(1) MYSTERY OF THE SUIT CASE BABY HAS BEEN SOLVED.
Hattie Phillips, 16 Years Old, Mother of Infant, Admits it is Her Child - She is Under Arrest With Her Mother and Uncle.
The mystery of the deserted babe in the suit case has been solved.
As result of the efforts of detectives, three people are now behind bars of the police station accused of complicity in the affair. One of the three prisoners is Hattie Phillips, sixteen years of age, of 218 Kirkwood ave., who confesses that she is the mother of the infant. Mrs. S.E. Phillips, mother of the girl, and B.C. Cochran, a carpenter, uncle of the girl, are the remaining members of the prison trio. The mother and uncle are accused of being accessories to the desertion.
The three arrests were made Saturday morning by Detectives Howell and Hollingsworth, who under direction of Chief of Detectives Lanford, have been actively at work on the mystery since last Monday morning, at which time the little baby boy, packed away in a suit case, was found on the front porch of the home of J.P. Clements, 931 Seaboard ave.
The girl stubbornly refuses to divulge the identity of the father of the child. Both Mrs. Phillips and Cochran declare they are ignorant of his identity.
Cochran has admitted to the detectives that he placed the suit case and its human contents on the Clements porch Monday morning about 4 o’clock. It was discovered there by Mr. Clements when he opened his front door at 6:10 o’clock.
The clearing of the mystery is due to a clever bit of work by the detectives and the fact that the trick was turned in less time than a week has brought them numerous compliments.
Following the finding of the abandoned babe, Chief of Detectives Lanford detailed detectives Howell and Hollingsworth, instructing them to spare no effort in ascertaining the identity of the persons who deserted the child.
In prosecuting their investigation, the detectives learned that Hattie Phillips and her uncle, B.C. Cochran, who lives in the Phillips home, had suddenly left for Chattanooga under rather suspicious circumstances. The detectives at once took up this clue, and Chief Lanford communicated with Chief of Detectives Nick Bush, in Chattanooga, asking him to obtain all information possible concerning the couple. The Chattanooga detectives promptly went to work on that end of the case, with the result of Chief Lanford received a letter from Chief Bush that verified his suspicions.
The Chattanooga officer reported that Cochran and his niece arrived in Chattanooga together and that the girl spent several days in the Florence Crittenton home. Leaving there, she and her uncle are said to have obtained a room at 1227 1-2 Market st., where the babe was born August 31. Cochran, it is stated, tried to give the babe to the landlady from whom the room was rented, but she declined to take it. The young mother and her child, accompanied by Cochran, then left Chattanooga in the afternoon of September 11, arriving in Atlanta shortly shortly before midnight.
With this information in hand, Detectives Howell and Hollingsworth were sent to the Phillips home Saturday morning and demanded to know the whereabouts of the infant. Realizing then that she had been caught, the young mother broke down, and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, made a clean breast of the whole affair.
With her mother and uncle, she was then taken to the police station. The girl and her mother were placed in the matron’s ward, while Cochran was locked in the prison department below.
According to the story by the Phillips girl and Cochran, they went direct to the Phillips home after their arrival from Chattanooga last Sunday night, getting there shortly after midnight. To Chief Lanford, in the presence of the girl, Cochran confessed that shortly afterward, between 3 and 4 o’clock in the morning, he placed the infant in the suit case and carried it to the Clements home, leaving it on the porch.
“I knew when the baby was found it would be taken in charge by the police and placed in a good home,” said Cochran.
The blanket charge of “disorderly conduct” was docketed against the three prisoners, and it is expected that they will be given a preliminary hearing Saturday afternoon in police court.
Source: The Atlanta Georgian and News, Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, September 17, 1910; Pg. 1 & continued on pg. 24
(2) MRS. PHILLIPS AND COCHRAN ON TRIAL.
Principals in Suit Case Baby Affair Are Tried in Criminal Court.
Mrs. S.E. Phillips, of 218 Kirkwood ave., was placed on trial in the criminal court Tuesday on a charge of keeping a disorderly house. She is the mother of Hattie Phillips, the young girl who was arrested in connection with the finding of a child in a suit case before the door of a Seaboard ave. residence a short time ago.
B.C. Cochran was given a fine of $100 in the criminal court Tuesday morning on a charge of malicious stabbing. M. Hays was the prosecutor in the case. The affair took place on the Soldiers Home line during the latter part of May. It was charged that Cochran was drinking and that he was using profane and obscene language in the presence of ladies, when Hays began a remonstrance with him, which resulted in the stabbing. He is an uncle of Hattie Phillips and is the man who placed the baby on the Seaboard ave. door step.
Source: The Atlanta Georgian and News, Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday, October 4, 1910; Pg. 14, Column 6
(3) The six-weeks-old boy of seventeen-year-old Hattie Phillips, of Kirkwood ave., -the babe of the recent suitcase mystery - died Sunday at Grady hospital, to which place it was removed a short time ago from the Home for the Friendless.
The mother of the child was found by detectives a week after it had been abandoned in a suit case, and her uncle, Bernard Cochran, are now under bond under charges because of its desertion. The child will be buried in the Sylvester cemetery.
Source: The Atlanta Georgian and News, Atlanta, Georgia, Monday, October 24, 1910; Pg. 3, Column 2
(4) COURT REFUSES TO BELIEVE HER STORY.
Hattie Phillips Declares That Her Own Dead Father Was Parent Of Her Babe.
Arraigned before Recorder Pro Tem W.H. Preston Saturday afternoon, Miss Hattie Phillips, seventeen years old, of 218 Kirkwood ave., mother of the “suit case baby,” startled the court by declaring that her father, who died last November, was also the parent of the babe which she permitted her uncle, B.C. Cochran, to leave on the door step of J.P. Clements, 931 Seaboard ave., last Monday morning.
Judge Preston, however, denounced that statement as being false in no uncertain terms. He held her under $200 bond for the higher courts. Cochran goes to the same court under a $500 bond to answer the charges of immorality and abandonment. The girl made bond, but Cochran is still confined to the Tower.
Judge Preston also scored Mrs. S.E. Phillips, the girl’s mother, who too frequently tried to substantiate the girl’s statement of improper treatment on the part of Mrs. Phillips’ husband. Mrs. Phillips claimed that she was unaware that the child was to be deserted. She stated that she was under the belief that the baby was to be taken to some home and adopted. The infant, which since the finding has been at the Home for the Friendless, was given to the mother in court.
Source: The Atlanta Georgian and News, Atlanta, Georgia, Monday, September 19, 1911; Pg. 11, Column 2
(5) SUES 34 NEIGHBORS ON SLANDER CHARGE.
Because the neighbors attempted to have her moved on a charge that her house was “in many respects disorderly,” Mrs. S.E. Phillips, of 214 Kirkwood ave., who was a short time ago acquitted in the city criminal court, has brought a damage suit for $25,000 jointly against 34 residents of her community. She charges libel and defamation of character.
Several days ago Mrs. Phillips filed a similar suit against several residents of the section alleging substantially the same things. These persons, it was claimed, circulated a petition upon which she was arrested. The 34 defendants in the second suit also circulated a petition, it is said. The defendants in the second suit are:
E.T. Stanley, V.A. Sams, S.D. Clay, E.L. Clay, C.A. Marks, J.S. Henry, S.A. Thomas, W.P. Silvey, N.A. Hunt, F.M. Williams, J.F. Williams, W.R. Johnson, J.F. Hamby, J.W. Hollingsworth, G.L. Lawhorn, P.B. Marks, J.H. Olson, J. Blankenship, L.G. Whitten, R.G. Lawhorn, R.T. Turner, J.W. Lamham, O.W. Allen, C.J. Corley, J.R. Wilson, E.R. Stanley, W.O. Ford, C.C. Ray, R.S. Bentley, J.T. Davis, M.V. Barnett, E.C. Bradwell, T.L. Ledbetter and J.B. Howell.
Source: The Atlanta Georgian and News, Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, September 22, 1911; Pg. 14, Column 7
