Lillie Mae Thurmond was a two-week-old Black female infant whose death later became linked to a wider pattern of suspicious deaths tied to Roberta Elder, identified in later reporting as the central suspect. At the time of the infant’s death there was apparently little public scrutiny; investigators only widened attention after the 1952 death of Rev. William M. Elder, when arsenic was found in his body. Subsequent exhumations and testing of other family members reportedly found arsenic in the remains of Annie Pearl and Fannie Mae, and authorities traced a series of repeated illnesses and deaths that led them to arrest Roberta Elder.

Did anyone in the Atlanta area at that time ever raise concerns about infant deaths in Elder’s household?