In September of 1931, Thalia Massie, a young naval lieutenant’s wife, claims to have been raped by five Hawaiian men in Honolulu. Following a hung jury in the rape trial, Thalia’s mother, socialite Grace Fortescue, and husband, along with two sailors, kidnap one of the accused in an attempt to coerce a confession. When they are caught after killing him and trying to dump his body in the ocean, Mrs. Fortescue’s society friends raise enough money to hire seventy-four-year-old Clarence Darrow out of retirement to defend the vigilante killers. The result is an epic courtroom battle between Darrow and the Territory of Hawaii’s top prosecutor, John C. Kelley, in a case that threatens to touch off a race war in Hawaii and results in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in American history.
My guest is Mike Farris, author of “A Death in the Islands: The Unwritten Law and the Last Trial of Clarence Darrow”. He shares details from this riveting story with us on this most recent episode of Most Notorious.
The author’s Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mike-Farris/author/B00BDU8BNY
The author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mike.farris.756859
