The Press: The Prisoner

The news tip came to Los Angeles' Mirror-News Columnist Paul V. Coates on Christmas Eve. In Riverside, Calif., Coates was told, a prisoner had been in jail for twelve days. Reason for the prisoner's arrest, as stated in the official record: he was "in danger of leading a lewd and immoral life." Age of the prisoner: seven.

In a series of telephone calls, Columnist Coates learned that the child, Larry, whose last name had been kept secret by juvenile authorities, was the son of a quiet, respectable couple living in nearby Eagle Mountain, a 150-house company town where iron ore is mined...

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