Raleigh, Nov. 30—Alvin Mansel, Asheville negro under sentence of death following his conviction on a charge of assaulting a white woman, today denied to state prison officials that he had made any confession of the crime and persisted in his claim that he is innocent. Mansel was questioned as the result of a report from Asheville that he had confessed.
Mansel displayed a willingness to thoroughly discuss his case and sought to argue to his questioners that the circumstances of his identification by the woman showed that he was not the man. She knew him, he said, that he worked at a hospital near Asheville and had seen him before the crime of which he was convicted. Had she been positive, he contended, she would have told officers that she was assaulted by “the boy who works at the hospital” instead of waiting until his arrest and then identifying him.
Doubt as to Mansel’s guilt has been privately expressed by several Asheville people, who have visited Raleigh recently. No appeal as yet has been made to the governor in his behalf, however. In keeping with his regular practice, Pardon Commissioner H. Hoyle Sink will make an investigation into the case.
From page 2 of The Concord Daily Tribune, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-12-01/ed-1/seq-2/
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