Arcadia

by Mark Lane

Lane is the author of the book Arcadia in which he details the effort to prove that James Richardson, a black migrant worker in Florida, had been falsely accused of killing his seven children by unlawful actions on the part of the authorities involved. Richardson had been on death row for the crime, but after the book was published he received a new trial in which he was found not guilty. Richardson was released from prison after 21 years and Richardson's babysitter later confessed to the murders.

287 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Mark Lane was an American attorney, New York state legislator, civil rights activist, and Vietnam war-crimes investigator. Sometimes referred to as a gadfly, Lane is best known as a leading researcher, author, and conspiracy theorist on the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a nifty book about the October 1967 murders of seven children who died after eating a poisoned breakfast of rice and beans and grits that was packed with parathion. The black father who was a migrant farm worker got convicted for it and got the death penalty in 1968, but in 1972 the Supreme Court had many cases changed to life imprisonment in 1972, after the book was written in 1970. James Joseph Richardson actually got exonerated after 21 years, and by all things Janet Reno.

Police didn't see a sack of pesticide with five searches, and then saw a sack of pesticide on the sixth search of the place, the Sheriff said there was evidence that three of his children were killed in another county, and three more were sick and then recovered in the past. The neighbour Bessie who was the babysitter, fed the kids, but in the court case was not allowed to say why she was on parole, but later it was discovered that she was on parole for murdering her husband!

And there was an insurance salesman that visited the house twice in the week before the poisonings, so it was definately a strange one. Make Lane also made a reputation for one of the biggest books on Dallas 1963 and got into a lot of trouble for 'Rush to Judgement'.

Richardson's cell-mate said Richardson confessed to the murders, and years later he admitted he lied about that.

Reece the babysitter went senile and in the nursing home confessed 100 times to the murders, and the case pushed into overdrive when Lane later got the entire file sent to the Governor of Florida for an investigation.

Afterwards Richardson was hired by comedian, then social activist and nutritionist Dick Gregory who also championed for the case. Richardson had a heart surgery in prison, a heart attack after prison, his marriage fell apart, but a media friend got him emergency help from one of his friends a cardiologist, and Richardson ended up as a caretaker on the heart doctor's ranch, and he remarried as well.

There's a 2016 documentary about the story called Time Simply Passes.