Elmer Smith: Another crime appearance by 'black men'

Article here. Excerpt:

'OK, GIVE yourselves some credit. You had this Bonnie Sweeten abduction pegged for a hoax by morning coffee break Wednesday.

Anybody around the water cooler with an IQ of 65 or above was starting to sense that the by-now hardy perennial tale of the missing blue-eyed blonde being hijacked by those handy, hulking black men from Central Casting was bogus.

Don't gloat too much, though. The odor of week-old carp was wafting off of this one from the moment the call came in from the damn'dsel in distress.
...
The paper trail she left behind was easier to follow than the bread crumbs Hansel and Gretel left on their trek through the woods. Her inevitable conviction may be a deterrent to the next fable spinner.

But this is small solace to hundreds of black men who have found themselves in the dragnet after one of these bogus yarns. Some of them have been convicted on the basis of lies not much better than this one.

The truth may make us free. But lies like Sweeten's may keep some of us from having to be freed.'