On January 1, 1923, the Taylors' neighbor reported that she heard a scream while it was still dark, grabbed her revolver and ran next door to find Fannie bruised and beaten, with scuff marks across the white floor. Taylor was screaming that someone needed to get her baby. She said a black man was in her house; he had come through the back door and assaulted her. The neighbor found the baby, but no one else. Taylor's initial report stated her assailant beat her about the face but did not rape her. Rumors circulated—widely believed by whites in Sumner—that she was both raped and robbed. The charge of rape of a white woman by a black man was inflammatory in the South: the day before, the Klan had held a parade and rally of over 100 hooded Klansmen away in Gainesville under a burning cross and a banner reading, "First and Always Protect Womanhood".