Georgia Tann, who kidnapped approximately 5000 children in the first quarter of the 1900s and earned quite a lot of money from them, has a life that pushes the limits.
How did this woman, who made a name for herself with her devotion and love for children in the first place, got involved in dirty work that was so hard to believe that the children did not look their way?
First, let’s go back to Georgia’s past.
Born in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1891, this girl had a loving family. His mother and father did their best to raise him well and showed great interest. Seeing her father as her idol, Georgia wanted to be a judge just like her father when she grew up, but her father did not support her in this career choice due to hard working conditions.
For this reason, Georgia decided to become a social worker and started her career by working in a nursery. He soon realized that there were poor families around him who could not take care of their children, and it was at this point that his drift into dark jobs began.
According to Georgia’s plans, she would report these children fleeing the center and sell them on the black market, so to speak.
The child trafficker, who could not continue his treacherous ambitions very long and was caught and fired within a few months, became the executive secretary of a nursing home called the “Tennessee Children’s Home Association” with the help of his father in 1924.
As soon as she started her new job, she resumed her dirty work and was more comfortable this time working in a foster home. Moreover, after a period of 5 years, he was promoted to the manager and his work became much easier.
Just then, a major economic crisis broke out in America, and this collapse caused many people to fall below the poverty line.
Since the demand for children to be used as slaves was quite high during the period, people who were desperate due to financial inadequacies began to sell their children to earn a little money, and on the other hand, to send them to adoption centers in order to raise them in better conditions.
There were also people whose only goal was to have children. For example, many celebrities, including the famous actress Joan Crawford, who bought the twins Catchy and Cindy, paid Georgia large sums for these children. Georgia Tann is known to have earned over $1 million by selling countless children during her time in this business.
When the number of children in care homes is sometimes insufficient and Georgia cannot find children to sell; He continued this process by kidnapping children from schools, streets and places of worship.
Along with Georgia Tann, it was known that paramedics, lawyers and even judges earned high sums in this way during the period. Moreover, some health professionals tell mothers who have given birth that their children are stillborn, giving the child a new name as soon as it is born, making it impossible for the parents to learn the truth.
In addition, this child trafficker was placing advertisements in the newspapers under the headline of “a Christmas gift that anyone can buy”, just as if he were selling an item.
God also collaborated with numerous lawyers and judges to protect him in response to the occasional rebellion parents.
In 1949, there were numerous complaints about child abductions in Tennesse, and the district governor, a lawyer, and a judge were asked to track these events. Although Georgia managed to silence the judge by bribing him in large sums, the governor’s sudden visit to the nursing home was enough to expose the child trafficker’s deception.
Although Georgia Tann was successful in removing the child records from the archives and destroying all the evidence, the governor had, after a long struggle, managed to gather all the necessary evidence to keep this woman in prison for life.
Georgia was tried in a public court, but when the date showed September 12, 1950, she died of cancer at the age of 59 at that time. Subsequently, various investigations were launched in order to end these dirty works carried out on children all over America and to catch and punish similar child traffickers as soon as possible.