The Ghost Who Waits in Wright Square: The Haunting Story of Alice Riley, Georgia’s First Woman Hanged

They say if you walk through Wright Square in Savannah after dark, and the wind shifts just right, you might hear her crying—soft, mournful, and chilling. And if you’re a mother… hold your baby close.

This is the ghost story of Alice Riley—the first woman hanged in Georgia, a legend soaked in mystery, murder, and a truth that may be stranger than the ghost stories that follow her.

A Murder. A Mystery. A Mother.

In 1733, Alice Riley stepped off a ship onto Georgia’s new soil, not with dreams of riches, but with chains of indentured servitude. She had crossed the ocean from Ireland with her common-law husband, Richard White, hoping to escape poverty and pain. But what awaited her was far from a fresh start.

She and Richard were assigned to a man named William Wise, a sickly cattle farmer with a wicked tongue and a darker past. Wise wasn’t well liked. He had a shady reputation—rumors swirled that the woman he called his “daughter” was actually a prostitute. Many believed he’d tricked his way onto the boat to America. He was cruel, suspicious, and soon, dead.

Wise’s body was discovered on March 1, 1734, in a horrifying state—his head stuffed in a water bucket, a scarf tied tightly around his neck. Georgia’s very first murder.

The Gallows Await

Alice and Richard didn’t get far. They were caught, hiding on the Island of Hope. Richard was hanged almost immediately. Alice was spared—for a time—because she was pregnant. The colony waited six weeks after she gave birth to execute her.

But it was what happened after her death that carved her name into Savannah’s chilling folklore.

They say her ghost never left Wright Square.

A Ghostly Curse or a Grieving Mother?

There are whispers that Alice’s ghost still roams Savannah. Tour guides will tell you she walks the streets searching for her lost child—the baby taken from her before her death. Some say she appears only to pregnant women or mothers with infants. Others claim she tries to take their babies, desperate to feel motherhood—something she was robbed of.

Another tale says Alice Riley cursed Savannah, and that’s why Spanish moss refuses to grow on one side of the Live Oak trees in Wright Square. That eerie bald side of the trees? Blame Alice.

But the truth may be more tragic than terrifying.

What We Do Know

Historical letters show Alice might not have been the cold-hearted killer Savannah’s legends have made her out to be. One account even says she only confessed to protect Richard White and later claimed she was innocent. She cried, begged, and finally walked to the gallows with the weight of the world—and a colony’s judgment—on her shoulders.

She had no family. No support. No voice.

Except the one she left behind in the whispers of Spanish moss and the shadowy corners of Savannah’s oldest square.

Why Alice Still Matters

Alice Riley’s story isn’t just a ghost tale—it’s a human one. It’s about a woman who crossed the sea for a better life and found only hardship and heartbreak. Whether guilty or not, her story lives on in Savannah’s cobblestone streets and candlelit tours. We may never know exactly what happened that March day in 1734, but Alice’s ghost continues to ask us the same haunting question:

“Would you have done anything differently?”

So if you find yourself standing in Wright Square at twilight, listen carefully. Alice might be trying to tell her side of the story. Not the ghostly one. The true one.

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