LIFER'S "Victim", KENTUCKY GIRL, IS FOUND ALIVE Woman Supposed to Have Been Murdered Returns To Aid Convict. PRISONER ASSERTS HE WAS 'FRAMED' Girl Is Being Held Until Identity Definitely Established. WILLIAMSBURG,Ky., March 19. (U. P.) Mary Vickery, for whose "murder'' Connie Dabney is serving a. life sentence in the state penitentiary, appeared in Harlan, Ky., today. For two years she has been working in a mill in Cincinnati, with the knowledge that an innocent man was suffering for a crime he never committed.- She refused to say why she did not come forward and clear Dabney when she "heard" of his arrest and conviction. She was held by authorities until they can take the necessary steps to establish her identity legally and have Dabney released. The identity of the girl murdered now becomes a mystery again. A body, partly decomposed, LIFER'S 'VICTIM' KENTUCKY GIRL, IS FOUND ALIVE (Continued.from Page One) was found in an abandoned mine shaft. Although the body itself was unidentifiable because of its condition, Charles Vickery. Mary's father, identified the hat and clothing found as his daughter's and testimony was introduced at the trial to the effect that Dabney was seen with Mary shortly before her disappearance from the mine town of Harlan. FRANKFORT, Ky., March 19. (A. P.) "I am innocent of killing Mary Vickery or anyone else," Con ley Dabney, 28, said tonight in state reformatory here. -- He was sentenced to life impris- onment after the alleged murder of Miss Vickery, 16, who returned to Wiliamsburg today "to help get an innocent man, out of prison." "Society should see I am re- leased immediately," Dabney's statement said. "I was convicted of killing Miss Vickery and throwing her body in a mine near Harlan on sole testimony of Miss Marie Jackson, who swore she was an eyewitness to the murder of the girl," Dabney said. "I never knew nor saw the Vickery girl- "The Jackson woman wanted me to leave my wife and two children and go with her. My wife and chil dren live at Coal Creek, Tenn. where I was born and reared." Never at Harlan Dabney said he never was in Harlan, where the body of a woman identified as Miss Vickery's was found. Dabney said he had no relatives in Kentucky, but was depending- on justice to send Miss Mary Vickery's statement to Gov. William Fields and convicting courts. Dabney was received at the reformatory October 15, 1925. Mary Vickery disappeared from Broxton, Aug. 17, 1925. The composed body of an unidentified young woman was found in the abandoned mine some weeks later. Dabney's case is pending in the Court of Appeals. Source: Lincoln Star, Lincoln, Nebraska, 3/20/1927 Woman Starts Sentence, Man Gets His Freedom FRANKFORT, Ky., April 11. (AP) Marie Jackson, twenty seven, who caused Conda Dabney, thirty-three, of Harlan, Ky., a taxlcab driver, to spend eleven months In the state penitentiary for a murder that was never committed, began her own term In the same prison here today. She was sentenced to five years recently on confessing that she testified falsely against Dabney because he repulsed her attentions. At the prison It was said she went about her Job cheerfully today. Dabney, who was sentenced to life Imprisonment for murder of Mary Vlckery. was pardoned when she returned home explaining that she had merely run away. Dabney has gone back to his wife and children at Coal Creek, Tenn. Source: Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, Conn. April 12, 1927 Another article: Like a ghost from the grave, Mary Vickery, 16, has reappeared at her home near Harlan, Ky., after an absence of 19 months to free Conley Dabney, miner and taxicab driver of Coal Creek, Tenn., who was serving a life term in the Frankfort, Ky, reformatory for her "murder". The girl said she left home because of family difficulties. Source: The Morning News Review, Florence, S.C. March 26, 1927 Note: Spelling left as printed; there is a photo of Mary Vickery if anyone wants it. Angela