Sonny Seiler

Frank W. "Sonny" Seiler (February 20, 1933 – August 28, 2023) was an American trial attorney from Savannah, Georgia, who had a leading role in the true-crime book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

He earned his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Georgia (1956 and 1958), where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and the Gridiron Secret Society and a founder of the Order of the Greek Horsemen.

[1] He was featured in the true-crime book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as the lawyer who defended antiques dealer Jim Williams in a murder case.

His firm's then-office, Armstrong House, was featured, along with other locations in Savannah, in the original 1962 film Cape Fear, starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum.

[7] The couple's daughter, Bess Thompson, appeared in the movie version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as the woman in Forsyth Park who asks if she can have her picture taken with Uga.

[2] Since the 1950s, Seiler and his family have owned and maintained the unbroken line of live mascots of the University of Georgia sports teams, English bulldogs known successively as Uga I - XI.

The family received the first member of the line (today referred to as Uga I) in 1956, when Seiler was a second-year student at the University of Georgia School of Law and newly married to the former Cecelia Gunn.

[11] On September 29, 1956, the Seilers brought Uga I with them to Sanford Stadium for the first Georgia Bulldogs football home game of the year, against the Florida State Seminoles.