes from our electronic archive and has not been reviewed. It may contain glitches.
Monday, October 5, 1998
In January 1942, just a month after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a 25-year-old black man named Cleo Wright broke into a white woman's house in Sikeston at 1:30 a.m., ostensibly to commit rape. After coming through the window, he was surprised to find that his intended victim, Laverne Sturgeon, was not alone. The first person he encountered was her sister-in-law, Grace Sturgeon, who fought with Wright and was stabbed before he fled.
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