Zora Folley

The Distinguished Life and Mysterious Death of a Gentleman Boxer

By: Marshall Terrill

Narrated by: Marshall Terrill

Everyone who knew professional boxer Zora Folley called him a gentleman. Even Muhammad Ali, who fought Folley in Madison Square Garden, withheld his usual pre-fight insults. This true crime story cracks the cold case of Folley's untimely death in the swimming pool of a sketchy motel. On a hot July night in 1972, when he should have been home with his faithful wife, Zora Folley was instead partying with his mistress and a shady celebrity hanger-on at a motel in Tucson, Arizona. He died that night, his head crushed, the only witnesses claiming it was an accident that occurred when the agile ex-boxer slipped and hit his head on a concrete divider in the pool.

The police bought that story. No charges were filed, despite Folley's friends and family suspecting he had been murdered. Then the autopsy report and the police report vanished. A cover-up?

Decades later, a local reporter, Marshall Terrill, picked up the case. His investigation challenged the authorities, opened old wounds, and finally led to proof of how Zora Folley died that night.

©2017 Marshall G. Terrill (P)2023 Marshall G. Terrill