In 1976, candidate Ronald Reagan made Linda
Taylor famous – albeit anonymously famous – as the Welfare Queen:
“In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. She
used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social
Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as
well as welfare . . . her tax-free cash income alone has been running at
$150,000 a year.”
Linda Taylor was, in reality, a career criminal and very
likely a serial killer.
***
Book: Josh Jevin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an
American Myth, 2019, Little, Brown
Publisher’s copy: Taylor,
it turned out, was also a kidnapper, and possibly a murderer. A desperately ill
teacher, a combat-traumatized Marine, an elderly woman hungry for companionship
-- after Taylor came into their lives, all three ended up dead under suspicious
circumstances. But nobody -- not the journalists who touted her story, not the
police, and not presidential candidate Ronald Reagan -- seemed to care about
anything but her welfare thievery.
***
CHRONOLOGY
1926 – Linda Taylor born Martha Louise White, Golddust,
Tennessee,
1940 – she had her first child.
1943 – Seattle arrested for disorderly conduct under the name
Martha Davis.
1944 – she was arrested for vagrancy as “Martha Gordon” in
Port Orchard, Washington; in 1945, malicious mischief as “Connie Reed” in
Oakland, California; in 1946, suspicion of prostitution as “Betty Smith” in
Oakland.
1948 – while “passing” as white, she married a Navy sailor
named Paul Harbaugh. She had three more children in this period, one of whom had
a darker complexion than the others. The marriage quickly unraveled.
1952 – she married a drifter named Troy “Buddy” Elliott in
Arkansas and had a fifth child. But Elliott’s family rejected her and her
darker-skinned son, whom she eventually abandoned.
1959 – Taylor, as “Connie Harbaugh,” filed a lawsuit in
Peoria, Illinois, alleging her children had been severely injured in a gas
explosion at their school. The case was thrown out seven years later.
1964 – Taylor first made news in 1964, in Chicago, when she
claimed to be the daughter of Lawrence Wakefield, a black man who, upon his
death, was found to have more than $760,000 in cash in his home, a fortune
earned in an underground gambling business. As “Constance Wakefield,” she sued
to be named Wakefield’s sole heir. Her uncle and grandmother were flown in to
testify against her.
Aug. 1974 – false burglary report resulting in discovery of
welfare fraud.
Sep. 29, 1974 – Taylor’s welfare scam reported the headline
“Cops find deceit-but no one cares.”
1975; She was also present for at least three suspicious
deaths, Levin writes. One of them happened while awaiting trial in 1975; Taylor
moved into the home of a woman named Patricia Parks. Within months, Parks had made
Taylor the trustee of her estate and then died suddenly of a barbiturate
overdose. Taylor was investigated but never charged.
1976 – A niece told Levin that Taylor kidnapped her for days
in 1976; police were called, but charges were never filed.
1978 – Taylor was eventually convicted of theft and perjury
and sentenced to three to seven years in prison. When she was released in 1980
after a little more than two years,
1980 – released.
2002 – She died in a care facility near Chicago in 2002.
***
[Gillian Brockell, “She was stereotyped as ‘the welfare
queen’. The truth was more disturbing, a new book says.” The Washington Post (D.
C.), May 22, 2019]
[312-11/7/21;1331-5/14/22;2677-7/25/22]
***
No comments:
Post a Comment