In 2017 the State of Florida and the "Orlando Sentinel" (then the "Orlando Morning Sentinel") formally apologized for the Miscarriage of justice where the paper described its then coverage of the case before the Grand jury met as "inflammatory" and conducive to misinformed public opinion about the guilt of the 4 men. The Topic stories about false charges, police beatings, and the death of persons in Lake County primarily focused on the poor and persons of color; which was not supported at the time but ultimately was the correct course taken by Reese, leading to her commemoration in 2020 with a bust and tribute in Mount Dora. Mount Dora activist Gary McKechnie started a "Remember Mabel" campaign, raising the funds for a terra cotta sculpted bust that incorporated things like dirt from her former front yard that was firebombed and details like the replica MR key from her typewriter. Lake County Commissioner Leslie Campione, in presenting the honor, said, "She exposed wrongdoing, and she fought to make things right". Mabel and her husband Paul H. Reese divorced in 1960 and they sold the topic. She moved to Daytona Beach with their daughter, Patricia, where she wrote columns for the Daytona Beach News. Patricia died in August 2017, at the age of 74. Mabel remarried, to A. Chesley. She passed at home in Daytona Beach in 1995 at age 80.