Dossier
Molly Digby
Coverage of Molly Digby in the Nexus archive.
- Black detective tasked with finding kidnapped white toddler in 1870s New Orleans
In New Orleans during Reconstruction, John Baptiste Jourdain investigated the kidnapping of 17-month-old Molly Digby. Two Black women, Ellen Follin and Louisa Murray, were arrested and later acquitted by an integrated jury in January 1871 after claiming a white woman left them with the baby. Subsequently, Jourdain was demoted and left the police force.