Jereboam Orville Beauchamp (; September 6, 1802 – July 7, 1826) was an American lawyer who murdered the Kentucky legislator Solomon P. Sharp; the crime is known as the Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy. In 1821, Sharp had been accused in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by Anna Cooke of fathering her illegitimate child; it was stillborn. Sharp denied paternity, and public opinion favored him. In 1824, Beauchamp married Cooke, who was seventeen years his senior. She asked him to kill Sharp to defend her honor.

When Sharp campaigned in 1825 for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives, opponents revived the story of his alleged illegitimate child by Cooke. They distributed campaign literature claiming the child was mulatto. Enraged, Beauchamp renewed his intention to avenge his wife's honor. In the early morning of November 7, 1825, he tricked Sharp into opening the door of his home in Frankfort, and fatally stabbed him.

Beauchamp was convicted of the murder and sentenced to hang. The morning of the execution, he and his wife attempted a double suicide by stabbing themselves with a knife she had smuggled into prison. She died from the attempt; he did not. Beauchamp was rushed to the gallows before he could bleed to death, and was hanged on July 7, 1826. The bodies of Jereboam and Anna Beauchamp were arranged in an embrace and buried in a single coffin, as they had requested. The Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy inspired fictional works such as Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished play, Politian, and Robert Penn Warren's World Enough and Time (1950).

Early life

Jereboam Beauchamp was born September 6, 1802, in the area that is now Simpson County, Kentucky. He was the second son of Thomas and Sally (Smithers) Beauchamp.

By age eighteen, Beauchamp had finished his preparatory studies. In 1820, Beauchamp became disenchanted with Sharp when rumors surfaced that he had fathered an illegitimate child with Anna Cooke, a planter's daughter who lived in Bowling Green. Sharp denied paternity of the child, which was stillborn. Beauchamp consented. Against Cooke's advice, Beauchamp traveled immediately to the capital of Frankfort, where Sharp had recently been appointed attorney general by the governor.

Challenges

According to Beauchamp's account, he found Sharp and challenged him to a duel, but Sharp refused because he was not armed. Wielding a knife, Beauchamp took out a second knife and offered it to Sharp, who again declined the challenge. When Beauchamp challenged him a third time, Sharp tried to flee, but Beauchamp caught him by the collar. Sharp fell to his knees and begged Beauchamp to spare his life. Beauchamp kicked him, cursed him for a coward, and threatened to horsewhip him until he agreed to a duel. The next day, Beauchamp looked for Sharp in the streets of Frankfort, but was told he had left for Bowling Green. He went to Bowling Green, only to learn that Sharp was not there. Finally he returned to the home of Anna Cooke.

Following Beauchamp's failed attempt, Cooke decided to lure Sharp to her house and kill him herself. Beauchamp wanted to take action to defend her honor, but she was determined to act for herself. He began teaching her to shoot a gun. Learning that Sharp was in Bowling Green, Cooke sent him a letter condemning Beauchamp's attempt on his life and asking to see him again. Sharp suspected a trap, but replied that he would meet her at the planned time. Hoping to kill Sharp before the meeting, Beauchamp traveled to Bowling Green, but found his target had already left for Frankfort. He had eluded the trap. Beauchamp decided to finish his legal studies in Bowling Green and wait for Sharp to return there.

Beauchamp was admitted to the bar in April 1823. He and Anna Cooke married in June 1824.

Murder of Solomon Sharp

In Frankfort in 1825, Sharp was in the middle of a bitter political battle known as the Old Court-New Court controversy. He identified with the New Court, or Relief party, which promoted a legislative agenda favorable to debtors. During the heated campaign, opponents raised the issue of his alleged seduction of Anna Cooke. Old Court partisan John U. Waring had handbills distributed that alleged that Sharp had denied paternity of Cooke's illegitimate child because it was a mulatto and likely fathered by a Cooke family slave. He would murder Sharp in the early morning of November 7, 1825, when the new legislature convened its session, as he hoped that suspicion would fall on Sharp's political enemies. Finding all the inns filled when he arrived at Frankfort, he took lodging at the residence of Joel Scott, warden of the state penitentiary. Between nine and ten o'clock that evening, Beauchamp went to Sharp's home. Dressed in disguise, he carried his usual clothes and buried them along the bank of the Kentucky River for retrieval following the murder.

Trial for murder

Beauchamp arrived in Frankfort on November 15, 1825. New Court partisans talked of Sharp's murder as the work of the Old Court party, just as Beauchamp had hoped. One suspect was Waring, who had printed the handbills critical of Sharp. People knew of Sharp's earlier alleged involvement with Anna Cooke before her marriage to Beauchamp. Witnesses placed Beauchamp in Frankfort the night of the killing, and his host, Joel Scott, said that he had heard Beauchamp leave the house during the night. Beauchamp's shoe did not match a track found outside Sharp's house the morning of the murder. (Beauchamp later claimed to have stolen and burned it after the posse had gone to sleep one night).

Several witnesses testified against him. The widow Eliza Sharp testified that the voice of the killer was distinct. A test was devised allowing Mrs. Sharp to hear Beauchamp's voice; she immediately identified it as that of the killer. (Beauchamp claimed he had disguised his voice on the night of the murder and thought Mrs. Sharp would not recognize it). Patrick Henry Darby, an Old Court partisan, claimed that in 1824, he had a chance encounter with the man he now knew as Beauchamp. Darby said the man – a stranger to him at the time – had asked for Darby's help in prosecuting an unspecified claim against Sharp. The man then identified himself as the husband of Anna Cooke and said he intended to kill Sharp. Based on the circumstantial evidence, Beauchamp was held for trial at the next term of the circuit court in March 1826.

thumb|upright|Former U.S. Senator John Pope was the lead counsel for Beauchamp's defense team

Beauchamp's uncle Jereboam assembled a legal team for his nephew that included former U.S. Senator John Pope. The grand jury convened in March and returned an indictment against Beauchamp for Sharp's murder. A jury was empaneled, and testimony began May 10. Darby said that Beauchamp had told him that Sharp offered him one thousand dollars, a slave girl, and of land if he and his wife Anna would leave him (Sharp) alone.

Testimony in the trial concluded on May 15, 1826; summations concluded four days later. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury deliberated only an hour before convicting Beauchamp of Sharp's murder. Beauchamp requested a stay of execution to write a justification for his actions.

Execution by hanging

While imprisoned and awaiting execution, Beauchamp wrote a confession. He accused Patrick Darby of perjury with regard to the alleged 1824 meeting between them. An Old Court supporter, the printer refused to publish it.

Anna Beauchamp joined her husband in his cell in the dungeon; the only entry was through a trap door at the top of the room. During their incarceration, they tried to bribe a guard into allowing them to escape. When that failed, they tried to pass a letter to Senator Beauchamp asking for help to escape, an attempt which likewise failed. Both survived. The following morning, Jereboam and Anna were put on suicide watch and threatened with separation. Anna was taken to a nearby house to be treated by doctors.

Too weak to stand or walk, Beauchamp was loaded onto a cart to be conveyed to the gallows. He begged to see Anna, but the guards told him she was not seriously injured. The guards finally allowed him to see Anna, and Beauchamp was angered that they had underplayed her critical condition. He stayed with her until he could no longer feel her pulse; then the guards took him to the gallows to be hanged before he died of his stab wounds.

Beauchamp asked to see Patrick Darby, who was among the assembled 5,000 spectators. Beauchamp smiled and offered his hand, but Darby declined the gesture. Beauchamp publicly denied that Darby had any involvement with Sharp's murder, but accused him of having lied about their 1824 meeting. Darby denied the death march accusation and tried to get Beauchamp to retract it, but the prisoner was moved on to the gallows.

thumb|left|Beauchamp was hanged for Sharp's murder

Two men supported Beauchamp as the noose was put around his neck. He asked for a drink of water, and the band to play "Bonaparte's Retreat from Moscow". At his signal, the cart moved out from under him, and he died after a brief struggle.

Senator Beauchamp eventually found a publisher for his nephew's Confession. The first printing ran on August 11, 1826. Sharp's brother, Dr. Leander Sharp, attempted to counter Beauchamp's Confession with Vindication of the Character of the late Col. Solomon P. Sharp, which he wrote in 1827. In this book, Dr. Sharp claimed to have seen a "first version" of the confession in which Beauchamp implicated Darby. Darby threatened to sue Dr. Sharp if he published Vindication, and John Waring threatened to kill him if he did so. Sharp did not release the manuscript and hid it in his house. The completed printed version was found in 1877 during a remodel of Sharp's house.

  • Robert Penn Warren's World Enough and Time was also inspired by them.