President Samuel K. Doe

The Late President Samuel K. Doe

Samuel Kanyon Doe (May 6, 1951 – September 9, 1990) was the 21st President of Liberia, serving from 1986 until his assassination in 1990. He had previously served as Chairman of the People's Redemption Council from 1980 to 1986. He was the first indigenous head of state in Liberian history.

Doe was a part of a rural tribe in inland Liberia. The Krahn are a minority ethnic group but part of the large majority of the Liberian population that are of indigenous descent. These groups faced economic and political domination by the Americo-Liberian elites, who were descended from freeborn and formerly enslaved blacks from America who founded Liberia in 1847. On April 12, 1980, Doe led a military coup, killing President William R. Tolbert, Jr., in the Executive Mansion. 

Many claim that Doe and some of his men disemboweled President Tolbert in his bed while he slept. Twenty-six of Tolbert's supporters were also killed in the fighting. Thirteen members of the Cabinet were publicly executed ten days later. Hundreds of government workers fled the country, while others were imprisoned

Charles Taylor, a former ally of Doe's, crossed into Liberia from Côte d'Ivoire on December 24, 1989, to fight a guerrilla war against him. Taylor had broken out of a United States jail after Doe had accused him of embezzlement. By mid-1990, most of Liberia was controlled by rebel factions. Doe was captured in Monrovia by faction leader Prince Y. Johnson on September 9, 1990, and tortured before being killed. The spectacle was videotaped and seen on news reports around the world. The video shows Johnson sipping a Budweiser as Doe's ear is cut off.

Samuel K. Doe, During the PRC Days