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Murder Conviction of 15-year-old Georgia Negro Under Investigation

Sept. 11, 1961 - The Georgia Pardon and Parole Board promised today to investigate the murder conviction of a 15-year-old Negro whose death sentence touched off a wave of protests at the urging of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. The boy, Preston Cobb Jr. (pictured), would become the youngest person executed in modern Georgia history if his sentence is carried out on Sept. 22. He was convicted of murdering a 70-year-old white man, Frank Dumas, after an argument over fishing in Dumas's lake. Mrs. Roosevelt, in her syndicated newspaper column, appealed to Americans to wire Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver asking clemency.


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