Witness Docs from Stitcher

Previously, an Ernie secret.

The whole unraveling of Ernest's secret life as an informant turns on this one phrase

and this one code number in the sentence.

I knew nothing about it, nothing at all, and that was the first I heard about it in

that article that my father was an FBI informant.

I never thought that anybody would sell their own community out and Ernest of

all people.

It's four months before Christmas, 1967, and the Lawrence family is arranging

themselves in the living room of their Memphis home.

Dad settles into the upholstered easy chair.

My father is sitting in that chair.

It was the same chair that he sat in every night to write up his notes into a

report.

Mom stands behind him and daughters Betty and Nancy flank their father.

Everyone is dressed for the occasion.

Dark suits and dresses.

Mom's even wearing a double strand of pearls around her neck.

That's me on the right.

My sister on the left on the arms of the chair.

And my mother standing behind my father.

Margaret Lawrence.

...