The Washington times., 1923-02-13
KIN VENGEANCE
SUSPECTED IN
GIRL STATE
Cora Frazier, ~, Missing for
Two Weeks, Sent Father
and Uncle to Prison.
BY J. E. CROWN,
Cosmopolitan News Service.

U
Cosmopolitan News Service.
SENATOBIA, Miss, Feb. 13.-
Whether murder or kidnapping has
been her fate, Cora Lee Frazier is
missing.
The seventeen-year-old girl of
the Mississippi hills, who marked
her conversion to ardent Chris
tianity by sending father, uncle and
cousins to the penitentiary when
they refused to give up lives of
weeks and is the center of mys-
terry on which all the South is
specializing.
Had Started For Home.
Urged by letters purporting to
come from her mother-letters which
her mother denies sending-Cora
left Memphis, where she had Joined
the Salvation Army, and started for
her home in Eastern Tate county,
Mississippi, two weeks ago.
Not word has been heard from
| her since.
1t was when Sheriff Williams at
| Senatobia received letters from the
girls boarding house landlady in
Memphis. Thursday, that it first be-
came known generally the Salvation
Army lass had vanished.
Somewher between Memphis and
those Mississippi hills of Eastern
Tate county the seventeen-year-old
girl disappeared. Authorities are
assume q Statewide scope.
Kin Vengeance Suspected.
Those who know the feeling
against the girl on the part of her
kin, are frankly skeptical whether
the girl will ever be seen alive again.
The vengeance of the Mississippi
hills is long of arm. And the feeling
against the girl whose getting reli-
gion" sent her nearest kin to the
penitentiary, is hot and bitter.
1t was against the advice of DIR.
]. D. Williams, runs the current
story here, that Cora Lee Frazier
gave rein to her desire to do active
Christian work and Joined the Sal
walton Army at Memphis.
There's a price on your head"
the sheriff is said to have warned
the girl. eff your family know
where you are. you're as good as
dead"
Laughs at Warning.
But Cora Lee Frazier laughed at
the warning. The spirit that had
famed in her to the white-hot point
when she sent the officers of the
law on the trail of father, uncle and
cousins-a trail that led to convic-
ton and penitentiary sentences-sus-
tanned her, in her decision. To Mem
Iphis she went, and in the Tennes-
see city, joining the Salvation Army,
went forth to work for the souls of
men.
And now mystery has wrapped
shroud-lke about the little girl from
the hills. Will it lift to show kid
naping-or murder-men are ask
ing. They are men who know the
bitterness Of hill feuds that have
split families and set blood kin
against one another.
Girls Accepts Vision.
Strange even in the annals Of the
hill country; where folks take their
religion as a living, burning fact
when they take to religion at all, is
the story Of Cora Lee Frazier.
1t was a year and a half ago that
the vision of the living Christ came
to the little hill girl. She accepted
it as simply as Joan of Arc accepted
her vision-and she took the words
of the Baptist hill preacher as lit
orally as the early martyrs took
their promises of eternal bliss as the
price of martyrdom.
Cora Lee Frazier Joined the Bap-
fist church. To the people Of cities
that means one thing. To the people
of the Mississippi hills it means an
other.
Cora Lee Frazier went to her
family. Simply she told them of
her religion. Simply as an Apostle
crying out in the wilderness, she
pleaded with them to abandon the
lives of sin that she told then they
were leading.
In the rough and brutal words Of
the hill folk at their worst-w;th
jests as pointed and delicate as the
blow of a railsplitter's maul-they
scoffed at her. Day by day they
derided her.
Her spirit flaming hot within her,
the seventeen-year-old girl prayed in
the seclusion of the hills. She came
forth from her hours of prayer to
wrestle again for the souls Of her
people. against the clutch of that
personal devil. And again they
ueflueu her.
The child. her eyes bright with
the glow of inward conviction, gave
them warning. They laughed at
her.
And then Cora Lee went to the
sheriff.
Deputies issued forth from the
county courthouse and rode on
trails that Cora Lee Frazier named.
The deputies gathered evidence.
The deputies made arrests.
Her Father Gets Ten Years.
Cora Lee Frazier's own father
was the first to go down before
his own daughters assault on sin.
He is in the State penitentiary
today, serving a sentence of ten
years for criminal assault
Cora Lee F'raZier's uncle-a coun-
try justice of the peace,-came
next. He was convicted, sentenced
and fined for manufacturing illicit
whisky.
Two of Cora Lee Frazier's first
cousins came next in line for the
reform to which the girls religious
ardor urged her. Both were sent
to the State penitentiary for life,
tried and convicted on charges of
murder.
Yet another cousin Is awaiting
| trial for murder-and other cousins
| have fled from Tate cunty with the