A heart-broken, bewildered mother charged here today that "the state of Florida" has cruelly persecuted her and is holding her three young daughters as "hostages." Two of the girls are now in the West Florida Receiving Home at Pensacola and the third is in the Florida Girls' Industrial School at Ocala. A hard-fighting young lawyer recently won a prison release for the mother and father by proving they were given staggering illegal seven-year sentences for nonpayment of a $258 grocery bill. The mother charges she was treated cruelly during the trial and the 17 weeks which they actually served. The mother is blue-eyed, stocky, Mrs. Kathryn Messenger, 45, who came here with her 64-year-old husband, George, immediately after being freed from the Florida penitentiary at Raiford June 1.

Photo is dated 1961.

Photo measures 8 x 10 inches.