Stolen At Birth | A Baby for Christmas | 2

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It's December 1950, on a quiet suburban street in Memphis, Tennessee.

Gertrude Gibbs climbs out of the back of a cab, while the driver takes her suitcase out of the trunk.

Gertrude is just returning home from a whirlwind trip to Nashville.

She was there to advocate for the removal of a state tax on margarine.

Gertrude's a woman whose mind is always working, always searching for what she can do to be of service.

Before her cab has even made it down the block, Gertrude's already moving on to another issue, one that was bugging her the entire time she was in Nashville.

She picks up her suitcase and heads for her front door.

She's got some calls to make.

A few days ago at the airport, Gertrude and her friend met a nurse traveling with a pair of infants.

The more Gertrude thinks about it, the stranger the whole thing seems.

It was clear that one of the babies was older than the other by a few weeks at least, but the nurse had insisted the children were twins.

And then there was the car she'd taken the children away in, a black limousine with a uniform chauffeur.

Why would a nurse be traveling in a limo?

Luckily, Gertrude had the foresight to write down the car's license plate before it pulled away.

Now she doesn't even want to unpack before getting to work.

Gertrude heads for her husband's study and picks up the phone.

Her first call is to a friend who works at City Hall, but they don't have the information she wants.

Undeterred, Mrs.

Gibbs moves down her list of contacts, asking again and again until she finally gets a concrete answer.

The car she saw pull up to the airport the other day belongs to a woman by the name of Georgia Tann, and she works for the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

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In 1924, Georgia Tann arrived in Memphis to start working for the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

Then 32, Georgia was already an experienced social worker.

In her teenage years, she'd carefully observed the work of her father, a local judge, and had begun by visiting poor families in her community to lend a hand.

But by the time she was in her twenties, she was helping in a different way.

She kidnapped children from a poor single mother and gave them to wealthier families.

In Georgia's mind, that was charity.

She'd removed vulnerable children from an unfit mother and given them a respectable home.

The protests of the mother were quickly overruled.

After all, who'd believe the word of a single mother over the daughter of a respected judge?

So, when Georgia moved to Memphis, she was free to continue her unique approach to social work.

But Memphis wasn't the bustling modern city we know it as today.

In the early 1920s, it was still recovering from a spade of yellow fever outbreaks that had devastated the city at the end of the 19th century.

Many of its citizens were poor and desperate.

That meant that the city was vulnerable to people with questionable morals and a thirst for power.

People like the corrupt political kingmaker, Edward Boss Crump, and people like Georgia Tann.

Georgia had a talent for sniffing out who really called the shots, whether at an orphanage or at city hall.

She was quick to form an alliance with Boss Crump, and with him in her corner, Georgia was basically free to do as she pleased.

In Georgia's twisted mind, she needed to help as many children get fresh starts as she possibly could.

That meant expanding her reach far beyond Memphis, and even beyond Tennessee if she could manage it.

And thanks to a chance meeting with a local journalist, Georgia created a legacy-defining media campaign that spread her influence farther than this small-town woman could have ever ever dreamed.

This is episode 2 in our four-part series on Georgia Tann, a baby for Christmas.

It's April of 1928, and Judge Camille Kelly is at a small Tennessee orphanage.

Run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, the home takes in young children whose parents have either died or who have voluntarily given them up.

Kelly has been the juvenile court judge in Shelby County since 1920, and it's a job she takes great pride in.

She regularly sees parents who are struggling to support their families and settles custody disputes.

As a grandmother herself, one in a position of authority, Kelly feels invested in the lives of the children who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

It's why she's here at the orphanage today.

Though it's not technically part of her duties, she likes to check on the little ones under the nun's care.

The nuns greet Judge Kelly at the front door, and she sweeps into the foyer.

Her eye-catching dress provides a sharp contrast to the sister's more sedate uniforms.

She sports a large flower on her chest, which has become a signature of hers since she took office.

Kelly believes that a judge's robes can frighten children in her courtroom, but wearing a flower will make them smile.

As the sisters welcome her into the home, Judge Kelly announces that, as usual, she'd like to start her visit by seeing the youngest.

So one of the nuns leads the 48-year-old up a staircase and across the landing into a nursery.

The walls are painted with pastels, and there are several white cribs lining the walls.

The nun hovers by the door as Judge Kelly walks around the room, looking closely at each of the infants.

By the window, one of the babies catches her eye.

She's got soft blonde curls and blue eyes.

Her little face is perfect, just what Kelly's looking for.

She opens her purse and pulls out a small notepad and a pencil.

Then she makes a careful note of the baby's name.

Judge Kelly smiles at the nun and tells her she's satisfied.

Now she really should be getting back to the courthouse.

There's plenty to do.

The nuns stand at the door and watch the judge leave.

Then they go upstairs and start saying goodbye to the little blonde baby.

The judge's visits always end this way.

With a cold smile, a name in a notebook, and another child ready for Georgia Tann.

By the summer of 1928, Georgia Tann has been in Memphis for four years.

Working for the Tennessee Children's Home Society, she's changing the face of adoption in the city.

She's personally handled the placement of over 100 children already this year, and will have overseen more than 200 adoptions by the end of 1928.

In comparison, there are child placement agencies in bigger cities that are lucky to finalize 10 adoptions a year.

Georgia's impressive achievements haven't gone unnoted or unrewarded.

After starting as head of the TCHS aid division, where she helped fundraise and organize welfare programs, Georgia is now the assistant secretary for the society.

It's a position with a lot more formal responsibilities, but her sphere of influence doesn't stop there.

Soon after she arrived in Memphis, she was elected president of the local social workers club, and since then, she's wielded her position there like a weapon.

Any objections to the way she treats the city orphanages or the children inside them are swept aside.

Any critics of the way she runs things are hounded out.

So to those on the outside, it seems like Georgia's on a mission to do only good.

She might even believe that herself.

But her methods speak volumes about her real principles.

Because although Georgia's having success placing orphan children in homes, she's carefully curating the selection of many of the children she helps.

She spends her days visiting the various boarding homes and orphanages associated with the TCHS, keeping an eye out for the most attractive children.

She knows that those are the ones prospective parents will want, and the ones who will help make Georgia a success.

It's mostly blondes she likes.

Blonde with blue eyes.

She'll accept brunettes if they're particularly nice-looking, but she walks right past any kids with red hair.

And because there's a pervasive idea in the industry that there's no market for non-white children, any black kids might as well not exist.

When Georgia spots a child she likes, she takes out a camera and snaps a photograph of them.

Once it's developed, she could show it to the couple she's targeting, like a door-to-door salesman opening his briefcase of merchandise.

But her goods aren't always what Georgia says they are.

Because another of her tested ploys is to doctor the ages of the children she offers to people.

In her experience, couples are looking for the youngest kids they can get.

So beginning in 1928, Georgia falsifies most of the birth certificates of the kids she adopts out.

And if anyone notices that a kid is surprisingly advanced for their age, she can easily pass them off as a precocious or even gifted youngster.

Just imagine the possibilities, she says while handing over the photographs.

It doesn't take much more than that.

And it's not just the children who Georgia selects carefully.

It's the adoptive parents, too.

She selects mostly high-profile and wealthy families in Memphis.

Not only do her choices for customers help raise the profile of the Tennessee Children's Home Society, they also act as a kind of insurance against any potential legal trouble down the line.

As the years pass, the city's rich and influential become increasingly indebted to Georgia, which is just how she likes it.

She can call in favors like asking for donations or for signatures on petitions, small things that are impossible to refuse when the woman asking can threaten to take your children away.

That power will come in handy in the future because George is not just offering orphans up for adoption.

She's hungry to get her hands on as many needy children as possible, and she's happy to enlist other people to help her get what she wants.

Of all the people Georgia Tann will weave into her web, her lookouts are some of the most disturbing.

As the 1920s draw to a close, Georgia realizes that she could be doing more to help the children of Memphis.

But she can't do it alone.

And she's also not content to simply help the children who are brought to her.

She wants to find more kids in need.

The younger, the better, too.

They'll be more adoptable that way.

So Georgia visits the nurses who work in maternity wards around the city and asks for their help.

Not all of them agree, but enough do that Georgia is soon getting calls when some of Memphis's unmarried women go into labor.

Then once the baby is born, the nurse rushes into the room with a sheaf of papers for the new mother to sign.

Delirious from a mixture of pain, medication and joy, many of the women sign the forms, not realizing that they're giving away their parental rights.

After that, their babies disappear, taken into the custody of Georgia and the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

Then the children are sent to one of the many city orphanages affiliated with the TCHS, ready for a wealthy couple to come scoop them up and whisk them away to what Georgia insists is a better life.

And as the roaring twenties end in disaster, the pool of potential prey only grows.

Waiting in the wings like she's been training for it her whole life, Georgia Tann is there to make the most of a bad situation.

In October of 1929, Wall Street lost $14 billion, sending the country's economy into a tailspin.

In Tennessee, entire industries were decimated, which means more and more families are forced to turn to local welfare agencies for help.

Watching all of this happen with great interest is 38-year-old Georgia Tann.

The economic crisis may be bad for most businesses, but it could be very good for hers.

So she starts making some calls.

With her standing as one of the most prominent social workers in Memphis, it's not hard for Georgia to convince her colleagues in the welfare agencies to do her bidding, especially not when she frames the situation in exactly the right way.

She tells them that in these hard times, it's children who suffer the most.

She wants to ensure that this doesn't happen, so surely the best thing is for Georgia to take responsibility for these children.

She has access to the resources to look after them properly, she says.

So wouldn't it be better if struggling parents just give their kids up?

The argument makes enough sense to Georgia's contacts that they start trying to convince people to surrender their children to the state, to Georgia.

If they truly love their kids, they'll hand them over.

Desperate as they are, plenty of parents can see the sense in that, and they agree to sign away their parental rights.

Others aren't so easily convinced.

So the social workers tell those parents that there's another option.

They can leave their children in a boarding home just temporarily.

That way they can spend their time searching for work out of state if they need to, then come back to collect their babies once they're in a better place financially.

Of course, once Georgia sees a child that she thinks deserves better, they'll only go where she wants them to.

So when the parents return to claim their children, they're often too late.

Despite all the promises about it being a temporary placement, they find out to their horror that their parental rights have been terminated, and their child is long gone.

With all these children changing hands, Georgia knows it's important to have her paperwork in order.

When she first kidnapped children to give them to a wealthier family in 1922, she could go to her father.

As a judge, he had the power to terminate and assign custody.

But Georgia's not in Mississippi anymore, so she's had to find a new ally with the authority she needs.

Juvenile court judge Camille Kelly doesn't have a legal education.

She was simply appointed to the bench by Edward Boss Crump in 1920.

That's unfortunate for the people who appear in her court, but it works for Georgia, who's found something of a kindred spirit in Judge Kelly.

She's long believed that women are the only ones suited for making decisions about the welfare of children.

So when Georgia first came asking for her signature on some custody papers, Judge Kelly didn't hesitate.

Now the two women are formidable allies in their fight to protect children.

The parents who wind up in Kelly's courtroom, as a result of joblessness, divorce or illness, might think the kindly grandmother sitting above them truly wants to help.

After all, she wears dresses instead of the usual judge's robes, making her seem much more relatable, more human.

But the truth is that after she comes into Georgia Tann's orbit, Kelly is always keeping an eye out for children who'd be better off in Georgia's hands.

She takes careful notes, and if she decides that the parents are too poor or low class to be trusted with the future generation of Americans, she quietly terminates their parental rights when no one's looking.

Then she summons Georgia and hands her the appropriate paperwork to assume custody of those children.

So as the roaring 20s start to wind down, Georgia's established a solid network in Memphis to advance her personal agenda and her career.

She's got her claws into the city's orphanages, boarding houses, maternity wards and courts.

But it soon turns out that her network of spotters are doing too good a job.

By the end of 1929, Georgia has more children in her care than she knows what to do with.

And the twisted solution she comes up with will change her operation and the entire adoption industry in America forever.

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It's early December 1929, and 38-year-old Georgia Tann is at the offices of the Memphis Press Scimitar.

She's here to see an acquaintance, journalist Ada Gilkey.

Ada's heard about the work Georgia and the Tennessee Children's Home Society are doing to get so many children adopted, and she thinks it might make a good story.

But as the women talk about Georgia's adoption crusade, Georgia admits that she's got a problem.

She just has too many children.

And the city's orphanages are getting crowded, and the boarding homes are filling up too.

Ada listens with sympathy.

Georgia seems desperately concerned.

And she is, only not about the well-being of the children.

It's true that Georgia wants to get these children into better families, but only so she can increase her influence and power.

The system's just not working efficiently enough right now, and it's slowing Georgia down.

To Ada, of course, Georgia simply talks about the TCHS funds running low, with all those mouths to feed.

It's so close to Christmas, she says, and she's wishing for some kind of miracle.

That's when the two women come up with an idea.

Given the festive season, the press scimitar is always in need of feel-good stories to brighten up the everyday drudgery.

And Georgia's plentiful children seem like the perfect solution.

On December 9th, Georgia and Ada's creative plan makes its grand debut.

Tucked into the paper's pages in an article with the headline, Want a Real Live Christmas Present?

The brief piece below explains that Georgia and the TCHS will be giving away 25 children, ranging in age from 3 months to 7 years.

The little bundles of joy will be delivered on Christmas Eve, like gifts from Santa's sleigh.

And all interested parties have to do is write in, noting whether they want a boy or girl, and what color hair they prefer.

Ghoulish as the idea might seem, the article creates a flurry of interest.

Within minutes of the morning edition hitting newsstands, people start calling the press scimitar, anxious to put their name down for a baby.

The interest only increases the next day, when a second article appears, this time with a photograph of two infants, a boy and a girl.

The caption tells readers that both of the children have golden hair, blue eyes and good dispositions.

The perfect specimens, according to Georgia's standards.

New pictures of children appear in the paper every day in the lead up to Christmas.

And by the end of the campaign, Georgia has given away all 25 of the promised orphans.

That helps take care of her surplus stock.

But there are unexpected benefits that prove even better for business.

So many people entered the baby giveaway that Georgia and the TCHS enter 1930 with a waiting list of hopeful parents who are primed and ready to accept an orphan into their homes.

Just weeks ago, Georgia had too many children.

Now, she can be selective about who she wants to give a child to.

And on top of that, the campaign creates such a stir in Memphis that people are talking about Georgia and the TCHS more than ever before.

Not only does this make Georgia a minor celebrity, it drives a surge in donations to the society, lining their coffers just as the Great Depression is beginning.

Most valuable of all, though, is the intangible benefit the campaign offers.

Every day, for two weeks, the Press Scimitar published pictures and playful descriptions of dozens of orphans.

That humanizes these children in the eyes of thousands of Memphians, making them think more charitably about orphans than they ever have before.

It creates the kind of goodwill that money just can't buy.

The Christmas Baby Giveaway is such a success for Georgia and the Scimitar that they repeat it the next year and the next, and even syndicate the articles in newspapers throughout the South.

Now there are adoption applications pouring into Georgia's office from hopeful parents beyond Memphis and even outside Tennessee.

Tapping into a wider market offers Georgia a much bigger audience for her ideas.

So as her Christmas campaign draws attention to the Tennessee Children's Home Society, she begins to position herself as a national advocate for adoption.

For decades, Americans have resisted the idea of bringing someone else's biological child into their home.

Thanks to the eugenics movement, there have been widespread fears that orphans will inherit the negative traits of their parents that led them to be orphans in the first place.

And no one would want to bring those kids into the house.

After all, one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel.

Now though, Georgia insists to anyone who will listen that adoption is good for the children and good for the families who adopt them.

She writes articles for newspapers around the country promoting her idea that orphans are blank slates ready to be molded by adoptive families.

Children who are born poor or quote unquote illegitimate need to be adopted into better homes so they can have a chance at a respectable life.

Georgia even travels to events to deliver passionate speeches, determined to spread her gospel as far and wide as possible.

But although Georgia helps change attitudes towards orphans and the concept of adoption in America, she also spreads more insidious ideas.

At her public appearances, Georgia explains that a single mother who doesn't give up her baby for adoption is selfish.

Not only is she depriving loving couples of a child they might desperately want, she's denying her child a better life.

Two parents, two wealthy parents, can, in Georgia's opinion, give a child more, simply because they have more to give.

Georgia's chief concern has always been with the wealth and social status of others.

To her, single mothers are little more than livestock, breeders, she calls them, cows, and their children need rescuing.

And while she mostly saves those more extreme ideas for private conversations, the things she says in public echo through the child welfare industry.

Before long, many social workers are suggesting to single pregnant women that they make plans to surrender their babies once they're born.

Parroting Georgia's talking points, they insist that doing so is the best way for these women to prove that they truly love their children.

With plenty of people now telling her that they're eager to adopt, Georgia is more than happy with how things are changing.

It's not just people's attitudes about adoption that Georgia needs to change.

Until now, state governments have actively discouraged mothers from giving up their children.

Absent and neglectful parents have faced jail time.

There have even been laws on the books that have forced mothers to breastfeed their babies after birth so they'll bond with the child and want to raise them herself.

But as Georgia's influence increases and public opinion towards adoption softens, these restrictions are gradually done away with.

And once adoption becomes something desired by childless couples in the middle and upper classes, the incentives flip and the system starts to work to separate four single mothers from their babies.

First, the women are convinced to surrender them for adoption before the children are even born.

In fact, mothers are discouraged from knowing anything about their new babies, to the extent that they're asked to preauthorize circumcision just in case they have a boy.

Then, doctors can go ahead with the procedure without the birth mother even knowing the sex of the baby.

It's a policy Georgia approves of.

Slowly but surely, Georgia's molding the adoption industry to best suit her.

To many in Tennessee and far beyond, Georgia is a miracle worker, helping unmarried mothers, emptying orphanages and creating families along the way.

The thing is, she's destroying plenty of them too.

And even when her victims see her coming, there's not much they can do to defend themselves.

Irene Green has a history with Georgia Tann.

Two years ago, Georgia showed up at Irene's front door with paperwork declaring her an unfit mother.

Before Irene knew what was happening, her three young children, Jim, Pat and Betty Jo, were led from the house and into a waiting car.

Irene fought with everything she had to recover her children, but the courts weren't on her side.

Georgia had the authorities in her pocket and plenty of judges willing to sign whatever custody paper she put in front of them.

Then, when Irene thought it couldn't get any worse, she saw Jim's face smiling out at her from a copy of the Memphis Press Scimitar.

Her son was being advertised during one of Georgia's Christmas giveaways.

Irene had to watch as people clamored to submit their entries and then find out that he'd been given away to one lucky family.

Where her two daughters Pat and Betty Jo went, she never found out.

Now though, Irene is pregnant again.

For months, she's been feeling a queasy mix of excitement and trepidation.

She can't wait to meet her new child, but every kick from her baby has been a reminder of the three she's already lost.

When she goes into labor though, all of that disappears, and Irene's only focus is on getting herself and her baby through it safely.

After hours in the hospital delivery room, she's overjoyed to hear the sound of crying.

It sounds like they have strong lungs, healthy lungs.

It's such an overwhelming feeling of relief, that Irene puts her head back on the pillow and closes her eyes just for a moment.

When she wakes up a little later, it's quiet in the room, and she can't see her baby.

Irene tries to stay calm.

All three of her first children were delivered at home, so it's unsettling to wake up alone.

But maybe this is just how things go in a hospital, Irene thinks.

When she sees a nurse walk by her room, Irene calls out to her and asks where her baby is.

The nurse's face twists into something Irene's terrified is pity.

Then she pats Irene's shoulder and says that her baby is dead.

It was stillborn.

Irene feels time stop.

It's her worst nightmare come true.

But then she thinks.

She remembers the cry she heard, those strong lungs.

It can't possibly be true.

Her baby was alive.

She turns her attention back to the nurse whose hand is still consolingly on Irene's shoulder and tells her she's made a mistake, tells her what she's heard.

The nurse purses her lips, then shakes her head.

No, she tells Irene she's wrong.

Her baby didn't cry.

It never even took a breath.

As she struggles to process that, Irene starts to second guess herself.

Maybe she imagined it, maybe the nurse is telling the truth.

And if that's the case, then Irene wants to hold her baby, just once, to say goodbye.

The nurse's answer to the request is cold.

The baby was disposed of.

Irene's anguished screams echo through the hospital's halls, and other new mothers will understand that only the death of a child could cause that much pain.

But the truth is that Irene's baby wasn't stillborn.

It's just that the healthy little girl has already been taken by Georgia Tann.

She's claimed Irene Green's fourth and final child for her adoption services.

And like so many other women, the grieving mother will never see any of them again.

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It's the fall of 1932, and the trees of Memphis are shifting from lush greens to red and gold.

Dried leaves crunch under Georgia Tann's boots as she walks down a quiet street lined with small family homes.

As a chill breeze blows, 41-year-old Georgia quickens her pace.

Beside her, her daughter June has to practically run to keep up.

This isn't a wealthy part of town, but there's a nice playground here, which is where Georgia and June are headed.

Once they reach the wire fence, 10-year-old June runs ahead of her mother, making for a swing set across the grass.

Georgia sits on a bench by the sandbox where she can watch the younger children playing.

There's one little boy in particular who draws her eye.

His wavy blonde hair catches the morning sunlight, and he has cheeks that dimple when he giggles.

Georgia wants him.

There are always people looking for a living doll of their very own.

That on its own isn't enough, though.

What makes this little guy a perfect candidate for adoption is his clothes.

Georgia clocks the threadbare pants, the frayed cuffs on his sleeves.

She knows all the signs of a child from a poor family.

They're her preferred prey.

She knows that even if the parents want to fight back, they won't have the means to do so.

She's confident that once she has a child like that in her grasp, it's a done deal.

Not that Georgia's planning on taking the boy with her today.

Not while June's around.

But Georgia will come back soon, and that's when she'll add the boy to her collection.

By the winter of 1932, Georgia's career has blossomed.

In the eight years since she arrived in Memphis, she's helped plenty of the city's upper class expand their families with picture-perfect children.

Thanks to her connections to Boss Crump, Georgia's client list will eventually boast Memphis Mayor Walter Chandler, a handful of local judges, state senators, and even a few US congressmen.

And after her incredibly successful Christmas giveaways, the name Georgia Tann is now synonymous with adoption in all of Tennessee.

People know that if they'd like a child of their own, but can't make that happen otherwise, Georgia is the person to call.

That's exactly why a delegate to the Tennessee State Legislature puts in a call to Georgia one evening.

His daughter has been in labor in a Memphis hospital, and the entire family is in the waiting room excited to meet the baby.

But then, after several hours without any news, a doctor appears and delivers a crushing blow.

The child was stillborn.

The doctor explains to the man that his daughter was put under sedation for the birth and isn't awake yet, which gives them a little time to decide how best to break the news to her.

But to the doctor's surprise, the delegate insists that no one say anything.

He's got a phone call to make.

Within the hour, Georgia Tann is at the hospital, a living, breathing newborn bundled in her arms.

She hands the child to the delegate with a smile, then quietly leaves.

There's no explanation about where the baby came from or who their parents are.

None of that matters to Georgia.

What matters is helping the right people get what they want.

So it's a seamless handoff that allows the man's daughter to wake up with a baby in her arms, never realizing what happened.

It's like they've cast a spell to undo a tragedy and replace it with only happiness.

And it's all thanks to Georgia Tann.

Of course, with all of her success, Georgia needs to make sure she has enough children on hand to meet the growing demand.

Luckily for her, Memphis isn't short on struggling families.

As the depression worsens, more and more people are feeling the pinch.

There is help available though.

Boss Crump has made sure that there's a robust welfare system in place for Memphians in need.

It's run by a man named Aubrey Clapp, who does things like distributing free pints of milk to anyone who could use it.

Unfortunately, Georgia gets her claws into Clapp and convinces him to share his records with her.

She's interested in any parents with young children who apply for assistance, and he's only too happy to hand that information to such a respected social worker.

So, people have no idea that by asking for help to feed their family, they're putting a target on their back.

Once Georgia has their information, she uses it to have their parental rights terminated, then takes their kids.

The more Georgia gets away with it, the bolder she feels.

With Boss Crump on her side, a local judge will sign anything Georgia hands her and a network of social workers catering to her every whim, she feels untouchable.

Ever since she was a teenager, she's always felt like she knows what's best for other people.

And now it seems like everyone around her agrees.

So, she feels confident enough to try something she hasn't done in years.

In 1922, Georgia kidnapped two young children from a widow who lived near Georgia's hometown, then handed the toddlers to wealthier families in the community.

Her father had sanctioned the whole thing, believing without question Georgia's story that the mother was unfit.

But people who knew what happened didn't like it, and Georgia felt the pressure to get out of Mississippi.

That was part of the reason she came to Tennessee in the first place.

Now, after nearly a decade in Memphis, she feels like she's in a position to try that again.

No one could possibly run her out of town now.

So she starts taking what she wants and creating a paper trail afterwards.

If Georgia notices a child on the streets that she thinks will appeal to prospective clients, Georgia's not above luring them to her car with promises of candy and ice cream.

And although some parents of these kidnapped youngsters make a fuss, Georgia has the law and the lawmakers on her side.

Once Georgia's Pet Judge, Camille Kelly, signs the custody papers, that's that.

In fact, it seems like there's nothing that Georgia can do that will land her in trouble.

Not even the children dying on her watch seems to slow her down.

See, as part of Georgia's expanding empire, the Tennessee Children's Home Society now runs a number of boarding homes and orphanages throughout Memphis.

So it would stand to reason that the society is made up of experts and caring for young children, right?

Especially with the huge number of kids passing through their doors thanks to Georgia.

But it seems that nothing could be further from the truth.

Although Georgia has never reported any deaths within the society's facilities, it's likely that's only due to some gaps in their paperwork.

Because by 1932, Memphis has the highest recorded infant mortality rate of any comparable US city.

And like Georgia Tann's star, in the coming years, those numbers will only rise.

From Airship, this is episode 2 in our series on Georgia Tann.

On the next episode, Georgia decides that it's high time she starts turning the profit from all her hard work.

For more information, visit www.gc.gov.au We used many different sources while preparing this episode.

A couple we can recommend are The Baby Thief, The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, The Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption by Barbara Raymond, and Babies for Sale, The Tennessee Children's Adoption Scandal by Linda T.

Austin.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details.

And while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio Editing by Mohammed Shazeed.

Sound Design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing Producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham for Airship.