Ready Reference Files

Lynching in San Jose, California

In 1933, in San Jose, Califonia, a young man named Brooke Hart was abducted while leaving his father's department store.

Brooke Hart was the 22-year-old son of Alex Hart, owner of San Jose's second largest department store. A recent graduate of Santa Clara University, he had just been made a junior partner in the store.

On the evening of Brooke's disappearance, the Hart family received two calls from the kidnappers demanding $40,000.00 in ransom. The two kidnappers, who murdered Hart soon after the abduction, were apprehended and jailed awaiting trial. While the criminals were being held at the County jail, a band of vigilantes stormed the jail and hanged the pair of kidnappers in the town square, while ten thousand citizens watched. Accounts of the incident can be found in:

• Farrell, Harry. Swift Justice: Murder and Vengeance in a California Town. St. Martin's, New York, 1992. (364.1523 F24)

• Mystery Writers of America. The Quality of Murder: Three Hundred Years of True Crime. Dutton, New York, 1962. "The Patriotic Justice of San Jose", by Miriam Allen deFord. pp.118-127. (364.1 M99)

• A fictionalized version of the incident can be found in the novel Ministers of Vengeance, by Robert E. Conot. Lippincott, 1964.

Verified by: GM, 7/98

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While the Library has verified the information presented in these files in what it considers to be reliable and authoritative sources, it cannot take responsibility for nor guarantee the accuracy of the information presented.