The Boy Nevada Killed – Floyd Loveless and the Juvenile Capital Punishment Debate
At seventeen, Floyd Burton Loveless became the youngest person ever executed by the state of Nevada. What led him to that end was just as tragic. Following a series of family catastrophes, Loveless was a petty thief by age twelve and a confessed rapist at fifteen. Sentenced to seven years at an Indiana state boys' reformatory, he escaped after a month in custody.
The ruthless teen robbed his way to Carlin, Nevada, where he shot and killed a constable who spotted the stolen car he was driving and confronted him. After a long legal battle, Loveless died in the gas chamber on September 29, 1944.
About Janice Oberding (Reno, Nevada Author)
Nevadan Janice Oberding has written several books on Nevada’s history, true crime, ghosts and history, including The Boy Nevada Killed, Haunted Virginia City, Haunted Nevada, Infamous Reno, Ghosts of Goldfield and Tonopah. Haunted Reno, Haunted Lake Tahoe, the Haunting of Las Vegas.
She is an Odd Fellow, Yerba Buena #15, oldest lodge in San Francisco, a past docent at Nevada Historical Society and a past docent at Fourth Ward School in Virginia City. Janice taught the first ever online WebCT ghosthunting class at Great Basin College in Elko Nevada in 2001 and has taught such classes as Nevada’s History and Hauntings at Western Nevada Community College in Carson City and Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) in Reno, Nevada. In 2002 created Truckee Meadows Community College’s Paranormal Series which continues to this day and is still involved in that.
In 2001 she created History Mystery Ghost Walk (Biggest Little City Ghost Walk) in downtown Reno based on her book Infamous Reno. She has spoken about Nevada’s ghostly history throughout the USA. Aboard a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic during Hurricane Noel remains her most frightening speaking experience, although on this voyage she was able to spend Halloween night in the Bermuda Triangle, doing EVP sessions.