Alexis Coe
Appearances
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
You know, she believed him that he didn't do it because I think she realized that this was an innocent man who, if she didn't do something to help him, would most certainly go to jail.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
And by the time he woke up, he woke up because he slipped into a river. It was cold. The woman was gone. And he tried to just go catch a bus home, but instead he found himself in deep shit.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
At first, Roundtree thought, okay, this is an easy case in some ways to win because he's got an alibi. He was, you know, with a woman, a woman who wasn't his wife, but they were drinking, they were fooling around, they fell asleep. He slipped into the river, he wakes up, she's gone.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
And, you know, Vivian completely confirmed all these details, and Roundtree thinks, great. Ray had an alibi. There was a hitch, though. She wouldn't appear in court because she was married. It was the first of many setbacks.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
And so I think that as the case went on, she kept finding these wonderful leads and these things that would discount the evidence that the prosecution had, and then it would all fall apart.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
There was no preliminary hearing, which is, you know, sort of unheard of. There was no warrant for the clothes they took from him. They cut hair from his head without his lawyer's permission.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
She's constantly litigating because she's incredibly talented.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Married to the Law
She experienced white supremacy firsthand as a child. That's historian Alexis Coe. If you think about some of your formative memories of fear, it's really something to consider the Klan being one of them.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The Mapmaker's Testimony
Here's historian Alexis Coe. The Civil Rights Act has just passed, and that abolished segregation. So that means that she has just started to be able to physically walk into these areas that, as a Black person, as a woman, the courtrooms, from libraries, to do research, like every place that you would need access to in order to do the kind of work that she needed to do.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The Mapmaker's Testimony
According to Dovey, her mere presence irritated the white judges and lawyers.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The CIA Wife
In the late 50s and early 60s, women were still seen as homemakers. Women couldn't get a credit card without having their husband's approval, their signature. That's Alexis Coe. Men put women on a pedestal, which is a great way to keep women in their place. And that place?
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The CIA Wife
Mary Meyer had the sort of background that you would see in the New York Times vows section. She was born into wealth. Her uncle was Teddy Roosevelt's chief forester. Mary had lived a charmed life.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The CIA Wife
We tend to think of Vassar because it's produced women like Lee Miller, the artist and photographer, and other women. women who have gone into the arts as a progressive institution that perhaps is launching women in the world. But it wasn't. Vassar was a place women went because they wanted to go to college.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
The CIA Wife
It was close to the city, though, so they could date professional men and they could get on their way to becoming homemakers. And I think that that was what she was supposed to be. And that's what she was for a while.