by Josh Levin
Records on the Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid came via the Illinois State Archives. Audio recordings of Ronald Reagan’s campaign speeches and radio addresses were acquired from the Hoover Institution. Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge was a tremendous resource on Reagan’s rise as a political figure, while Martin Gilens’s Why Americans Hate Welfare and the work of historian Julilly Kohler-Hausmann supplied crucial context on the history of public aid in the United States. George Bliss’s son Bill provided photographs and documents from the Bliss family archives, and the reporter’s colleagues—among them Bernard Judge, Bill Mullen, Chuck Neubauer, and Bill Recktenwald—offered sharp insights on his journalistic career. Patricia Parks’s family was exceedingly generous in sharing their memories of her life and death.
The material on Taylor’s life prior to the 1970s was based mostly on original reporting, with an emphasis on interviews, court files, and records attained through FOIA requests. The documents from the 1964 case in which Taylor attempted to win Lawrence Wakefield’s fortune—a trove that had been sealed for more than fifty years—were indispensable both in recreating that proceeding and in providing avenues of research into Taylor’s childhood in Tennessee and Arkansas in the 1920s and 1930s and her life in Washington State and California in the 1940s. Lawyer Norris Bishton was a key source for the events before, during, and after the Wakefield case. Taylor’s cousins Joan Shefferd, Betty Hudson, and Sarah Mooney Hankey shared photographs and stories that shed light on her early years. Her son Johnnie Harbaugh illuminated Taylor’s fraught relationships with her children. Taylor’s marriage to Paul Harbaugh was elucidated by court and military records, Veterans Administration documents procured via FOIA, and interviews with Paul’s widow, Jean Harbaugh. The narrative of Taylor’s relationship with the Moore family came from conversations with Avalon and Annie Mae Moore’s daughters Bobbie Moore Lanier, MaLoyce Bell, and Justine Oliver. Interviews and FBI and police records allowed me to describe Taylor’s history of both alleged and documented kidnappings.
After Taylor went to prison in 1978, she essentially dropped out of sight. I was able to track her movements in Florida and Illinois with the help of court records, documents from federal agencies, and interviews with those who crossed her path in the 1980s and 1990s. Information on her stint in Dwight Correctional Center came from the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. My account of Sherman Ray’s killing relied on VA, court, police, and coroner’s records, plus interviews with Ray’s sister Patricia Dennis and niece Diana Hibbler. I reconstructed Mildred Markham’s death with the assistance of Markham’s granddaughter Theresa Davis and court and coroner’s records. Jane Snell-Simpson and Karen Walker helped me tell the story of Taylor’s entanglement with the Snell family in the mid-1980s. My reporting on Taylor’s arrest by federal authorities in Florida and the details of her psychological evaluations was sourced from court records, documents obtained via FOIA from the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and interviews with Railroad Retirement Bureau special agent Mark Squeteri. Jason DeParle’s reporting in the New York Times and his book American Dream were incredibly useful for understanding the political and policy goals of the Clinton-era welfare reform push. Taylor’s son Johnnie also shared invaluable recollections of his mother’s final years.
Archival and Unpublished Sources
BOP — Federal Bureau of Prisons
CCCC — Circuit Court of Cook County
CCCO — Cook County Clerk’s Office
CPD — Chicago Police Department
EOUSA — Executive Office for United States Attorneys, U.S. Department of Justice
FBI — Federal Bureau of Investigation
FOIA — Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act
IDC — Illinois Department of Corrections
IDPA — Illinois Department of Public Aid
ILGA — Illinois General Assembly
IPRB — Illinois Prisoner Review Board
ISA — Illinois State Archives
KCSP — Kankakee County Sheriff’s Police
LAC — Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid
MSP — Michigan State Police
NCJRS — National Criminal Justice Reference Service
RRB — Railroad Retirement Board
VA — Department of Veterans Affairs
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