Rosser Riddles One of the State’s Chief Witnesses

Posted on by
Solicitor Dorsey is shown in a characteristic attitude as he questions the state’s witnesses. To his right the defendant, Leo M. Frank, is shown.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 31st, 1913

Detective John Black “Goes to Pieces” Under Rapid-Fire Cross-Questioning of Frank’s Attorney at Afternoon Session

Action characterized the Wednesday afternoon session of the Frank trial, and it was the first time the tedious proceedings had taken on life enough to attract more than passing interest.

This action came in the fierce and merciless cross-examination of Detective John Black by Attorney Rosser, leading counsel for the defense. Black has taken a prominent part in the investigation of the Phagan murder, and it was expected that he would prove one of the state’s principal witnesses, but before Mr. Rosser had finished with him he went all to pieces and admitted that he was hopelessly confused.

There were only two witnesses at the afternoon session—Detective Black and J. M. Gantt, the former shipping clerk at the pencil factory. Gantt was on the stand but about twenty minutes and the only two important points in his testimony were assertions that Frank knew Mary Phagan and that Frank seemed to be frightened and very nervous when the witness saw him at the pencil factory door on the evening of the murder.

Continue Reading →

Witnesses of Frank Trial Have Tedious Job of Merely Waiting

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 31st, 1913

At First It Was Picnic for Them, but Now It’s Only a Long, Long Wait, in a Crowded Room Under a Burning Roof

The witnesses in the trial of Leo M. Frank undoubtedly have had the hardest time of it to date. If they testify they must run the gamut of Luther Rosser’s sledge-hammer cross-examination or Solicitor Dorsey’s boring-in tactics; if they don’t testify they must wait, and the waiting is the hardest part of all.

One of them in the upstairs hall above the court-room declared Wednesday, “I can’t stay up here, it’s too hot. If I go downstairs a policeman runs me away. But I’ve got to stick around.”

Continue Reading →

Machinist Tells of Finding Blood, Hair and Pay Envelope On Second Floor, Where State Claims Girl Was Murdered

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 31st, 1913

BLOOD SPOTS AND HAIR FOUND ON DAY FOLLOWING DISCOVERY CRIME HAD BEEN COMMITTED

Pay Envelope Was Found Near Machine Used by Mary Phagan Some Days Later—Find of Strands of Hair on Lathe Was Reported to Quinn, Who Notified Darley—Mell Stanford and Magnolia Kennedy Also Saw It

BARRETT’S EVIDENCE MOST IMPORTANT YET TOWARD PROVING CRIME WAS COMMITTED IN METAL ROOM

Mell Stanford and Harry Scott Also Tell of Finding Blood Spots, but Scott’s Testimony Is Not Entirely Satisfactory to Either State or Defense—Monteen Stover on the Stand. Will Conley Testify in Rebuttal Only?

New and sensational testimony for the state was given by R. P. Barrett, a machinist at the National Pencil factory where Mary Phagan was murdered on April 26, when Barrett Thursday afternoon declared from the witness stand that he had discovered early Monday morning following the tragedy a large blood spot, surrounded by a number of smaller spots, at the water cooler near the dressing room on the second floor of the factory. Barrett testified further that he had found a broom nearby which from its appearance evidently had been used to smear the large blood spot over with a white substance.

Barrett testified further that on the same morning he had found strands of hair on the lathe of the machine used by him and that he had called this discovery to the attention of Magnolia Kennedy, Mell Stanford and Lemmie Quinn, and that Quinn had notified Darley. The solicitor developed through Barrett’s testimony that no girls had been at the factory since Friday afternoon before the crime, his purpose evidently being to show that the hair must have been that of Mary Phagan. In addition to this testimony, Barrett swore that a few days after the murder he had found in the area near Mary Phagan’s machine a portion of a pay envelope. There was nothing on the envelope to positively identify it as having belonged to Mary Phagan.

The fact that blood spots were found in the metal room on the second floor was also established by the state through the testimony of Harry Scott, the Pinkerton detective, and Mell Stanford, an employe of the factory.

Continue Reading →

Red Bandanna, a Jackknife and Plennie Minor Preserve Order

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31st, 1913

He Raps With the Barlow Blade and Waves the Oriflamed Kerchief Judiciously.

Plennie Minor, chief deputy sheriff, has a man’s sized job on his hands and he handles it with the aid of a red bandanna handkerchief and a pocketknife.

More formidable armament has been invented, but the oriflammed kerchief and the barlow blade are all that Plennie Miner requires to perform a duty that many would deem arduous, all of which shows that the deputy sheriff is a man of resource and ability.

It is his job to keep order in Judge Roan’s courtroom, while Leo Frank is being tried as the slayer of Mary Phagan. It’s a real job, when it is considered that during each day at least two thousand persons attend the trial or try to and each one looks to Plennie Minor, to see to their personal accommodation.

Continue Reading →

Holloway Accused by Solicitor Dorsey of Entrapping State

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31st, 1913

Here are the important developments of Thursday in the trial of Leo M. Frank:

Harry Scott, Pinkerton detective, is accused of having “trapped” the prosecution by Solicitor Dorsey, when he testifies that Frank was not nervous when he first saw him.

He is fiercely grilled by the defense after having testified to finding blood spots on the second floor, wiped over with a white substance. He testifies in addition that Herbert Haas, attorney for Frank, asked him to give him reports on his investigations before he gave them to the police and that he refused. He admits making statements that he omitted at the Coroner’s inquest.

Monteen Stover testifies that she did not see Frank in his office when she entered the factory at 12:05. She admits not having seen bureau and safe in the room.

Continue Reading →

Scott Trapped Us, Dorsey Charges; Pinkerton Man Is Also Attacked by the Defense

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31st, 1913

FRANK NOT IN OFFICE JUST AFTER 12 ON DAY OF SLAYING, SAYS GIRL

The deliberate charge that he had been “trapped” by Pinkerton Detective Harry Scott was made by Solicitor Dorsey at the trial of Leo M. Frank Thursday. Scott played a curious part in the trial, being attacked by both sides.

He was given the same fiery baptism that annihilated City Detective Black the day before, but he passed through the ordeal in much better shape than his brother detective. Scott left the stand at 11 o’clock and Miss Monteen Stover was called.

The Stover girl testified that she visited the factory shortly after 12 o’clock, April 26, and that Frank was not in his office.

Scott refused to be cowed by the battering attack of Luther Rosser, chief of Frank’s counsel, and fought back viciously at various times during his cross-examination. He was inclined to argue with both Attorney Rosser and Solicitor Dorsey, and at one time blazed forth angrily when he though that Dorsey was charging him with holding something back.

Defense Discounts Scott’s Story.

Rosser succeeded in impeaching Scott’s testimony to a certain extent by showing that his testimony at the Coroner’s inquest differed in some respects from that given at the trial, and that the testimony at the inquest lacked much that was contained in his testimony just given under the questioning of Solicitor Dorsey, although Scott had sworn at the inquest that he was telling all he knew.

Continue Reading →

Crimson Trail Leads Crowd to Courtroom Sidewalk

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31st, 1913

By L. F. WOODRUFF.

The sun’s heat is broiling. No man can stand it without suffering. And still men stand, not one man, but scores of them, on a blistered pavement gazing on a red brick building as unsightly as a gorgon’s head and look at nothing by the hour.

They are led there by a trail of crimson, and they are held there by the carmine charm that—since Cain committed his deed of fratricide—has made murder the deed that the law most severely punishes and has made it the act that most interests man.

Go to Pryor and Hunter streets. You’ll find a study there. Leo Frank is being tried for the murder of Mary Phagan in the courtroom in a building on the northeast corner.

The trial is progressing in a quiet, orderly manner. Sheriff Mangum’s force is attending to that. Few persons not vitally interested in the case are permitted in the courtroom. Outsiders are not even allowed on the same side of the street that abuts on the building housing Atlanta’s most famous criminal trial.

Continue Reading →

State Balloon Soars When Dorsey, Roiled, Cries ‘Plant’

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31st, 1913

By JAMES B. NEVIN.

Poor John Black!

With this unwitting assistance of the Solicitor General and the assistance of Luther Rosser, he furnished all the “punch” there was in Wednesday’s story of the Frank trial.

Black evidently was undertaking to tell the truth, and was unwilling to tell more or less than the truth, but that didn’t help matters much, so far as the State was concerned.

When Solicitor Dorsey exclaimed “plant!”—which means nothing more than “faked” or “framed up” evidence for the benefit of the defense—I glanced rapidly at Rosser.

I saw precisely what I expected to see—a momentary flicker of a smile about the lips and eyes of the man, an almost immediate lightening of the lips and narrowing of the eyes, and then a quick return of the habitual ferocious frown.

I knew Dorsey had put his foot in it—put it right in, away up over the ankle, and I also knew that getting that foot back to solid ground again was going to be an undertaking pregnant with extreme difficulty and danger.

Continue Reading →

Collapse of Testimony of Black and Hix Girl’s Story Big Aid to Frank

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31st, 1913

Although the State’s witnesses were on the stand all of Wednesday the day was distinctly favorable for Frank, partly because nothing distinctly unfavorable was developed against him—the burden of proof being upon the State—but most largely because of two other factors, the utter collapse of the testimony of one of the State’s star witnesses, City Detective John Black, and the testimony in favor of Frank that was given by another of the State’s witnesses, Miss Grace Hix, a 16-year-old factory employee.

Girl Helps Frank.

Miss Hix testified that the strands of hair found on the lathing machine on the second floor might have been the hair of one of the other girls in the factory, many of whom when they were ready to leave the factory at night, combed their hair right where they had been working. She said that Magnolia Kennedy’s hair was almost exactly the color of Mary Phagan’s. She also said that the red spots on the second floor might be paint. She never saw Frank attempt any familiarities with the girls.

Black was made the uncomfortable victim of the fiercest grilling any of the witnesses in the Frank trial have received up to this time.

Luther Rosser, chief of counsel for Frank, tore into Black the instant the city detective was turned over to him for cross-examination.

Continue Reading →

First Two Days of Frank Trial Only Skirmishes Before Battle

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

During the two days’ progress of the Frank trial public interest has centered around the case and all eyes seemed turned to it. To date, the interest has really been in watching the struggle between the skilled attorneys who are fighting for position and whose clashes over the preliminary witnesses are merely the skirmishes of the pickets before two mighty armies come together.

Thus far the interest, while to a certain extent centered on the maneuvering, has been mostly of the future tense. Every one is looking forward to what is to come. A fierce skirmish that almost engaged the two sides in real and earnest conflict came over the cross-examination of Newt Lee, and in it the state won. It was rather through the rare character of the negro testifying and his unbreakable spirit that the state won its first skirmish than through the efforts of its lawyers.

Continue Reading →

Mother and Daughter in Tears As Clothing of Mary Phagan Is Exhibited in Courtroom

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

Solicitor Dorsey stood before Detective Starnes at the witness box yesterday afternoon and held to view a lavender frock with a bit of pink ribbon at each shoulder. In the hand that was lowered at his side he held a wee slipper.

“Do you recognize this dress?” he put to the witness.

“I do.”

“To whom did it belong?”

“To Mary Phagan, the girl who was killed in the National Pencil factory.”

Continue Reading →

Officer Tells About Discovery Of Body of Girl in Basement

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs, one of the policemen who answered Lee’s call to the factory, was put on the stand, after Lee was dismissed.

He told of the call at about 3:20 a. m. on April 27, and of how he and Officers Anderson and Brown, with “Boots” Rogers, an ex-county policeman, and Britt Craig, of The Constitution, went to the factory and found the body.

The officer declared, among other things, that Lee was not frightened or trembling when they got there, that they had difficulty in telling at first whether the girl was white or black, and that Lee had interrupted his reading of the note when he reached the word “night” by saying, “Boss, that’s me.”

Sergeant Dobbs went into detail about the cord around the girl’s neck, and also the torn piece of underclothing tied loosely around the neck over the cord. He declared that the rope and piece of cloth exhibited were very similar to those he saw that morning, but would not swear they were the identical ones.

Continue Reading →

Sergeant Dobbs Resumes Stand At Tuesday Afternoon Session

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs took the stand again at the afternoon session.

“Did you help take the girl’s body from the basement?” Attorney Rosser questioned.

“I was there when the undertakers came,” answered the sergeant.

“Who cleaned the girl’s face?”

“Sergeant Brown, I believe.”

“How?”

“With a piece of paper.”

“How was the body removed?”

“In a corpse basket.”

Here the examination was taken up by the solicitor general.

“What is the distance from the ladder to the spot where the body was found?”

“About 150 feet.”

Continue Reading →

Clash Comes Over Evidence Of Detective John Starnes

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

When Sergeant Dobbs was called from the stand Detective J. M. Starnes, prosecutor of Frank and a detective attached to police headquarters was called in. He has been associated with the solicitor general throughout the Phagan investigation.

The defense and prosecution clashed in perhaps their most spectacular battle over an attempt of Attorney Rosser to force the detective into recalling the exact words of a portion of his testimony at the coroner’s inquest.

An argument was advanced by both Attorneys Dorsey and Hooper and each member of Frank’s counsel Attorneys Arnold and Rosser.

The apparent motive of the defense was to discredit certain portions of Starnes story relative to his telephonic conversation with the accused superintendent when he notified him of the tragedy at daybreak Sunday morning.

The result was a rule by Judge Roan to allow the defense to remind the witness of the exact statement he was wished to recall the exact date and circumstances. It was followed by an amendment, the question finally going unasked.

Continue Reading →

Lee, Dull and Ignorant, Calm Under Gruelling Cross Fire

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

Newt Lee, the negro night watchman of the pencil factory, who telephoned police headquarters of the finding of Mary Phagan’s body at the pencil factory, was again placed upon the stand when court convened Tuesday for the second day’s session.

Attorney Luther Z. Rosser renewed his cross-fire of questions by which he sought to confuse the negro and secure new admissions or change valuable points in his testimony, and thus expose a vulnerable point for a concentrated attack upon his entire statement.

Mr. Rosser took up practically where he had left off the afternoon before.

“Newt, when you raised your lantern you walked forward a few feet. How far did you have to go before finding out what the object that attracted you was?” he began.

Continue Reading →

Three Witnesses Describe Finding Mary Phagan’s Body

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
July 30th, 1913

NEWT LEE STICKS TO ORIGINAL STORY DESPITE ATTEMPTS TO CONFUSE NEGRO

Striking Feature of Day’s Proceedings Was the Evident Effort on Part of Luther Rosser to Connect Watchman With Crime, or Show He Knew More Than He Has Told.

DORSEY SAYS DEFENSE IS TRYING TO IMPEACH TESTIMONY OF STARNES

Mr. Rosser Declared, However, That All He Was Trying to Do Was to Test the Memory of Detective Who Was Among First to Investigate the Murder of Mary Phagan in Factory.

During the second day’s proceedings of the Leo M. Frank trial the sensation for which the morbidly curious have been craning their necks failed to materialize.

Nothing that has not been printed in the papers was brought out.

The striking feature of the day’s proceedings was the evident effort on the part of Luther Rosser to connect Newt Lee with the commission of the crime, or to show that he knew more about the death of Mary Phagan than he has thus far told. As on the previous day, Lee stuck to his original story, and through hours of what would have been acute torture to a man of refined sensibilities he was stolid in reiterating the details of how he had found the body, and of Leo M. Frank’s words and actions on Memorial day, when the murder of Mary Phagan was committed.

Continue Reading →

Uncle of Frank, Near Death in Far-Off Hospital, Is Ignorant Of Charges, Against His Nephew

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 30th, 1913

Moses Frank Has Been Given No Inkling of Circumstances That Now Are About Frank Family—He Is Seriously Ill in German Hospital

Lying at the point of death in a hospital in far-off Germany is the uncle of Leo M. Frank, unknowing that for the last three months his favorite nephew has been imprisoned on the charge of murder and that today he is on trial for his life.

This is what an attorney for the defense says. He declares that uncle how regarded Leo Frank almost as his own son, has been too ill for many months to be given an inkling of the new circumstances about the Frank family and that he still believes his nephew is as he left him.

For a long time Moses Frank has been in bad health. In search of relief he went abroad, hoping that the treatment of European specialists would cure him. But Moses Frank grew worse instead of better, and on the day Mary Phagan was murdered he still was in Europe, while grave fears were entertained for his recovery.

They have been afraid to tell him about his nephew, apprehensive that the shock would cause the spark of life, already so feebly burning, to flicker out.

Claims Mincey, When Needed, Will Testify

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 30th, 1913

Attorney for Defense Says the State Won’t Hurt His Character

“Mincey will be Johnny-on-the-spot when the defense needs him to testify.”

Those were the words of Joseph Leavitt, one of the lawyers for the defense in speaking Tuesday afternoon on the affidavit sworn to some time ago by W. H. Mincey, by which the defense hopes to prove that Jim Conley confessed to Mincey that he killed a girl on the day Mary Phagan was murdered.

Attorney Leavitt would not say where Mincey was staying, but declared that he was in town; that he had been with him Tuesday afternoon, and that he would stick to his affidavit when called upon to testify.

It is know that Mincey stayed Monday night at the Williams house No. 3, where he registered as coming from Rising Fawn, Ga. Attorney Leavitt says that Mincey has been teaching school there since he left Atlanta.

“It is rumored,” said Attorney Leavitt, “That the state will try to break down Mincey’s character. I don’t care how many affidavits they get against him. I can bring forward hundreds of prominent Atlanta people, teachers, preachers, and merchants, who will swear that Mincey is an honest man. And I’ll subpoena ’em, too.”

Trial is No Ordeal for Me, Says Frank’s Mother

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 30th, 1913

She Declares Her Confidence in Son’s Innocence Makes It Easy for Her

“My son never looked stronger than at this moment,” said Mrs. Ray Frank, of Brooklyn, Wednesday morning. “The trial isn’t telling upon him because he isn’t worrying. He is confident because of his innocence and because of his certainty of an acquittal.

“Neither his wife nor myself is anxious. Of course, we feel the heat and it is tiring to sit here in the court room throughout the day. But, like my son, we are not afraid. Why should we be? We know that he is innocent and we know that, because of this fact, he will be acquitted.

“I, his mother, know that he is free from all guilt of the charge upon which he is being tried, and that this trial can have only one result—his acquittal.

Continue Reading →

No “Shirt-Sleeves” for Lawyers in Frank Case

Posted on by

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 30th, 1913

For the sake of expediting the Frank trial, attorneys in the case are not permitted the comfort of “shirt sleeves” in the court room which, maintained at temperature Tuesday of 95 degrees.

Newspaper reporters and spectators may hang their coats on their arms, roll up their sleeves, and at least feel that they have prepared themselves against the heat. But before the trial began, Judge Roan, in discussing the legal attire, said humorously:

“Lawyers must wear coats. If I let them go in shirt sleeves they’d feel so comfortable this trial might never end. Now, for reporters, it comes so natural for them to slip out of things that they’ll just naturally take off their coats.”