You may have just nailed it. There's a story linked in one of Howlin's post to a gal (Ms. Bennett, I think?) who works for the NCCU newspaper, and she interviewed three different people who know Mangum and had nothing good to say about her. When Bennett went back to interview them again because her faculty supervisor for the paper said she should go with the stroy, two of the witnesses had clammed up and the remaining witness is a young girl/teen, I believe.
Is it possible there are nuisance and neglect reports about her and she was on the edge of losing her kids?
I read that same one and I hadn't put that into the puzzle but you're probably right.