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

Atlanta Journal

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

L. A. Quinn was called to the stand. He lives at 31B Julliam street, he said, and is foreman of the metal department at the National Pencil factory. Mary Phagan worked in his department, he said. The last time he saw her was on the Monday preceding the murder, he said. She left the plant about 2 o’clock that Monday, said he. That was earlier than usual, but she left because the metal with which she worked had run out and she wanted to hurry to the matinee. He didn’t know any of her intimate friends, said he. She worked with Helen Ferguson and Grace Hix and Magnolia Kennedy, said he, and Henry Smith and John Ramey also worked in that department.

He worked on Friday, April 25, until 5:30 o’clock, said Quinn. He got his pay and left with the understanding that he would come to work on Monday.

The next morning, Saturday, he got up about 7 o’clock. Later he went uptown with his wife to get a picture made of their baby. Then they went back home. He came up town again, said he. He was stopped there, and questioned closely about hours and minutes.

He left home about 9:30 o’clock, he said. He and his wife and baby went straight to Kuhn’s photograph studio. They were there about ten minutes, he said.

They stopped next at the Globe Clothing company’s store on Whitehall street, said he, and talked for a while with some friends of his in there. He named them. He and his wife were there about five or ten minutes. They went from there down to a meat market in the next block south and bought some meat, staying there about five minutes. Farther down the street they stopped in at a soda water stand and bought some soft drinks. They arrived home about 11:15 o’clock. He remained in the house about thirty minutes. He left there about 11:45 o’clock, for town again, to get to the market before it closed, so he could buy some supplies for Sunday. He bought some meat and vegetables on that trip, said he. He could not describe the man he bought the meat from. He bought the vegetables first, from a man about five feet eleven inches tall, 165-170 pounds in weight, clean shaved. The man seemed to be a foreigner. He looked like an Italian.

HE WENT TO THE FACTORY.

From the meat market he went to Benjamin’s pharmacy and bought some cigars from a man named Pounds. He arrived there at a few minutes after 12 o’clock. He went on up Whitehall, left on Hunter street, to Forsyth, and then to the pencil factory. There was nothing unusual about him going to the factory on holidays, said the witness. He did so often. He wanted to speak to “Mr. Schiff” on this occasion, said he. He found the front door unlocked. He did not see Mary Phagan. He got there some time between 12:20 and 12:25, said he.

He was asked how he observed the time so minutely.

He figured it on the time he left home, said he.  He knew he left there about 11:45 o’clock, because he looked at his watch several times while he was at home. He walked to town, up Pulliam to Garnett, to Whitehall, and so to the market. It took him about 10 or 15 minutes to make the walk. It was pretty close to 12 o’clock when he got to the market, said he. He did not remember looking at his watch after he left home. It didn’t take him long to buy the meat and vegetables. He bought 40 cents worth of steak. He was waited on immediately. It took him about ten minutes, however, he said, to buy the vegetables. He wasn’t around the market longer than ten or twelve minutes. He stopped two or three minutes in Benjamin’s on the corner. The walk from there to the factory took about five minutes. He went straight to the office. He didn’t go anywhere else. He didn’t remember hearing the noon whistles blow.

WHEN HE SAW MR. FRANK.

He found Mr. Frank in the latter’s private office. They exchanged “good mornings,” he said. “Is Mr. Schiff in?” Quinn said he inquired. “No, I don’t suppose he will be down today,” Quinn said Mr. Frank replied. “You see you can’t keep me away even on holidays,” Quinn said he remarked to Mr. Frank. He said that Mr. Frank answered, “Yes,” and laughed, and nothing else was said. He was there in the office about two minutes, said he. He wasn’t positive about the exact time. He didn’t think it could be as early as 12:15 when he arrived there. It could have been between 12:20 and 12:35, he admitted.

“Could it have been as late as 12:30 o’clock?” he was asked.

“It could have been, but it wasn’t.”

“Why are you so positive?”

“Because I was somewhere else at 12:30,” the witness answered.

He continued that when he left the factory he stopped to talk with “Mr. Maulsby” at Mr. Maulsby’s place of business two doors from the factory. He offered Mr. Maulsby a cigar. Maulsby told him “those girls are in the restaurant,” and he answered “I know it; I saw them when I came up.” He told the names of two young women, one of whom was then a bride and the other of whom still worked in the factory.

IS AT FACTORY NOW.

Mr. Quinn said that he thought Miss Corinthia Hall is at the pencil factory this Thursday. The Miss Hall he saw at the undertaker’s establishment was a stenographer at Montag Brothers, and not Miss Corinthia Hall, he said.

The witness said that his purpose in going to the factory Saturday was to see Mr. Schiff and talk baseball with him. He had been accustomed to drop by the factory often on Saturdays and holidays, he said.

Mr. Quinn said that after leaving the factory he met the young ladies—Miss Hall and Mrs. Freeman—at the Busy Bee café, at the corner of Forsyth and Hunter streets.

In reply to a question from the coroner, he said that he thinks Mrs. Freeman is at the factory this Thursday.

Mrs. Freeman, who is about seventeen years old, had been married the day before—Friday—he said. Mr. Quinn said that he wanted to chat with her about the wedding. They remained in the café only a few minutes, he said, all three leaving together. Mr. Quinn said that he went to DeFoor Brothers pool parlor, getting there about 12:30, and chatted with the proprietors until about 1:15.

The coroner at this point asked Mr. Quinn if he knew May Barrett.

He replied, “Yes, she is employed in the varnishing department of the pencil factory.”

A FIFTEEN-MINUTE WALK.

In response to a question, Mr. Quinn said that it takes him about fifteen minutes to walk from his home to the pencil factory.

Going back to his visit to the pool room, Mr. Quinn said that after chatting baseball with the proprietors, he went to the Atlanta theater to buy a ticket.

Here Mr. Quinn said in response to a question that he knows John Rainey.

Just after he had bought his ticket at the theater, Mr. Quinn said, he saw Cliff Dodgen, an employee of the theater. The witness said that he didn’t remember exactly where his seat in the theater was, but thought it was on the ninth row, in the center aisle. No one that he knew sat near him that he remembered, he said.

The witness said in reply to the coroner’s question that Mr. Frank wore a brown suit Saturday.

Mr. Quinn said that he went to the factory about 9:30 o’clock Sunday morning. He met Mr. Darley and Ed Montag, an officer of the factory there, he said, and they went in the basement together.

The witness said that he heard of the murder about 9 o’clock Sunday morning when he went to a soda water stand near his home. Officer Payne and the men in charge of the stand were discussing it, he said, and told him. Mr. Quinn said that he gathered from the description given him then that the victim must have been Helen Ferguson. He was told that her first name was Mary, he said, and asked if the last was Phagan. The soda water man recalled it then.

The witness said that he then went to the undertaker’s establishment and looked at the body.

DENIED STATEMENT TO OFFICER.

He said that on Sunday afternoon he saw Mr. Frank at the undertaker’s. Mr. Frank wore a blue or a black suit then, he said.

Mr. Quinn denied that he had told Officer Payne or Detective Starnes that he hadn’t been to the factory since Friday.

He declared that when he had talked with Detective Starnes and Campbell at the rear door of the factory he had not stated that he hadn’t ben to the factory since Friday.

Mr. Quinn was asked about the white material used in his department. It was known as “hascolene,” he said, and was used as a lubricant for the machines. It came shipped in barrels, he said.

The witness said that on Tuesday or Wendesday in the detectives office, he recalled his visit to Mr. Frank on Saturday and that Mr. Frank remembered it readily. He told Mr. Frank, he said, that if it would do any good to mention his visit he would tell of it. Mr. Frank suggested that he mention it to his lawyer first, the witness said.

At this point Mr. Quinn, in response to a question, again denied that he had told Officer Payne or Detective Starnes or Campbell that he hadn’t been to the factory since Friday.

The witness said that he knew Miss Grace Jones and that he thinks she has been at the factory since the tragedy. He hadn’t accompanied Miss Jones from the factory; he said, and had not seen her since the tragedy, except on the fourth floor of the factory. He had talked to her there, he said, to see if she would not come to work in his department in case there were a number of vacancies that were anticipated. Mr. Quinn said that he didn’t remember discussing the Phagan case with Miss Jones.

Mr. Quinn said that he paid the Colemans a visit of consolation on Thursday. He went, he said, at the suggestion of Mr. Darley and Miss Magnolia Kennedy and because he thought he should go. His visit was purely one of consolation, he said.

Coroner Donehoo then asked Quinn:

“Did you ever tell Mr. Coleman (Mary Phagan’s stepfather) how Frank acted toward the girls in your department?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ever tell Mr. Coleman how you treated the girls?”

“Yes, I told him I had always tried to make the girls feel at home. Frequently in fixing their machines, I would tell them to ‘Get out of the way and let papa fix it.’ I told Mr. Coleman how jolly Mary was—about a remark she made once: ‘Yes, you look like papa!”

“Do you know a man named Barrett?”

“Yes.”

“You never mentioned to him that you went to the pencil factory that Saturday?”

“No, sir.”

“When was the first time that you told anybody that you had been up there Saturday?”

“I told my father the next day, on Sunday. I didn’t tell Chief Lanford or any of the detectives until last Monday.”

“Why did you withhold that information?”

“I wasn’t asked about it.”

“You didn’t consider it your duty to tell unless you were asked?”

“No, I didn’t want to be dragged into it any sooner than necessary.”

“State what else you know, that you have retained.”

“Nothing.”

“You are not withholding anything then?”

“No, sir, nothing.”

“You say it was your duty to come down and see Mr. Frank after his arrest?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you consider it your duty to protect Mr. Frank?”

“No, sir.”

HIS PAY WENT ON.

He was asked if his pay went on while he called upon Mr. Frank at the jail, and said yes. Answering further questions, he said that now and then he got away for matinees, etc., but that his pay went on, that he wasn’t docked for absences. He was asked about his call at the jail.

“You came down and recalled your visit to Mr. Frank. Did he tell you to keep quiet about it until he had told his lawyers?”

“No. He remarked that he was going to tell his lawyers.” He said that Mr. Frank remembered his having been there, but did not remember the time of the visit until his attention was called to it.

“Why did you volunteer this information to Mr. Frank and not to the detectives?”

“I knew he couldn’t question me for three or four hours and the detectives could.”

“Did Mr. Frank consider it advisable that nothing be known about this?”

“No, sir. Mr. Frank didn’t ask me not to tell about it. I didn’t volunteer to tell it, because I expected to be asked every day.”

“Why didn’t you want to be questioned?”

“I knew they had three or four men holding them here, and they could hold me if they wanted to, as I had been in the building on Saturday.”

Other questions intervened, and then the coroner asked:

“Did you go out to Mrs. White’s yesterday?”

“No, sir; I don’t know Mrs. White.”

“Arthur White’s wife—you know Arthur White?”

“Yes, but I never have been out to his house.”

Quinn was excused from the stand at this juncture.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 8th 1913, “Lemmie Quinn Grilled by Coroner But He Sticks to His Statement,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday, May 7^th, 1913

Detectives Said to Attach Much Importance to Testimony That Two Girls Will Give When Inquest Resumes

INQUEST WILL BE ENDED THURSDAY, SAYS DONEHOO

Paul P. Bowen Has Been Released by Houston Officials—Chief Detective and 14 Policemen Are Discharged

Two new witnesses, whom the detectives have recently located, are expected to give testimony of importance at the final session of the Phagan inquest Thursday.

One of the witnesses is Miss Grace Hix, of 100 McDonough road, daughter of James E. Hix. Miss Hix worked at the same machine with Mary Phagan, but has not been to the factory since the latter was slain. Miss Hix was closeted for two hours with the detectives Tuesday evening, but it is not known just what her testimony will be. [Appears to be missing words in the printing—Ed.] day Mary Phagan was killed, but did not see her, according to a statement she made to a Journal reporter Wednesday afternoon at 2:45 o’clock.

“The last time I saw Mary Phagan was on the Monday before she was killed,” said Miss Hix. “That was the day she got layed off. I was uptown Saturday, the day she was killed, but I did not see her.”

The name of the other witness has not been learned. That witness, a young woman, who works at the factory will testify according to the same report, that on the Saturday that Mary Phagan met her death, she (the witness) went to the factory to get her own envelope. According to the report the young woman will testify that she went to Superintendent Frank’s office between 12:10 and 12:20 o’clock (the time Mary Phagan is supposed to have gone for her pay) and waited about five minutes.

TO FINISH INQUEST.

The coroner’s inquest will be concluded Thursday, according to Coroner Paul Donehoo. The inquest has been probably the most thorough and exhaustive ever conducted in Georgia, the jurors having spent many hours in listening to testimony in the case and now the coroner is determined that the inquest itself shall be concluded at Thursday’s session and the jurors relieved from further duty in the case.

It is probable that the body of little Mary Phagan interred at Marietta a week ago will be again exhumed before the final session of the jury. It is said that one important point has now not been fully covered by the examination and this will necessitate the lifting of Mary Phagan’s body from the grave a second time. Before any action is taken, however, the parents of the slain girl will be consulted. It is probable that Dr. J. W. Hurt, the country physician, and Dr. H. F. Harris, of the state board of health, will make the second examination.

It was reported that the principal reason for exhuming the body again is to get some of the hair from the murdered child’s head in order that it might be compared with the hair found in the metal room at the pencil factory. It is understood that the hair which was in possession of the detectives has been lost.

Officials will make no definite statement relative to the second examination of the girl’s body, but it was learned from the coroner that at noon Wednesday the physicians, who are to make the examination, had not started for Marietta. It is said to be practically certain, however, that the body will be exhumed before the convening of the final session of the inquest.

NO EVIDENCE AGAINST BOWEN.

A development of interest in the case as the release of Paul Peniston Bowen, the former Atlantian [sic], who was arrested in Houston, Tex., as a suspect in the Phagan case. The release of Bowen carries out the prediction made Tuesday afternoon by The Journal, when after a vigorous investigation The Journal was able to show that it was practically impossible for Bowen, who left here about nine months ago, to have been in Atlanta or Georgia at the time of the murder.

Young Bowen is well and favorably known in Atlanta, where he worked for several years and has many friends here, who have received letters from him recently. He comes originally from Newnan, where his family is prominent. Interesting in connection with Bowen’s release is the announcement of the summary removal from office of Chief of Detectives George Peyton, of Houston, who made the arrest. Chief of Police Ben S. Davison declares that Peyton exceeded his authority in taking young Bowen into custody. Chief Beavers has wired Houston that Bowen is not wanted by the Atlanta police.

INQUEST AT 9:30.

Interest in the Phagan investigation is again centered in the coroner’s inquest, which is scheduled to resume its probe into the mystery on Thursday morning at 9:30 o’clock.

Just what witnesses will go before the coroner’s jury is not known, as the actions of the officials have been shrouded in mystery since the active entrance of Solicitor Dorsey in the case. It is probable, however, that in addition to recalling Newt Lee to the stand, the jurors will hear the testimony of Dr. Hurt, of Dr. Harris, and of Dr. Claude Smith, the city bacteriologist, who has examined the bloodstains on the shirt found at Lee’s home, on the floor of the factory and on the garments of the murdered girl.

NEWT LEE TO TESTIFY.

The examination of Newt Lee before the jurors will be a vigorous probe, similar to the questioning Monday afternoon of L. M. Frank, and especial emphasis will be laid on the conversation the two men had some days ago in the negro’s cell.

It is not improbable that Mr. Frank himself will be recalled to the stand. Despite the fact that he gave testimony for three hours and a half, the stenographic record of his statement is being examined by the officials in order that they may bring him back if they are able to find any pertinent question that was not put to him during the three and one-half hours examination Monday.

Lemmie Quinn, foreman of the tipping department in which Mary Phagan worked, may be another witness before the inquest. Quinn’s corroboration of Frank’s statement that he (Quinn) came to the factory a few minutes after Mary Phagan got her pay envelope will, it is said, be attacked by the detectives.

Few other witnesses will be examined Thursday, it is said, although it is probable that the two girls who are said to have been paid shortly before Mary Phagan arrived at the factory, may be put on the stand.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 7th 1913, “Two New Witnesses in Phagan Mystery to Testify Thursday,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Journal

Monday April 28^th, 1913

Will Meet Again Wednesday Morning When Witnesses Will Be Examined—Five Hundred People Present When Inquest Was Begun

For an hour Monday morning a jury empaneled by Coroner Paul Donahue [sic] groped through dark basement passageways and first floor rooms in the factory of the National Pencil company hunting for evidence that would aid them in reaching a verdict as to who murdered pretty Mary Phagan. At the end of their hunt the body adjourned. They will meet again Wednesday morning at 9 o’clock to continue their investigation.

Many witnesses who can throw a light on the actual crime, the actions of the dead girl or of the suspects under arrest will be examined then. It is probable, also, that the prisoners now held in jail also will testify.

The jury met at P. J. Bloomfield’s undertaking chapel, 84 South Pryor street, shortly after 10 o’clock. It was composed of these: J. C. Hood, Clarence Langford, Glenn Dewberry, Homer C. Ashford, John Miller and C. Y. Sheets. Mr. Ashford was foreman.

The first official act of the jury was to view the remains of the 14-year-old girl. Behind closed doors the coroner’s talesmen inspected the fatal wounds and bruises on the girl’s body.

No witnesses were called. One or two who had been told by the police to be present when excused and told to report again Wednesday morning. They and many others probably will be heard at that time.

A throng of 500 persons had gathered at the undertaking parlors to hear the inquest. They were excluded by the police and when the jury, headed by Coroner Donahue [sic], finally left the funeral parlors for the scene of the murder, the investigators had to elbow and shoulder their way across a crowdbanked sidewalk.

Every inch of ground, every thing that has been mentioned in connection with the case were examined by the jurors in the pencil factory.

They were accompanied by three or four policemen on their tour, and the many details of the mystery given them to unravel, if possible. Once in their investigation a lantern was placed on the spot on the basement floor where Newt Lee, negro night watchman, says another lantern was sitting when he discovered the body. Apparently there was doubt in the minds of some of the jurors as to whether or not it would be possible for one standing where the negro said he stood to see a body. What the consensus of opinion among the investigators was is not known, however.

Shovels, tools, pieces of wood and other objects lying in the basement were examined for evidence that there had been possible weapons in the attack upon the girl. The search along this line was fruitless.

The jury viewed the machine room in the second story, upon the floor of which blood stains were found Monday morning. They saw the lathe to which a few strands of hair were found clinging by a workman. They visited the lavatory and several other rooms in the building. At the conclusion of the search no juror expressed an opinion. They will reserve their judgment until the conclusion of the inquest. This probably will be on Wednesday.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 28th 1913, “Coroner’s Jury Visits Scene of Murder and Adjourns Without Rendering Verdict,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

A sketch of pretty Mary Phagan from her latest photograph by Brewerton.

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

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday April 30^th, 1913

Newt Lee, Negro Who Notified Police of Mary Phagan Murder, Tells Coroner Girl’s Body Was Lying Face Up With Head Toward West When He Found It — But Officers Declare They Found It Lying Face Down, Head Toward East, Knew She Was White, Said He, by Her Hair

SAYS MR. FRANK DID UNUSUAL THINGS, BUT DOES NOT DIRECTLY IMPLICATE ANYONE

Mr. Frank Met Him Outside Office Saturday Afternoon and Let Him Off for Two Hours, After Having Insisted That He Be There at 4 o’Clock—Mr. Frank Was Scared When He Saw Gantt, Says Negro—Telephoned Him That Night for First Time—Inquest Resumed at 2:15

That he found the body of Mary Phagan face up with its head toward the back of the building, was the startling evidence given at the coroner’s inquest Wednesday morning by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman at the National Pencil factory in which the child was murdered.

This evidence, by which the negro has stuck without wavering is in direct conflict with the evidence of all the police officers and others who answered the negro’s alarm.

They found the body lying face down with its head toward the front of the building, they all swear.

The negro swore to the coroner Wednesday, that when he scurried away from the body to the telephone, he stayed away until the officers came. He went with them—and they found the body exactly reversed from the position in which he says he found it.

Thus is mystery added to mystery in the crime.

If the negro tells the truth (and the police have been unable to shake him from his first story, however much they doubt some of its particulars), who turned the child’s body over upon its face with its head in the opposite direction after he left it go to the telephone?

WAS MURDERER STILL THERE?

Was the murderer lurking there in the gloom at the back of the basement when the negro came down the ladder?

Was it the purpose to burn the body in the furnace—which was not burning then, but which might have been lighted easily from the clutter and trash? Did the negro’s descent into the basement frustrate that? And then did the murderer pull the hasp on the rear door of the basement and flee before the officers got there?

Patience and perseverance upon the part of the police, and the incessant putting together of two and two, will reveal the story.

The negro did not attempt to implicate any one, in his evidence before the coroner’s jury. His evidence was damaging slightly to Mr. Frank, the superintendent, in that he said Mr. Frank sent him away from the factory from 4 to 6 after having insisted that he be there at 4; that Mr. Frank looked frightened when he came down the stairs as the negro, after his return, met Mr. Gantt at the street door; and that Mr. Frank never had called him before, as he did over the telephone between 7 and 8 o’clock  that evening, to ask if everything was all right. The obvious conflict, between the officers inability to distinguish at first whether the girl was white or black may be dismissed, perhaps, by the negro’s stout assertion that he knew by her hair, which was long and brown and wavy, totally unlike that of a negro woman.

At 12:40 o’clock the coroner’s inquest adjourned until 2:15 o’clock.

THINKS HE SAW HER.

J. G. Spier, of Cartersville, testified that he saw a man and a girl, the latter of whom he declared positively after seeing the body at the undertaking establishment was Mary Phagan, on Forsyth street, near the pencil factory Saturday afternoon about 3:50 o’clock. He was positive the girl was the same whose body was pointed out to him as Mary Phagan’s, he said, but was not sure of the man. The general “outline,” he said was the same as the pointed out to him as Frank. He saw this couple again about 5 o’clock, he said.

The first official and public probe into the deep mystery hiding the slayer of fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan, brutally murdered and mistreated last Saturday night in the National Pencil factory, was begun in earnest Wednesday morning at 9:10 o’clock, when the coroner’s jury began its examination of witnesses.

The inquest was held at police headquarters, behind the closed doors of the station, in the office of the board of commissioners. Coroner Donehoo assembled his jury again (following a recess since it was empaneled last Monday morning) at the undertaking establishment of P. J. Bloomfield on Pryor street, and marched at the head of it from there through the streets to police headquarters, preferring to go to the witnesses who were incarcerated rather than bring those witnesses to the jury.

The following witnesses were called and sworn by the coroner:

E. E. Shank.

W. J. Coleman, step-father of the murdered child.

Adam Woodward, negro nightwatchman in an adjoining livery stable, who believes he heard a woman’s screams about 11 o’clock Saturday night.

Newt Lee, negro nightwatchman in the pencil factory, who first reported the finding of the body.

W. W. Rogers, former county policeman, who carried the officers to the scene of the crime.

W. F. Anderson, call officer, city police.

Sergeants Brown and Dobbs, of the city police.

Miss Pearl Robertson, friend of Arthur Mullinax, the trolley car conductor who has been held upon suspicion.

J. M. Gantt, formerly bookkeeper at the National Pencil factory.

E. L. Sentell, who believes he saw the girl on the street with some man Saturday night.

It was a noticeable fact that L. M. Frank, superintendent of the factory, was not among the witnesses called at first. His attorney, Luther Z. Rosser, was present when the inquest began its work.

Coroner Donehoo resumed his inquest upon the mysterious murder of Mary Phagan Wednesday morning, reimpaneling shortly before 9 o’clock the same jury which met Monday and recessed for two days. The members of that jury are H. C. Ashford, L. Glenn Dewberry, of 352 Cooper street; J. C. Hood, of 185 Windsor street; C. A. Langford, of 144 Highland avenue; John Miller and C. Y. Sheats, of Cascade road.

Immediately after impanelling the jury at the undertaking shop of P. J. Bloomfield on Pryor street, where the murdered girl’s body had rested until it was removed for burial Tuesday. Coroner Donehoo led it away from the crowd congregated in the street in front of the establishment, marching to police headquarters. There the negro night watchman, Newt Lee, and the superintendent, L. M. Frank, of the National Pencil company, were in detention behind stout bars.

CALL OFFICER TESTIFIES.

W. F. Anderson, call officer, city police, was the first witness to be examined. He told of receiving a telephone call at police headquarters shortly after 3 o’clock Sunday morning a man’s voice informed him that the speaker was the negro night watchman at the National Pencil company factory and that he, the watchman, had found the body of a young woman who evidently had been murdered. She was a white girl, the negro said.

The witness went to the factory on Forsyth street with other officers, and was met there by the negro, Newt Lee, and was led by the negro through a trapdoor down a ladder into the basement, where after some moments he distinguished the body of the murdered girl later identified as Mary Phagan. He could not see it at first until he was almost upon it, said the officer. The body was lying in a corner beyond the end of a compartment partitioned off at the left from the main basement. It was lying upon its face. The left stocking was torn. The left shoe was missing. The left knee was bruised. The band around the bottom of the underskirt was torn off.

GRUESOME DETAILS GIVEN.

The head was very bloody, and the eyes were bloodshot. A cord, he said, which was a sort of small rope, was tied so tightly around the neck that it cut into the flesh. This cord was about six or seven feet long. In addition to it, the band which had been torn from the dead girl’s underskirt, was wrapped round the neck.

He also found a bruise just above and back of the ear. He testified that the mouth and eyes of the dead child were filled with dirt and sawdust, and that the whole face was so discolored with grime that he was not sure at first whether the girl was white.

In reply to questions he said that he hadn’t noticed whether the body had been dragged across the floor of the cellar.

After examining the body he had gone to the door which offered an exit from the cellar, and there he found that the staple on the inside had been drawn, and that the door had been opened by this means.

LANTERN LIGHT DIM.

At this point, Dr. J. W. Hurt took up the questioning and brought out an important fact from the witness.

He asked the witness what sort of light he had used in the cellar. The officer said that it was the usual police flashlight light. Then he inquired the sort of light used by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman. The officer answered that it was a lantern, very much smoked, which gave only a dim light.

Lee has told the police that he noticed the body as he stood twenty or thirty feet away.

“Could he have seen twenty or thirty feet with his lantern?” asked Dr. Hurt.

“He could not,” answered Officer Anderson, “He couldn’t have seen more than twelve or fifteen feet. And I also think that the place where he says he was standing is in such a position that rays from the lantern would not have even fallen in the direction of the body.

He also testified that the reason which the negro gave for going to the cellar was not convincing.

BASEMENT DESCRIBED.

He was present, said the witness, when somebody picked up a note near the body. He identified it as the one written on a slip of yellow paper. Later somebody found another note. He didn’t identify that. About five feet from the girl’s body a pencil was found. Near it was a pad from which the slip evidently had been torn. He described the basement—a long, narrow enclosure between rock walls, with the elevator shaft near the front, a boiler on the right about half way back, a partition on the left shutting in an enclosure which seemed to be waste space, an open toilet on the right beyond the boiler, the girl’s body on the left beyond that, and a door at the back end. The girl’s left slipper was found near the elevator. She wore no hat that the couldn’t find. He didn’t remember distinctly how she was dressed, but believed it was in some dark material.

SERGEANT BROWN TESTIFIES.

Sergeant R. J. Brown gave evidence putting heavy suspicion upon the negro night watchman, Newt Lee. Call Officer Anderson has testified that the negro told him over the telephone that the body was that of a young white woman.

Sergeant Brown declared that he and his brother officers found it impossible to tell whether it was the body of a white or a colored girl until they made a minute examination.

He described revolting details. He said that the negro’s story that he (the negro) first saw the body when he was standing some twenty-five feet away from it, seemed improbable to the officers, for they stood there and could not see it by the light of the negro’s lantern, nor could they make it out until they were within just a few feet of it.

It was only after a minute examination, said the sergeant, that he and the other officers concluded that the negro’s statement was right, that the body was that of a white person.

BODY WAS COLD.

“This is nothing but a child!” the officer said he exclaimed, when he first saw the body closely. The body was cold then and was somewhat still, said he.

“I couldn’t tell whether it was a white girl or a colored girl. I took some shavings from around there and rubbed her face with them. Still I couldn’t tell whether her skin was white or dark. Finally I had to roll the stocking down from the right knee—the other being torn and dirty; and then I saw her white skin.”

The officer said the body was fearfully dirty—particularly the face. There was a place on the dirt floor of the basement that looked as if something might have been dragged there. He did not believe that all of the dirt that was on the child’s face could have gotten there simply from the body’s lying upon the dirt floor. Dirt was inside the child’s mouth, even. Her tongue was swollen, and protruded almost to the point of her chin, showing she had choked to death. A piece of heavy twine was tied tightly around her neck. A strip from around the bottom of her underskirt was tied around her neck, too. He knew it was from her underskirt, because the lace on it matched the lace on her skirt, and a strip was missing there. The hands were folded beneath the body, but were not tied. He described the surrounding circumstances that he found—a lock on a staple near the back door, the staple having been pulled out. The negro night watchman’s lantern was of an ordinary type, said he, and had not been cleaned in some time, its globe being dirty and its light dim. Lee, the negro, told him that he (the negro) rarely went into the basement, but gave a reasonable excuse for his presence there when he found the body.

GAVE LITTLE INFORMATION.

Sergeant Brown testified that Newt Lee gave them little information upon their arrival at the pencil factory. He said that the negro did not tell them whether he had touched the corpse.

He was questioned as to who had telephoned to Frank, and he said that Officer Anderson endeavored to reach Frank over the phone. The officer told central that a girl had been murdered and that it was of utmost importance that he be given the number that he asked. But although this number was rung repeatedly, he got no answer. It was not until much later Sunday morning that the police were able to get into communication with Frank.

He testified that the negro would have found it almost impossible to see the body from the position in which Newt Lee said that he was standing at the time he made his grewsome discovery.

He continued his testimony by saying that the girl’s clothing was badly disordered and torn, and that the cord around her neck looped in the back. The band which was also bound round the neck was in two pieces which had been tied together. The tongue, he said, protruded an inch, and the blood upon the face was cold.

In his opinion the band from the underskirt had been tied about the neck before the rope, and that Mary Phagan was strangled to death.

CLOTHES ARE EXHIBITED.

When his testimony had been concluded a dramatic incident took place. The clothes that the girl had worn were brought forward for the jury to see, and were placed in a heap on a chair. There was a commotion at the side of the room. The brother of Mary Phagan rose, and for a moment remained staring at the heap in the chair. Without speaking, he clasped his hands to his head and pushed his way from the room.

Officer Anderson was recalled and testified that he found the body lying face downward, although Newt Lee had said that the body lay face upward.

He said that the legs of the body were not stiff, and that blood in the hair was still moist. Blood, he said, was still flowing from the body. According to his testimony, the head of the body lay toward Forsyth street, and there were signs in the cellar of a struggle.

The clothes which were shown to the jury consisted in a one-piece purple dress, with white trimmings. Only one shoe, a black gun-metal slipper, was displayed.

HE FOUND THE NOTES.

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs identified the two notes as having been found by himself near the body. One was written on yellow paper, the other on rough scratch pad paper. The elevator shaft, said he, is distant about 150 feet from where the body was found. He told of the minute examination that had to be made to determine whether or not the body was that of a white girl. Her hands looked as if she had been dragged face downward.

On the back of her head at the left was a wound. Cuts were on her face and forehead. The sergeant said he called Newt Lee, the negro, to him and said: “You did this or you know who did it.” The negro denied any guilt, said the sergeant.

The sergeant said that then he read one of the notes to the negro, with a sentence like this:

“Mommer: Tall black thin negro did this. He will try to lay it on night—“

The sentence came to the end of a line there, said the sergeant.

“That means me,” the sergeant said the negro night watchman said immediately. “The night watchman.”

Later, said the sergeant, he stood where the negro said he was standing when he saw the body and tried to see it. He even went so far as to have a fellow officer lie down where the body had been. But though it was daylight, he barely could discern the officer there, said the sergeant; nor would he have seen him at all had not been looking particularly toward that spot with a definite purpose. By the light of a dim lantern, it would have been practically impossible for the negro to have stood where he claimed, said he, and seen the body in the gloom partially behind the corner of the partition and slightly below floor level.

The staple taken from the rear door could not have been pulled off save from the inside, said he. A piece of iron nearby might have been used to prize it out, said he.

Sergeant Dobbs, in reply to a question as to whether he thought the body had been dragged, said that after daylight had come he noticed a trail leading from the elevator shaft to where the body had been found.

COULDN’T HAVE CARRIED BODY.

In his opinion an ordinary man could not have carried the body down the ladder to the basement. The elevator, Sergeant Dobbs said, was on the first floor, on the Forsyth street level.

The girl’s left shoe, Sergeant Dobbs said, was found alongside her hat on a garbage pile about 100 feet from the elevator and about 50 feet from the body. The boiler, in which there was no fire, was also about 100 feet from the elevator and 50 feet from the body, alongside the trail.

The notes, the witness said, were found almost together near the head, about two feet from the partition. There was no opening in the partition that he saw.

Sergeant Dobbs said that when he entered the basement he was three or four feet from the body before he saw it. The negro was leading the way, he said.

Sergeant Dobbs said the body was cold when he first saw it. He felt of the face and hands and knees. The finger joints were not stiff and could be worked back and forth easily, he said. Having had no experience with dead bodies, the witness said he could not estimate how long the girl had been dead when he found her.

NO ONE IN BUILDING, HE SAID.

Sergeant Dobbs said the negro told him no one had been in the building since he started to work at 6 o’clock Saturday night.

The girl’s body was taken from the basement out the back way by the undertaker’s. Sergeant Dobbs said, some time after daylight—about 6 o’clock Sunday morning, he thought.

Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter, was then called.

At 11:45 o’clock the negro night watchman, Newt Lee, was called to the stand by the coroner.

He said that he lives at 40 Henry street. Usually he went to his work about 6 o’clock as night watchman at the pencil factory, he said. Last Friday Mr. Frank, the superintendent, told him to come earlier, at 4, on Saturday, saying it would be a half holiday. Mr. Frank spoke to him two or three times about it during the day, said he. He appeared at the factory at 4 o’clock, accordingly, and found the street door unlocked but the double doors leading to the plant were locked. He has keys to the front and back of the factory, said the negro.

FRANK LETS LEE GO.

He went into the office and Mr. Frank came into the outer office from the inner office, rubbing his hands.

“I’m here, sir,” the negro said he remarked to his employer.

“I’m sorry, Newt, that I had you come here so soon,” the negro said Mr. Frank told him. “Go out and have some fun. Come back in about an hour and a half, but don’t stay later than the usual time”—6 o’clock.

The negro said he left and returned at 6 o’clock.

The negro said that after coming to work each evening at 6 o’clock he punched the time clock, and started on his rounds of the four floors of the factory. Those rounds usually took him half an hour, he said, exclusive of the basement. If the half hour had not quite expired when he reached the clock, sometimes he went to the basement, too, said he; otherwise he omitted the basement and resumed his round.

COULDN’T SEE INTO OFFICE.

The negro said that usually Mr. Frank called him into the office, and that it was contrary to the usual custom when Mr. Frank came out into the outer office and met him. He couldn’t see into the office, said the negro, or tell whether there was anybody else inside.

The negro said he left, going up Forsyth street to Alabama, east on Alabama to Broad, across the bridge, along Viaduct way to that Whitehall viaduct and down the street into Wall street and along that street to Central avenue, where he found a big fat man selling some sort of medicine. The man had some negroes there, eating [1 word illegible] and dancing, said Newt Lee. He stayed there until time to go back to work, and got back to the factory two or three minutes, or perhaps four minutes, before 6 o’clock. Mr. Frank was still there. He started to punch the clock. Mr. Frank told him to wait, that there had been only two or three there that day and the slip had been taken from the clock. Mr. Frank came out and the two of them put the slip back on, said the negro, and he punched the clock at 6. Mr. Frank went back into the office, said the negro, and he himself went back downstairs to close the doors. At the street door he met Mr. Gantt, formerly a bookkeeper in the office, said the negro. Mr. Gantt wanted to get in and get some old shoes that he had left there. The negro told him it was against the rules, but that if Mr. Frank, who was upstairs, said no, he would let Mr. Gantt in.

At Mr. Gantt’s request that he ask Mr. Frank, he turned from the door, and saw Mr. Frank just coming down the stairs from the office and machine room floor. Mr. Frank looked scared, said the negro, but he thought it was because he was afraid Mr. Gantt might have come there “to do him dirt,” because Frank and Gantt had quarreled and the former had discharged the bookkeeper some weeks before. Mr. Gantt stated his case to Mr. Frank. “What kind of shoes were they?” Mr. Frank asked. “Tan,” Mr. Gantt replied. “I think I saw the negroes sweeping them out this morning,” said Mr. Frank, “But I had some black ones, too,” said Gantt. “All right, Newt,” said Mr. Frank. “Take him up there and stay with him.” Mr. Frank went on out, said the negro, and he went up into the office with Mr. Gantt and got the shoes. The negro gave him some little red twine and some paper to wrap the shoes up. Mr. Gantt wanted to use the telephone, and the negro told him to go ahead. Mr. Gantt called some lady. “I know it was a lady because I heard him call her name,” said the negro. He couldn’t remember the name. Mr. Gantt told her he would be home about 9 o’clock or a little later. He talked some time, then hung up the receiver and left. The negro locked the street doors behind him, and then because Mr. Frank had told him to watch Mr. Gantt, he stood there at the glass door and watched him leave. Mr. Gantt crossed the street, passed in front of the saloon there, and went on off up the street, said the negro.

The negro said that he did not see Gantt at 4 o’clock when he first came to work. He did not watch Mr. Frank when he left, said the negro. Frank had a key to the building and could have returned while the negro and Gantt were upstairs. The negro said he did not go to the basement when he first came at 4 o’clock. He was asked if there was a rug carpet in Mr. Frank’s office, and replied no. He knew because he cleaned it every night.

Mr. Frank offered him some bananas when he was there the first time, said the negro, but he declined the fruit.

GANTT THERE HALF AN HOUR.

It took Gantt “no time at all” to find the shoes, said the negro. Gantt was in the building about half an hour. He did not know where Mr. Frank was during this time. He thought Mr. Frank walked away from the building toward Alabama. The first time he ever saw Mr. Frank, said the negro, was when he came to work there about three weeks before the crime.

After making the rounds of the building, or about 7 o’clock, he went to the basement, said the negro.

Machinery is on the second floor and on the top floor. Gantt got the shoes out of the shipping department near the clock on the second floor.

Lee said he went to the basement by way of the ladder through the trap door. A gas light always burned near the foot of the ladder. The gas was not as high as he had left it at 7 o’clock that morning. It had been turned down to about the size of the lightning bug. He received a phone message from Mr. Frank between 7 and 8 o’clock. Other members of the force had called him on previous nights occasionally, but this was the first that Mr. Frank had called him. Mr. Frank asked if everything was “all right,” and the negro replied, “So far as I know.”

BODY WAS FACE UP.

The negro said that the body was lying face up when he discovered it.

Other witnesses who came later swore it lay face down when they found it.

This contradicted the evidence of all the policemen.

He was asked the point blank question by the coroner:

“Why did you turn it over?”

“I didn’t turn it over,” said the negro.

He said he punched the clock every half hour during Saturday night.

“What did Mr. Frank say on Sunday about that clock not being right?” he was asked.

“He said it was all right,” replied the negro.

He was asked to repeat his story of how he found the body. He went down the ladder to go to the basement, and went into the toilet, leaving his lantern in front of it upon the ground.

On coming out, he saw the body of the girl lying on the ground around the corner of the partition. It looked very vague, and he thought somebody had put something there to frighten him. He found the body lying on its back with the head turned toward Madison avenue (exactly the reverse of the position the officers found it in). He saw blood on the face and knew by the straight hair that it was the body of a white woman.

“It scared me, that body there,” said the negro, “and I called up the station house.”

“How did you know the number?” asked the coroner.

Mr. Frank had given it to him, said the negro, for use in case of fire or anything unusual. “He gave me his own number, too, to call him up in case I wanted him.”

The coroner asked him if he touched the body when he found it.

He said, “No, sir, I did not.”

He did not go back to the basement until the police came.

He went through the machine room in which the girl was supposed to have been attacked, every 15 minutes, in making his rounds of the building. He had to pass through it, he said, on his rounds.

PUNCHED CLOCK REGULARLY.

In answer to a question, the negro said that Mr. Frank and Mr. Darley told him that he had punched the clock regularly. He thought that was on Sunday after he had been arrested, said the negro.

Answering another question, the negro said that he did not know when it was that he told the police of Mr. Frank having let him off, Saturday afternoon, or of Mr. Frank having telephoned to him later.

Answering another direct question, the negro said that when he returned with the police the body was “just the same” as when he first saw it.

The negro admitted that he said over the telephone that the body was that of a white woman. His lantern had been cleaned Friday, he said, and was in fairly good condition. He had never seen the dead girl before he found her body. The girls employed in the factory always left before he came to work, and he left before they came back. The factory work stopped each day at 5:30 o’clock, and he came on duty at 6 o’clock. He had seen the back door open in the daytime, he said, and he thought the fireman—a negro named Knollys—had a key to it.

Policeman Anderson corroborated the negro’s statement about the gas jet being a very dim light.

GIRL AND MAN NEAR FACTORY.

J. G. Spier, of Cartersville, in Atlanta Saturday, testified that he walked from the Kimball house down Forsyth street to the Terminal station with a friend Saturday afternoon and reached the Terminal station at exactly 3:50 o’clock. When he went by the National Pencil company’s place, on his way back from the station, he saw a girl apparently about seventeen years of age and a white man apparently about twenty-five years of age, and both seemed slightly excited. The girl was nervous, and was twisting her hands, and he thought the man had been drinking. They were standing near the street door of the factory. He went on down to Five Points, he said, and later went back by the Western Union office on Forsyth street, and at about twenty minutes to 5 o’clock he passed the man and the girl again. The girl was standing right by the door of the pencil factory. He saw the same girl Sunday morning at Bloomfield’s undertaking establishment. There was no doubt in his mind that it was the same girl, despite the disfigured and swollen features of the corpse. He couldn’t be sure about the man. A man pointed out to him by an officer as “Mr. Frank” had the same “outline” as the man he saw on Forsyth street. This man was pointed out to him on Sunday morning. About 8:30 o’clock he went to the factory where the detectives were making their investigation. We went there with a policeman, to whom he had told the story of the excited couple he had seen. He was on a Fair street car reading a newspaper extra, and got off the car and talked to an officer. He could not describe the complexion of the man whom he saw with the girl. He, Spier, is five feet and eleven inches in height, he said, and he thought the man with the girl would come about to his shoulder. He could not identify the clothing which had been worn by Mary Phagan, on the table. As well as he remembered, the girl had on a light cloak. He did not notice whether she wore a hat or not. He thought her hair was dark. He was in Atlanta on personal business, he said.

The Inquest adjourned at the conclusion of Mr. Spier’s testimony, until 2:15 o’clock.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 30th 1913, “Negro Watchman Tells Story of Finding Girl’s Body and Questions Fail to Shake Him,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Journal
July 27^th, 1913

April 27—The dead body of Mary Phagan is found in basement of National Pencil factory at 3 a. m. by Newt Lee, the negro night-watchman. Police hold Lee, who yater [sic] in the day re-enacts discovery of the remains before city detectives.

April 27—Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the Pencil factory, called from bed to view Mary Phagan’s body at

April 27—Arthur Mullinax arrested on information given the police by E. L. Sentell, who declared he saw the murdered girl in the former’s company at 1220 o’clock on the morning of the murder.

April 28—Coroner Donehoo empanels in metal room on second floor and blood splotched on the floor lead police to believe the girl was killed there.

April 28—Coroner Donehoo empanels jury for inquest, it meets, views body and scene of crime and adjourns.

April 28—The largest crowd that ever viewed a body in Atlanta sees Mary Phagan’s remains at [t]he undertaking chapel.

April 28—J. M. Gantt, former bookkeeper at the factory arrested at Marietta.

April 28—Pinkertons hired by Pencil factory to find slayer.

April 29—Frank taken from factory to police station. Chief Lanford announces he will be held until after the inquest.

April 29—Experts declare Newt Lee wrote notes found by dead girl’s side.

April 29—Luther Z. Rosser announces he has been retained by Frank and is present when his client is questioned in Chief Lanford’s office.

April 29—Discovery of what is apparently a blood stain near elevator leads police to believe girl’s body was dragged to the conveyance shaft and dropped to the basement.

April 29—J. M. Gantt asks release from police station on habeas corpus.

April 29—State offers reward of $200 for apprehension of murderer. City later adds $1,000.

April 29—Miss Pearl Robinson tells detectives it was she that Sentell saw with Mullinax on night of murder.

April 30—Frank and Lee closeted together in office of Chief of Detectives Lanford for an hour.

April 30—Coroner’s jury, reconvenes. Lee tells his story. Many witnesses called.

May 1—Detectives conclude Mary Phagan never left factory after she entered to receive her pay early in the afternoon of the day of the murder.

JIM CONLEY’S ARREST.

May 1—James Conley, negro sweeper, a[r]rested while washing shirt in factory. Considered unimportant at time.

May 1—Satisfied with alibis, police liberate Gantt and Mullinax.

May 1—Frank and Lee taken to county jail to be held until outcome of coroner’s jury probe.

May 2—Solicitor General Dorsey enters actively into case.

May 4—Police search for girl said to have gone to pencil pactory [sic] with Mary Phagan on day of murder.

May 5—Frank tells story of his actions on the day of the crime. On the stand for three and one-half hours, he tells a straightforward tale.

May 6—Paul Bowen arrested in Houston, Tex.

May 7—Bowen released upon proving alibi.

May 7—Frand [sic] and Lee ordered held for grand jury by coroner’s jury.

May 12—Mrs. Frank visits her husband for first time since his incarceration.

May 16—Fund to bring William J. Burns, famous detective, to Atlanta is opened.

May 17—Colonel Thomas B. Felder announces that Burns detective is at work on the mystery.

May 18—Burns sleuth turns out to be C. W. Tobie. He says city detectives are on right trail.

May 21—P. A. Flak, New York finger print expert, makes investigation. Result unknown.

May 24—Conley unexpectedly makes startling confession in which he says he wrote notes found near body at instigation of Frank.

May 24—Frank indicted by grand jury for murder; Lee held as material witness.

May 25—Detectives attempt to gain further confession from Conley.

May 26—C. W. Tobie withdraws from case and Burns officials announce their investigation terminated.

May 27—Conley makes another sensational affidavit in which he says he helped Frank carry Mary Phagan’s body to basement.

CONLEY RE-ENACTS TRAGEDY.

May 30—Conley taken to pencil factory and re-enacts in pantomime carrying of body to basement. Taken to tower.

May 31—Conley taken from county jail to Solicitor Dorsey’s office for grilling.

June 2—Defense theory, embodying, among other features, the belief that the girl was slain on the first floor, becomes known.

June 3—Minola McKnight makes sen-cook [sic], employed by Mr. and Mrs. Emil Selig, Mrs. Frank’s parents, taken into custody.

June 3—Minola McKnight makes sensational affidavit in which she says she overhea[r]d Mrs. Frank tell of strange conduct on Frank’s part on the night of the murder.

June 4—Mrs. Frank, in first public statement, declares her husband is innocent.

June 5—Further grilling by detectives fails to change Conley’s story.

June 7—Mrs. Frank scores Solicitor Dorsey, declaring that the room in which Minola McKnight made her incriminating affidavit was a “torture chamber.”

June 8—Attorney Rosser accuses Chief Lanford of insincerity in search for slayer.

June 13—Solicitor Dorsey wins fight to hold Conley at police station instead of county jail by securing revokal of order designating him as a material witness. Conley released and rearrested at door of city prison.

June 14—Solicitor Dorsey goes to New York. Declares trip has no connection with Phagan case.

June 15—Announcement that Frank A. Hooper will be associated with Solicitor Dorsey in the prosecution.

June 18—Announcement made that Reuben R. Arnold, attorney, will aid in Frank’s defense.

June 23—Solicitor Dorsey sets trial for June 30.

June 24—Date of trial changed to July 28 at conference between Superior Court Judge Roan and defense and prosecution attorneys.

July 9—Public is told of a portion of Mary Phagan’s pay envelope being found at bottom of flight of stairs leading from office by Pinkerton detectives soon after the murder.

July 10—L. J. Fletcher, Bertillion expert at federal penitentiary, fails to find fingerprints on pay envelope.

July 11—W. H. Mincey’s affidavit, in which he says Conley, while intoxicated, confessed to killing the girl, made public.

July 12—It is announced that others will corroborate Mincey’s story.

PINKERTONS CHANGE THEORY.

July 18—It is intimated that the Pinkertons have changed their theory and believe that Frank is innocent.

July 18—Call issued for grand jury to meet and consider indictment of Conley as principal.

July 21—Grand jury, after hearing statement of Solicitor Dorsey, agrees to suspend action in Conley matter.

July 22—The discovery of a bloody stick near where Conley sat on day of murder is announced.

This leads to belief that Mary Phagan may have been killed with bludgeon.

July 24—Solicitor Dorsey announces he is ready to go to trial on July 26 and will fight vigorously any attempt at postponement.

July 24—Judge Roan, of superior court, says he knows of no reason for delay.

July 25—Defense issues subpenas for witnesses who will testify in Frank’s behalf.

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

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, June 3^rd, 1913

Defense Prepares to Show Glaring Discrepancies in Affidavit of James Conley.

[Minola McKnight, the negro cook at Frank’s home, made a written statement Tuesday afternoon to the police following a cross-examination lasting more than an hour at the police station.

The woman was questioned by E. H. Pickett and Roy L. Craven, both of whom are employed at the hardware store of Beck & Gregg. While the bearing of her statement on the Phagan case was not revealed, it is generally thought to relate to the actions of Frank and other inmates of his household on the morning following the murder.

She is believed to have stuck to her story that Frank was home at 1:30, which is one link in the alibi chain the defense is forging.

That Louise H. Beck, foreman of the Grand Jury which indicted Frank, is a co-partner in the establishment with which Pickett and Craven, the questioners of the negro woman, are employed is believed to lend much significance to the cross-examination by the two men. This connection, however, was not made public.

The cook was later released after her statement had been taken, and with her husband left for her Pulliam street home. It was said that she might be called as a witness in the trial of Frank. Much as the detectives attempted to shroud her evidence in mystery, all the indications were that she had not materially changed her statement in favor of Frank. She was released on an agreement with her counsel, George Gordon. — added from a later edition of the Georgian — Ed.]

“Developments of a startling nature may be expected from day to day in the Phagan case,” said Chief of Detectives Lanford Tuesday morning. “They may be expected right up to the date that the trial of Leo Frank begins.

“That we feel we practically have a conclusive case against the factory superintendent does not mean that we are resting in our labors to the slightest extent. We are a little more at rest in our minds, that is all.

“The detectives are working constantly on new clews that present themselves and are investigating every story that is heard, whether it is told by a witness favorable to Frank or against him. We wish to go into court prepared to establish our case against Frank so that not a doubt of his guilt will be possible. That is, of course, if it still appears at that time as certain to us that he is the guilty man as it does now.”

With the continued activity of the detectives, it has become noticeable in the last few days that the defense is at work on its case. Both sides are preparing for a titanic battle when Frank is put on trial for his life the third week in this month. Frank’s cook is still held at police headquarters.

To Cite Time Differences.

Differences in the time given by Jim Conley in his affidavit and the testimony of Coroner’s jury witnesses will be pointed out in the defense of Leo M. Frank against the charge of killing little Mary Phagan, it was revealed Tuesday. They will be used as indications of the superintendent’s innocence because of their many seeming deviations from fact.

One of the most glaring was the negro’s declaration that while he was in Frank’s office to write the notes Miss Corinthia Hall and Mrs. Emma Clark entered. Conley said that this was 1 o’clock or a few minutes after. But Miss Hall had left the building more than an hour before, according to her own testimony before the Coroner’s jury.

“What time was it when you left the factory?” Coroner Donehoo asked Miss hall when she was on the stand at the inquest.

“A quarter to twelve,” she replied. “I looked at the clock when I came down.”

The negro said that he looked at the clock when he went in the office and that it was just four minutes of 1 o’clock. He had been in there a few minutes, he asserted, when the voices of Miss Hall and Mrs. Clark were heard.

Another statement which will be refuted is Conley’s declaration that he assisted in taking the body from the second floor down to the basement on the elevator.

To Testify Elevator Didn’t Run.

Two witnesses will be called to prove that the elevator did not run that day at the time the body is said to have been disposed of.

These two witnesses are Harry Denham and Arthur White. They were on the fourth floor from early in the forenoon until after 3 o’clock in the afternoon. If the elevator had been run they say they would have known it. The experiment of running the elevator has been tried since the murder. It is said that it can not be run without the persons on the fourth floor being aware of it.

The theory that will be presented by the defense is that Mary Phagan was the victim of drink-crazed Conley. From his hiding place near the stairs he saw her descending from the second floor. She was alone. He quickly stunned her with a blow over the head, the defense will suggest, and toppled her down the elevator shaft, taking her purse and later disposing of her body.

The alibis which the defense will seek to establish are, of course, the weapons on which reliance will be placed to complete the riddling or Conley’s testimony and affidavits. Frank had arrived home in the afternoon at the time Conley says the superintendent was dictating notes in his office, according to five witnesses the defense will be able to call.

Conley described at length his alleged conversation with Frank in the factory office after 1 o’clock. Frank says that he arrived home for luncheon at 1:20 o’clock and he is supported in his statement by five witnesses.

Seven witnesses are prepared to testify that Frank was home in the evening at the time he is said to have been telephoning to Mrs. Mima [sic] Fo[r]mby, asking for her permission to bring a girl to her house. If the State’s theory is accepted that Mary Phagan was killed in the afternoon, the defense will hold that the Fo[r]mby affidavit is ridiculous on its face. It will be pointed out that any man, whether he be ignorant or intelligent, would not in the first place confide his crime to a negro or any other person by asking their assistance in disposing of the body.

After this he would not take a cab driver, a woman and any others who happened to observe his movements into his confidence by removing the dead body to a semi-public house like that of Mrs. Fo[r]mby’s.

Police to Combat Them.

The element of time will enter into several other phases of the defense to show that the negro has been lying in all his affidavits. He repeated a conversation which took place between Foreman Darley and Miss Mattie Smith. He said that it took place a few minutes before 12 o’clock.

The defense will claim that, as a matter of fact, the conversation took place at about 9:30 o’clock in the morning and that the negro must have been there at that time in order to hear the conversation, although he testified that he did not come there until he met Frank on the street at 11 o’clock. The police, however, are ready to combat testimony along this line.

That Frank would have been satisfied with the incoherent, almost unintelligible notes found beside the girl’s body, if he had been dictating them, will be represented as most unreasonable. The notes were more probably the sole work of a half-intoxicated negro, as Conley has admitted he was, the defense will maintain.

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, June 3rd 1913, “Bitter Fight Certain in Trial of Frank,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Solicitor General Hugh Dorsey, in a characteristic pose, examining a witness. On Solicitor Dorsey is placed dependence for the solving of the puzzling Phagan slaying case. He is making every effort to unravel the mystery.

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

NO REAL SOLUTION OF PHAGAN SLAYING MYSTERY

EVIDENCE AGAINST MEN NOW HELD IN BAFFLING CASE WEAK, SAYS OLD POLICE REPORTER

Atlanta Georgian

Sunday, May 11^th, 1913

Detectives in Coroner’s Jury Probe Admit They Have Nothing on Which to Convict Anyone in Mysterious Tragedy of Atlanta.

TESTIMONY BROUGHT OUT NO INCRIMINATING POINTS

BY AN OLD POLICE REPORTER.

The most sensational testimony offered at the Coroner’s inquest in the Phagan case was lost sight of entirely by the newspapers.

Juror Langford asked Detective Black, who was on the witness stand: “Have you discovered any positive information as to who committed this murder?”

Detective Black replied, “No, sir, I have not!”

Coroner Donehoo asked Detective Scott of the Pinkerton force on the witness stand:

“Have you any definite information which makes you suspect any party of this crime?”

Detective Scott replied, “I would not commit myself. I am working on a chain of circumstances. Detective Black has been with me all the time on the case and he knows about the circumstances I refer to.”

As you read this over and consider it carefully, you will be impressed by the fact that the two most important detectives engaged for a period of two weeks on the Phagan case testify under oath that they have no positive information as to who committed the crime—in fact really know nothing about it at all.

I am setting down here my own thoughts and ideas, without intending the slightest disrespect to any official, and further, I believe I am at liberty to do so because of Scott’s and Black’s testimony.

MYSTERY STILL WITHOUT SOLUTION.

In The Sunday American of last week I published an article saying that the developments of the preceding week had led nowhere, and that the mystery was then as dark and deep as any mystery that ever puzzled police and detectives.

I can only repeat this statement to-day. I am not in the confidence of any of the detectives, of Solicitor Dorsey, or of Coroner Donehoo, or any of the persons engaged in the attempt to unravel the crime.

I know what the average newspaper readers knows—no more, no less. I walk about the streets a great deal, I ride on the cars and met a great many people who talk about the terrible affair, and I believe I am right in saying that the consensus of opinion now is that the police and detectives are very far indeed from solving the mystery.

In making this statement I do not wish to be understood as casting reflections upon the police or detective force. The men engaged on the case are well-meaning, but of limited experience, and they may have made mistakes.

The infallible detective, like the indispensible man, does not exist.

All detectives are not “man catchers,” and many detectives employ very stupid methods in their work. They can see the obvious things, but they lack imagination. Their minds work like a circular saw, and a knotty problem sometimes stops their minds from working entirely, just as a tangle of knots in a plank being sawed puts the saw out of business.

I pay my respects here to Coroner Donehoo in the way he has handled the case. His examinations of witnesses showed unusual intelligence. His questions were searching and he exhibited a zeal in the public welfare that must not be overlooked. But Coroner Donehoo is not a Sherlock Holmes. He performed his function under the law in a creditable manner. He really wasted hours in asking questions that might have been spared except that there was always a hope that a blind question might catch a witness off-guard and there would be an ensuing revelation.

What did the Coroner’s inquiry develop?

Take first the case of Lee. The testimony against him is that he is the only person KNOWN to have been in the pencil factory, after 6:30 o’clock in the evening until the body was discovered.

Frank testified that he found three “skips” in the clock tape Lee should have punched.

Sergeant R. J. Brown testified that Lee could not have seen the body from the place the night watchman told him he first saw it.

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs testified that Lee, without suggestion from any one, said that the words “night witch” in one of the notes found near the body of the dead girl meant “night watchman.”

F. M. Berry, assistant cashier at the Fourth National Bank, testified that the notes found near the body were in his opinion written by Lee.

Detectives told of finding a shirt with blood stains near the right shoulder in a barrel at the rear of Lee’s house. The indications were that the shirt never had been worn, however.

TESTIMONY FAVORING LEE.

Testimony favoring Lee is that he was not alone in the building until after 6:30 o’clock, and that it can not reasonably be supposed that he would have been able to lure the girl to the factory by any means after this time, or even that the girl would have been alone in that vicinity at that time. There is no evidence to account for her whereabouts between 12:10 and 6:30 o’clock.

Lee’s own testimony was that he did not know the girl and that he never saw her until he came upon the body in the basement of the factory shortly before 3 o’clock Sunday morning.

W. W. Rogers testified that Lee did not appear excited. Other officers who went to the factory Sunday morning corroborated this testimony.

These circumstances conflict with what is known of Lee’s nature. The natural course for Lee, had he been the culprit, it is argued, would have been instant flight.

The framing of the notes to divert suspicion, according to the testimony of persons familiar with the negro nature, was too subtle a plan to suggest itself to Lee’s mind.

What was developed against Frank?

The principal points brought out connecting him with the crime were:

He was the last person known to have seen Mary Phagan. By his own testimony, he saw her at 12:10 Saturday afternoon, April 26, when she appeared at the factory to get her pay. No one was able to swear she was seen after that time.

G. W. Epps, Jr., a boy friend of the Phagan girl, testified that Mary had told him Frank had waited at the door when she left the factory one day and winked at her and tried to flirt. Epps rode to town with her the day she went to the factory to get her money, and was to meet her again at 4 o’clock at Five Points. She did not appear, lending strength to the theory that she never left the factory after once going to get her pay.

FRANK’S CONDUCT WITH GIRLS.

Thomas Blackstock, a former employee, testified that he had seen Frank attempt liberties with girls in the factory.

Nellie Pettis, 9 Oliver Street, testified that Frank had made improper advances to her when she went to get her sister-in-law’s pay at the factory. She said he pulled out a box of money from a drawer and looked at her and then the money and asked: “How about it?”

Mrs. C. D. Donegan, 165 West Fourteenth Street, said she had seen Frank smile and flirt with the girls in his employ.

Nellie Wood, 8 Corput Street, testified that Frank had attempted familiarities with her in his office, and had put his hands on her and had tried to persuade her to remain with him in his office.

Frank testified that he was at the factory Saturday afternoon from 12 to 1 o’clock and from 3 to 6:30 o’clock. Harry Denham, Arthur White and White’s wife were in the factory part of the afternoon, the two men until 3:10. From 3:10 until 3:45 Frank was alone in the factory. Then Newt Lee came and was told by Frank to take the remainder of the afternoon off until 6 o’clock. From about 4 o’clock until 6, Frank again was alone in the factory, so far as the testimony showed.

Lee testified that the crime could not have been committed in the night without his knowledge, as he had gone past the lathe machine on the second floor, where the struggle is believed to have taken place, twice every half hour on his regular rounds.

Lee testified that Frank appeared greatly agitated when he met him at the door of the factory office just before 4 o’clock. He said that Frank seemed nervous and was rubbing his hands in an excited fashion.

J. M. Gantt, a former employee who happened to be in the factory at 6 o’clock, testified that Frank appeared nervous and apprehensive at this time.

UNABLE TO REACH FRANK AT 3.

Call Officer Anderson testified that he tried to telephone Frank at his home after the police had viewed the body at 3 o’clock Sunday morning, but that he could not get him.

W. W. Rogers, former county policeman, who carried the officers in his automobile to the scene of the murder and later to get Frank, testified that Frank, when he saw the officers, began to ask them if “anything had happened at the factory?” and if the night watchman had “found anything” when nothing had been told him at that time as to the tragedy.

Rogers said he saw Frank remove the time slip from the time clock which Lee had punched. Rogers said that there were no “skips” on it, but that it was punched regularly every half hour from 6:30 in the evening until 2:30 the next morning. It was shortly after 2:30 o’clock that Lee told the officers he had found the body. The time slip which later was turned over to Chief Lanford by Frank had three “skips” in it.

Three of the detectives working on the Phagan case, and some of the events in the gruesome slaying. The sleuths are (from left to right: J. N. Starnes, Harry Scott, Pinkerton operative, and John Black.

Lee testified that Frank had told him the Sunday the body was found that the clock was punched all right and later contradicted himself by saying there were three “skips” in it, and that it “looked queer.”

Lee testified that Frank had told him in a private conference that “they would both go to hell” if Lee maintained his present attitude.

Harry Scott, Pinkeron detective, bore out Lee on this point.

I am inclined to classify this as negative testimony.

Frank is reached and held through a process of elimination.

Testimony pointing toward the innocence of Frank was that of Frank himself.

He said that he had not known Mary Phagan by name before her murder; that he recalled paying her at 12:10 Saturday afternoon, but that she left his office at once and he heard her footsteps dying away as though she had left the building. He said he remained at the factory until 1 o’clock in the afternoon and then went to his home for luncheon, returning about 3 o’clock. He said that he was entirely alone from 4 o’clock until 6, and that he arrived home at 7 in the evening, where he remained. He declared he knew nothing of the tragedy until the following morning. He said that he dreamed during the night that some one was ringing the telephone, but that he did not fully awaken. In this manner he explained his failure to answer the telephone.

Harry Denham, one of the men in the factory Saturday afternoon until 3:10 o’clock, testified that Frank did not appear nervous or agitated when he saw him.

F. M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National Bank, testified that the notes found by the side of Mary Phagan did not appear to be in the handwriting of Frank.

Lemmie Quinn testified that he was in the office of Frank Saturday afternoon between 12:15 and 12:30, and that he did not see Mary Phagan in the office or anywhere else in the building.

Mr. and Mrs. Emil Selig, Frank’s parents-in-law, corroborated the story of Frank’s movements during the day.

Quinn and other men in the factory testified that they never had seen Frank many any improper advances toward the girls, but that on the contrary he had been most courteous when he had any personal dealings with them, which was not frequently.

Miss Corinthia Hall, one of the employees, said she never had observed Frank attempt any liberties with any of the girls.

Herbert Schiff, chief clerk in the factory, testified that the work which Frank accomplished Saturday afternoon on the financial sheet would have taken any expert five or six hours.

EVIDENCE IS NOT CONVINCING.

I ask would YOU consider this very convincing in the case of either man?

I do not.

But after the Coroner’s inquest the case assumes a new form. The whole matter now rests in the hands of Solicitor Dorsey. I have never met him. All that I heard about him is in his favor. But he has never shown any unusual skill as a detective. He knows criminal law, and he will proceed along the regular lines of bringing the whole matter to the attention of the Grand Jury, and indicting both Frank and Lee. Then will come the trial.

If Detectives Scott and Black are reported accurately in their testimony, as quoted at the beginning of this article, then the prosecution in my opinion has very little upon which to base a successful trial of either of the men now held for the crime. Lee came through the cross-questioning without any discredit at all. The points made against Frank are not of much importance. They may foreshadow something big. They were, of course, sufficient to warrant the Coroner’s Jury in holding him for the Grand Jury.

An indictment by the Grand Jury does not mean that a person is guilty. Far from it.

CRIME SHOULD BE UNRAVELED.

I hope Solicitor Dorsey will be able to unravel the great mystery, and that he will have evidence enough to convince—not only a jury of twelve men, but the entire community as well, of the guilt or innocence of whatever persons, Frank, Lee or others who may yet be caught in the net, of the murder of the innocent little girl.

An indictment by the Grand Jury is a very important legal document. It must be air tight, and held together by such a strong chain of evidence that it can not be broken anywhere. It has to run the whole gauntlet of the law. An imperfect indictment falls of its own weight.

For the battle really begins—not before a Coroner’s Jury, but in the court room, where the law and the facts have precedence over everything else.

When the prosecution in the Phagan case goes into court, it will be faced by one of the best lawyers in the South.

Luther Z. Rosser, big of frame, big of intellect, big in the knowledge of the law and schooled in all the intricacies of its machinery, will be at the opposing counsel’s table, making a battle for his client, turning evidence with his shield from the lance of Mr. Dorsey, sifting every piece of evidence for the jury, challenging every inch of the law to the judge.

And I am told, that he is skillful with the use of the broad sword as he is deft with the rapier.

I am writing thus freely, for the reason that the two detectives, quoted at the beginning of this article, in their testimony gave me the right to discuss the matter in the columns of the newspapers as I am doing.

PRECEDENT HAS NOT YET BEEN VIOLATED.

This is no violation of precedent. It is not for the purpose of establishing the guilt or innocence of any person. It is solely because I am trying to set down what I believe to be the thoughts running through the minds of the average man and woman.

Frank and Lee may be guilty, but it would require a great deal more evidence than has been published in the newspapers to convince me of it.

It may be that Mr. Dorsey has a mass of evidence to present to the jury when it confronts the accused in open court, and overwhelm the defense with sensation after sensation and buttressed fact after buttressed fact.

I do not know whether this is so or not. I give my own opinion for what it is worth. What the detectives and police now have against Frank and Lee at this moment is apparently worthless.

Any day or any hour may bring forth new suspects and the real criminals.

I can not help but sympathize with Frank in being held as he is on the very slight evidence presented against him. At the moment, it would seem as though he were a victim of circumstance and that he would have to take the consequences that follow being the superintendent of the factory and the last person who is said to have seen Mary Phagan alive. And consequences, as George Eliot said, are unpitying.

FRANK’S PAST IN HIS FAVOR.

I said in my article in last Sunday’s American that what is known of Frank’s past is in his favor. I reiterate that. He is a college graduate, a man of culture, has traveled considerably, and stands well among his friends.

Public Opinion that first condemned Lee, then Frank, then both of them, then was ready summarily to dispose of them without waiting for the process of the law, is calmer to-day and anxious for the facts.

I do not mean by this that I believe Public Opinion would acquit Frank without a trial, for the belief prevails that not all of the evidence has been made public. But Public Opinion is willing to “play fair” and hear the facts.

I hope Solicitor Dorsey will continue his investigation while he is weaving his web around Frank and Lee. It may be that they are not guilty. It may be that some other person or persons committed the ghastly deed. It is worth while for our alert prosecutor to watch in all directions for the criminals.

And it may be well for our citizens to keep their minds open and receptive, not acquitting or condemning anybody, no matter of what color, race or creed, until all the facts are known.

We can afford to be patient—even with THE LAW.

The great professor Drummond once asked a little girl to a Glasgow Sunday school for a definition of patience. She replied: “To wait a-wheel, an dinna get weary, to keep yer mouth shut and yer eyes open!”

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, May 11th 1913, “Weak Evidence Against Men in Phagan Slaying,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Journal

Friday, May 9^th, 1913

An unexpected turn was given to the coroner’s inquest into the mysterious murder of Mary Phagan, Thursday afternoon, when Harry Scott, the Pinkerton detective who has been representing that agency in its work on the case, was called to the stand by the coroner. Mr. Scott was in the room at the moment.

One new detail that he revealed was in a reply to a direct question from the coroner, when he stated that Herbert Haas, attorney for Leo M. Frank and attorney for the National Pencil factory, requested him and superintendent of the Pinkerton agency in Atlanta to withheld [sic] from the police all evidence they gathered until he, Mr. Haas, would consider it.

Their reply, said Mr. Scott, was that they would withdraw from the case before they would do that.

He proceeded to say that he and his firm still are retained by the pencil company.

Mr. Scott was called to the stand when Assistant Superintendent Schiff, of the pencil factory, left it.

He is assistant superintendent of the Atlanta agency of the Pinkerton detective service, he said. He lives at 52 Cherry street. The agency was retained in the case by the National Pencil company “to locate the party responsible for the murder of Mary Phagan.” The engagement was made Monday afternoon, April 28,  when, about 4 o’clock he received a phone call from Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the factory, and in response to it he (Scott) went to the factory to see Mr. Frank. There, said he, he found a group of men whom he afterward identified as Frank, Mr. Darley and others, standing around the time clock, talking. He introduced himself and said he wanted to see privately whoever was particularly interested in the case. He and Mr. Frank and one or two others went into a private office, and Mr. Frank called Sig Montag, treasurer of the company, over the telephone to get authority to employ the detectives.

Asked how Mr. Frank broached the subject to him, Mr. Scott said the factory superintendent remarked: “I guess you’ve read of the horrible murder committed? We feel that the company ought to make some investigation to show the public we are interested in clearing up the crime. We want the Pinkertons to locate the murderer.”

Mr. Frank then told him all he (Mr. Frank) seemed to know about the matter, said the detective. Mr. Frank said that he had been down at police barracks a short while before, and that Detective Black seemed to suspect him of the crime.

QUOTED FRANK IN DETAIL.

Mr. Frank detailed his movements on that particular Saturday, said the detectives. The witness quoted as he remembered the relation, giving the same story that since has been elaborated by Mr. Frank himself and others on the stand. Mr. Scott said that the superintendent said he left the factory about 6:15 on the afternoon of Saturday, April 26. As he went out of the front door, he said, he saw Lee sitting on a packing box outside talking with Gantt, formerly a bookkeeper in the factory. Then he went on to relate the matter as it is already generally accepted, about leaving Gantt there and telephoning to the night watchman later after failing to get him once over the telephone.

After getting the watchman over the telephone and learning that everything was all right, Mr. Scott said, Mr. Frank told him he (Mr. Frank) “prepared to go to bed about 9 o’clock.”

He asked Mr. Frank very few questions, said the detective. He took notes of what was told to him. He went over the building with Mr. Frank then, looking at the elevator, the time clock, the machine room, where Frank pointed out to him a machine on which human hair was said to have been found that morning, and pointed out also what were believed to be blood stains on the floor. Mr. Darley accompanied them. He went into the basement with his escort, said the detective, and saw the trash pile where the hat and shoe had been found, also the spot where the body had been found, and the staple that had been pulled with the lock from the back door.

OFFERS NO THEORY.

Mr. Frank advanced no theory about the crime, said the detective, and offered no suggestions. He talked to him the night afterward at police headquarters, in the presence of Detective Black, but he didn’t ask the pencil superintendent for a statement because he understood the police had one already. He denied that Mr. Frank had reprimanded him for too much zeal or had remonstrated with him for trailing him (Mr. Frank).

REFUSED ATTORNEY’S REQUEST.

The detective answered a direct question, however, by saying that Herbert Haas, representing himself to be an attorney for Mr. Frank, did call at the Pinkerton office and there, to Superintendent Pierce and Mr. Scott, made the request that the detectives withhold from the police all information which they gathered until he, Mr. Haas, had considered it. They told him they would withdraw from the case first, said Mr. Scott.

“Who gets copies of your reports?” he was asked by the coroner.

“I think Mr. Sig Montag gets copies of all reports we make,” said the witness. He added, replying to questions, that his agency still is employed by the pencil company—“to fix the responsibility for this murder.”

“Do you know anything about the conversation Mr. Frank and the negro Newt Lee had along together at headquarters?”

The detective replied that City Detective Black and he suggested to Mr. Frank that he employ this method for drawing from the negro all the information he could, and Frank agreed and went into the room with Lee. He did not know what passed between them, said the detective, except what he learned from the negro’s relation of what was said.

DIDN’T TRY TO GET TRUTH.

Mr. Scott said that Newt Lee told him Mr. Frank did not try to get the truth out of him (Lee) during their talk at the police station.

That Lee said he accused Mr. Frank of knowing something and that Mr. Frank only hung his head and later told him if he (Lee) didn’t stick to his story they would both go to hell.

That Lee said he told Mr. Frank the crime must have been committed in the day time, and Mr. Frank again only hung his head.

Mr. Scott said that Lee then said he had started to describe to Mr. Frank how he had found the body and that Mr. Frank said, “Let’s don’t talk about that any more” before he had finished.

Mr. Scott said that Mr. Frank had told him after the conversation with Lee that he couldn’t get anything out of the negro. The witness said that Mr. Frank reported that he had asked Lee why there was a break in the time slip and that Lee said he had punched it.

Mr. Scott said that he did not find the bloody shirt at Newt Lee’s home—that it was found by Detective Black and Detective Bullard. The witness said that he looked at the shirt and that it seemed to him it had not been worn and that the blood was fresh. He said that Lee, when shown the shirt, said, “That’s my shirt,” and later qualified his statement by saying that it might be his shirt; that he hadn’t worn it in two years.

“Have you any definite information which makes you suspect any party of this crime?” the coroner asked Detective Scott.

WOULDN’T COMMIT HIMSELF.

“I wouldn’t commit myself,” replied the detective, who continued that his investigation was not complete and that he was working on a chain of circumstances.

“Is this chain of circumstances known to yourself alone?” he was asked.

“No,” replied Mr. Scott, “Detective Black has been with me all the time on the case.”

Mr. Scott was then excused.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 9th 1913, “Detective Harry Scott’s Testimony as Given Before Coroner’s Jury,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Miss Nellie Pettis, at top, who testified against Frank at the inquest. At the bottom, Mrs. Lillie Pettis, her sister-in-law, former employee at the pencil factory.

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

Atlanta Georgian

Friday, May 9^th, 1913

Solicitor Dorsey Says He Has Secured Powerful Aid in Search for Slayer of Girl—Woman Says She Heard Screams in Pencil Factory.

Shelby Smith, chairman of the Fulton commission, declared Friday afternoon that the board would back Solicitor Dorsey in any and all expense he might incur in the state’s exhaustive investigation into the Phagan murder mystery. Smith said;

“We have instructed Dorsey to obtain the best possible detective skill for his probe and he would be backed by the county commission to the last ditch in the money the spent.

“The fact that he hired a good detective Friday is news to me, but he has the sanction and backing of the board in the matter.”

HIRE’S BEST DETECTIVE, HE SAYS.

Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey said Friday afternoon that he had the best detective in America working on the mystery of the Mary Phagan strangling.

Important developments had ensued already, he declared, and he was confident that an early solution of the case would be reached by the new expert of national reputation who had been placed at work on the clews.

The solicitor is understood  to have the affidavit of a woman who swears that she heard a girl’s screams as she was passing the factory at 4:30 o’clock the afternoon of the tragedy. The cries were shrill and piercing, she says, and died away as she stopped an instant to listen.

The woman was sure they came from inside the factory, but she gave little attention to her startling experience until she read of the strangling of Mary Phagan. Then it occurred to her that she very likely had heard the dying cries of the little girl and she reported the matter to the authorities.

Solicitor Dorsey, as his first action after the holding of Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee to the Grand Jury for the murder of Mary Phagan, put out the dragnet for witnesses.

A batch of subpoenas were issued for the witnesses to appear in his office to give testimony in the case of “The State vs. John Doe.”

After a long conference with Detective Starnes and Campbell, Solicitor Dorsey asserted that action on the part of the Grand Jury might be expected any time after Friday. He plainly intimated that a special session of the jury might be convened Saturday to consider the Phagan murder.

The Solicitor declared as he left the court house with a private detective whose name he refused to divulge that he anticipated the development of startling evidence before night, which, he said, would clear matters materially.

Dorsey Questions Newt Lee.

With the private detective the Solicitor went to the Tower and was closeted with Newt Lee, the night watchman, for more than an hour.

The form of the subpoena is taken to mean that many of the witnesses will submit their sworn testimony before the Solicitor General, who will thus have it in documentary form, instead of going before the Grand Jury to give oral testimony. However, it will be necessary for the material or indicting witnesses to go before the Grand Jurors in person.

“The investigation has just begun,” said Chief of Detectives Lanford Friday, in discussing the action of the Coroner’s jury. “We were confident we had presented sufficient evidence to warrant the holding of the two suspects in the case, but we will have much more when the case gets into the courts.

Have Strong Theory Already.

“We are going to continue right on with the investigation and try to dig down to the full truth of the mystery. We have a strongly supported theory as to who committed the crime, but we are ready at any time to change our opinions as soon as the evidence points in another direction.

“It will be possible, with the rush and hurry of the Coroner’s jury

PHAGAN CASE TO BE RUSHED TO GRAND JURY BY DORSEY

passed, for my men to work with more deliberation and care and to sift with a greater thoroughness every bit of evidence that comes into their possession. Even if nothing new should develop, we have enough leads to keep half a dozen detectives busy for a week.”

Detectives Rosser, Campbell, Black, Starnes and Bullard are still working with the chief on the case and probably will continue until the mystery is cleared.

Lemmie Quinn, foreman in the tipping department at the National Pencil factory, was the first of the witnesses to be examined by the Solicitor. He was in Mr. Dorsey’s office a considerable part of the forenoon and underwent a rigorous examination.

New Witnesses Sought.

Detectives Starnes and Campbell also were with the Solicitor, and two of the Solicitor’s assistants. Newton Garner and Dan Goodlin were dispatched the first thing in the morning to hunt up new witnesses of whom Mr. Dorsey had information.

Foreman Quinn was called, it is understood, to clear up the discrepancies in his testimony and the statement he is said to have made to the detectives and to several of his acquaintances. In his testimony before the Coroner’s jury he declared that he visited the factory between 12:10 and 12:30 o’clock, the afternoon of the killing of Mary Phagan. He said he talked with Frank for two minutes in the superintendent’s office.

Detectives declared that Quinn had told them and other persons that he did not visit the factory at all Saturday and that he was not there from the time he left Friday until the following Monday.

Frank Expected To Be Held.

“That’s about what I expected at this time,” was the comment with which Leo M. Frank, with little trace of emotion, received the news of the action of the Coroner’s jury Thursday night.

Deputy Sheriff Plennie Minor was the officer who informed both Frank and Newt Lee that the jury had recommended that they be held under charges of murder for further investigation by the Fulton County Grand Jury.

The night watchman received the news indifferently and had nothing to say.

Frank and Lee are held under charges of murder, as the following verdict of the Coroner’s jury will show:

Atlanta, Ga., May 8, 1913.

We, the Coroner’s jury, impaneled and sworn by Paul Donehoo, Coroner of Fulton County, to inquire into the cause of the death of Mary Phagan, whose dead body now lies before us, after having heard the evidence of sworn witnesses, and the statement of Dr. J. W. Hurt, County Physician, find that the deceased came to her death from strangulation. We recommend that Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee be held under charges of murder for further investigation by the Fulton County Grand Jury.

(Signed)

HOMER C. ASHFORD, Foreman.

DR. J. W. HURT, County Physician.

Solicitor Dorsey said Friday he would give the Phagan case all of his attention and present his evidence to the Grand Jury as quickly as possible.

The solicitor has shown an anxiety to avoid delays of any nature in hunting down the slayer of the Phagan girl, and now that the Coroner’s jury has turned the case over to the Solicitor and the Grand Jury it may be taken for granted that the investigation will be hurried along with all possible speed.

Case in State’s Hands.

“The case now is fully in the hands of the State,” said the Solicitor Friday morning. “It will not be presented to the Grand Jury Friday, but I shall endeavor to present it at the earliest possible moment. The instant that I have a complete case I shall bring it to the attention of the Grand Jury. It is my desire to bring the slayer of Mary Phagan to justice with the greatest dispatch. A great crime has been done and I am no less eager to see the guilt determined than the general public.”

It required the Coroner’s jury about twenty minutes to frame its formal verdict Thursday night. The jurors received a brief charge from Coroner Donehoo and filed from the Commissioners’ room in the police station at 6:08 o’clock. At 6:28 they were back with their verdict.

Coroner Donehoo admonished the jurors to be as ready to hold a person who they thought might be withholding information of the crime as to hold a person they regarded as the possible culprit. A person possessing knowledge of the crime and withholding it, he said, was an accessory after the fact.

An immediate hush fell on the packed room when the jurors returned. There was a dead silence except for the voice of Homer C. Ashford, foreman of the jury, when the verdict was read.

Girls Testify Against Frank.

The most damaging testimony against Frank in regard to his treatment of employees at his factory was saved until the last hours of the hearing. Girls and women were called to the stand to testify that they had been employed at the factory or had had occasion to go there, and that Frank had attempted familiarities with them.

Nellie Pettis, of 9 Oliver Street, declared that Frank had made improper advances on her. She was asked if she ever had been employed at the pencil factory.

“No,” she answered.

Q. Do you know Leo Frank?—A. I have seen him once or twice.

Q. When and where did you see him?—A. In his office at the factory whenever I went to draw my sister-in-law’s pay.

Q. What did he say to you that might have been improper on any of these visits?—A. He didn’t exactly say—he made gestures. I went to get sister’s pay about four weeks ago and when I went into the office of Mr. Frank I asked for her. He told me I couldn’t see her unless “I saw him first.”

Says He Winked at Her.

“I told him I didn’t want to ‘see him.’ He pulled a box from his desk. It had a lot of money in it. He looked at it significantly and then looked at me. When he looked at me, he winked. As he winked he said: ‘How about it?’

“I instantly told him I was a nice girl.”

Here the witness stopped her statement. Coroner Donehoo asked her sharply:

“Didn’t you say anything else?”

“Yes, I did! I told him to go to h—l! and walked out of his office.”

Thomas Blackstock, who said that he was employed at the factory about a year ago testified as follows:

Tells of Frank’s Conduct.

Q. Do you know Leo M. Frank?—A. Yes.

Q. How long have you known him?—A. About six weeks.

Q. Did you ever observe his conduct toward female employees of the pencil factory?—A. Yes. I’ve often seen him picking on different girls.

Q. Name some.—A. I can’t exactly recollect names.

Q. What was the conduct you noticed particularly?

The witness answered to the effect that he had seen him place his hands with undue familiarity upon the person of girls.

Q. See it often?—A. A half dozen times, maybe. He generally was seen to become that familiar while he was touring the building.

Q. Can’t you name just one girl?—A. Yes. Magnolia Kennedy.

Q. Did you see him act with undue familiarity toward her?—A. No. I heard talk about it.

Q. Before or after the murder?—A. Afterward.

“Girls Tried to Avoid Him.”

Q. When did you observe this misconduct of which you have told?—A. A year ago.

Q. Did you hear complaints around the plant?—A. No. The girls tried to avoid him.

Mrs. C. D. Donegan said she was connected with the pencil plant for three weeks. Her capacity was that of forelady. She resides at 165 West Fourteenth Street with her husband.

Her testimony follows:

“State your observations of Frank’s conduct toward the girls and women of the plant.”

“I have noticed him smile and wink at the girls in the place. That was two years ago.”

“Did you make a statement to the detectives of undue familiarity you had witnessed?”

“I told them that I had seen Frank flirt with the girls and women—that was all I said.”

Charges Familiarities.

The testimony of Nellie Wood, a young girl of 8 Corput Street, came next.

In brief it was this:

Q. Do you know Leo Frank?—A. I worked for him two days.

Q. Did you observe any misconduct on his part?—A. Well, his actions didn’t suit me. He’d come around and put his hands on me when such conduct was entirely uncalled for.

Q. Is that all he did?—A. No. He asked me one day to come into his office, saying that he wanted to talk to me. He tried to close the door, but I wouldn’t let him. He got too familiar by getting so close to me. He also put his hands on me.

Q. Where did he put his hands?—A. He barely touched my breast. He was subtle with his approaches, and tried to pretend that he was joking but I was too wary for such as that.

Quit His Employ.

Q. Did he try further familiarities?—A. Yes.

Q. When did this happen?—A. Two years ago.

Q. What did you tell him when you left his employ?—A. I just quit, telling him that it didn’t suit me.

Frank’s testimony was looked forward to with keen interest, but when he was called to the stand in the afternoon, he merely answered additional questions as to his movements on the day of the crime and failed to add materially to the evidence in hand.

He appeared pale and haggard from his imprisonment, but he replied to all of the questions clearly and showed no hesitation or apparent fear. He was asked:

Testimony of Frank.

Q. What kind of elevator door is there to the shaft in the pencil factory?—A. Sliding doors.

Q. How many?—A. One on each floor.

Q. Are they latticed or solid?—A. Solid.

Q. Where was the elevator at 12 o’clock Saturday?—A. I did not notice.

Q. Were the doors open or closed?—A. I don’t remember.

Q. What protection would a person have from falling down the shaft if the doors were left open?—A. A bar which projects across the opening.

Q. After the crime was committed, where did the elevator stand?—A. I only know where it stood Sunday morning. It then was on the second floor.

Didn’t File Time Tape.

Q. When you last removed the tape from the time clock, what did you do with it?—A. Handed it to an officer in the building.

Q. Did you put it on file?—A. No.

Q. Are you sure?—A. Yes, positive.

Q. Do you remember a party at your house on the night of April 26?—A. Yes.

Q. Can you name the guests?—A. I don’t remember them all.

Q. When the police came to bring you down to the factory that Sunday morning, what was said about whisky?—A. I said I wanted something warm to drink. One of the detectives suggested whisky.

Q. What time was it?—A. Between 7:30 and 8 o’clock.

Says He Viewed Body.

Q. What did you say about dreaming?—A. I said to someone that I thought I had dreamed of hearing the telephone ring in the dead of night.

Q. When you went to the undertakers’, did you go in the water closet instead of the room in which the body lay?—A. No.

Q. Did you view the body?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you recognize the girl?—A. Yes.

Q. When did you first hear her name?—A. I don’t remember.

Q. What time did you return home that Sunday afternoon?—A. I don’t recollect.

Q. Did you telephone your wife before your return?—A. Yes.

Q. Was the murder discussed at home that afternoon?—A. Not much.

Q. What topic was discussed?—A. I don’t remember.

Often Does Not Remember.

Q. When did Quinn first mention to you his visit to the factory on the 26^th?—A. I don’t remember.

Q. What did he say?—A. He said, “Don’t you recollect that I was at the factory Saturday about noon?”

Q. What did you tell him about withholding that information until your attorney had been consulted?—A. I don’t remember. I had so many visitors that I couldn’t recollect the exact words.

Q. Who suggested the conference with your attorney relative to Quinn’s visit?—A. I don’t remember.

Q. How long have you known you had counsel?—A. Since Monday.

Q. Why was it mentioned that Quinn’s visit he kept quiet until consultation with your lawyer?—A. I don’t remember.

Explains Locks and Doors.

Q. How can you lock the door between your office and the dressing room where the blood spots were found?—A. I have never seen it locked.

Q. Is it usually open or locked?—A. Closed.

Q. Is there any way of closing the doors on the back stairway?—A. Yes. They are locked.

Q. Describe your telephone conversation with Detective Starnes at the time you were informed of the tragedy?—A. He asked me if I was superintendent of the National Pencil Factory. “I’d like to have you come down here at once,” he said when I informed him that I was Leo Frank. He said he wanted me to identify a girl, and asked me if I knew Mary Phagan.

Q. Didn’t you say that the first time you had heard her name was while you were traveling in the auto on the way to the factory Sunday morning?—A. I don’t recollect that I did.

Q. Did you have any trouble with a girl in your office Saturday morning?—A. No. There was one incident where a mistake had been made in the pay envelope of Mattie Smith, but it was corrected without any trouble.

Tells of Callers at Office.

Q. What time was Mattie Smith in your office?—A. Between 9 and 10 a. m.

Q. Did any one enter while she was there?—A. I don’t remember.

Q. Give the name of every one in the office throughout the day Saturday?—A. Mr. Darley, Mr. Holloway, the office boy, Miss Hall, the stenographer; Mr. Campbell, Mr. Fullerton, Mrs. White, Lemmie Quinn, Mr. Gantt, Emma Clark, another girl employee, Arthur White, Harry Denham, Newt Lee and Mary Phagan.

Q. Did you see May Barrett?—A. I don’t know her.

Q. What did you say to Emma Clark?—A. I don’t remember saying anything to her.

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, May 9th 1913, “Best Detective in America Now is on Case, Says Dorsey,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Journal

Friday, May 9^th, 1913

Tom Backstock, of 21 Hightower street, a youth of about sixteen or seventeen years, testified that he worked at the pencil factory about a year ago. He didn’t know Mr. Frank personally, he said, but knew him when he worked at the factory.

“Did you have any opportunity to observe his conduct with the women there?” the lad was asked.

“I saw him ‘pick’ at the girls,” was the reply.

“Who were they?” the coroner asked.

“I couldn’t tell their names now,” he said. “I didn’t work there long enough to get very well acquainted.”

The coroner asked how Mr. Frank had acted and the boy said he had placed his hands on some of them. He didn’t know how many times he had seen this.

In reply he mentioned the name of a girl, but said he had simply heard a rumor since the crime was committed. He knew nothing of his own knowledge.

The witness said he had never heard any of the girls complain, but had seen them trying to get out of Mr. Frank’s way. He worked at the pencil factory about six weeks, he said, and stopped because he found a better position.

Miss Nellie Wood, of 8 Corput street, said that she didn’t know Mr. Frank very well. She had worked at the factory two days about two years ago, she said.

Miss Wood said that she was employed as a forelady. Mr. Frank would come to her and put his hands on her “when it was not called for,” she said.

“Any other girls?” the coroner asked.

“No, sir, not that I saw,” she said.

“Is that all he did?” the coroner asked.

“No, that’s not all,” the witness replied, “He asked me into his office to talk business on the second day I was there. The subject of the conversation was whether I was going to stay there. He wanted to close the door. I objected and he said, ‘Don’t worry. No one is coming.’ He was too familiar. I didn’t like it.”

The witness said that Mr. Frank attempted familiarity and then tried to pass it off as a joke, but that she told him she was “too old for that.”

Mrs. C. D. Donegan, of 165 West Fourteenth street, said that she worked at the factory about three weeks two years ago. She said that Mr. Frank had smiled and winked at the girls, but never more than that. She denied that she had told Detective Scott anything more than this.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 9th 1913, “Character Witnesses are Called in the Case by City Detectives,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)