Betty Jean Owens (born 1940) is an African American woman who was brutally raped by four white men in Tallahassee, Florida in 1959. Her trial was significant in Florida, and the South as a whole, because the white men were given life sentences for their crimes. Prior to Owens' case, sentences of this severity had not been imposed in the South on white men accused of raping black women. For example, in the case of Recy Taylor, who was gang-raped by six white men in Alabama, the men were never found guilty of any charges and released from jail with minimal fines.