Zora Folley: The Distinguished Life and Mysterious Death of a Gentleman Boxer

by Marshall Terrill, Bob McLain (Editor)

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 instead was 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 led finally to proof of how Zora Folley died that long-ago night. Packed with photos!

130 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2014

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely disappointed by this book. Early on, the author basically admits that he has repurposed the book from some newspaper articles he wrote on the subject with some follow up research. His research basically adds nothing at all to the existing body of knowledge of the subject (the mysterious death of Zora Folley), aside from uncovering the pathology report and the police report. The police report raises more questions than it answers, but the author doesn’t ask those questions. In fact, the police report gives different accounts from Young, Broom and the Clerk that are essentially the same accounts that the author stated at the beginning of the book were the some of the different rumors.

The author interviewed Dorothy Broom, who gives an account that makes no sense whatsoever and is completely the opposite of what she told the police 42 years earlier. The author then states “What a classy, above board lady.” She told the police that her husband and Folley were roughhousing and Folley fell backwards into the pool and hit his head. She tells the author that he dove into the pool and hit the concrete divider between the adult and kiddie sections. Putting aside that this is nowhere close to her story 40 years earlier, it also makes no sense. If Folley really did dive headfirst, how did he fracture the base of his skull? How did he get a hole in the back of his skull?

It’s strange to see an investigative journalist document a story where no one appears to be telling the same story, or the truth for that matter, and then act like he has solved some mystery.

[Ian Curragh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about the death of Zora Folley not his ring career

This book is more concerned at the circumstances surrounding the death of Zora Folley as opposed to his ring career . A fascinating book about the untimely and suspicious circumstances in the death of Zora Fol!ey. An interesting read for fight fans.

[Mike Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative

A good work on the life and death of Zola Foley. Concise but informative. Easy reading style about a boxer I remember from the 1967 Ali fight.