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

Atlanta Constitution
August 1^st, 1913

Dr. Claude A. Smith, the medical expert who made microscopic examinations of the blood-spotted chips chiseled from the floor of the pencil factory and of the bloody shirt discovered in Newt Lee’s home, was next called in.

He was asked by Solicitor Dorsey:

“What is your business?”

“I am city bacteriologist and chemist.”

He was handed the chips from the pencil factory flooring.

“Did you test these chips?”

“Yes. Some detectives brought me these specimens and asked me to examine them. They were considerably dirty and stained. On one of them I found blood corpuscles.”

“Was it human blood?”
“I don’t know.”

“Did you examine the bloody shirt?”

No Appearance of Being Worn.

“Yes. I inspected the spots. In the armpits of the garment I could find no odor or evidence that it had been worn since having been laundered last. Some spots were smeared on the inside, and had not penetrated to the outside. It was not soiled around the inner part of the collar-band, and had no appearance whatever of having been worn.”

Here counsel for the defense asked to have Dr. Smith’s expression, “the shirt didn’t smell like a nigger,” ruled out. His objection was overruled.

“I know as much about ‘nigger’ smell as he does,” was Attorney Rosser’s retort.

Rosser took the witness here.

“If the shirt had had its tail crumpled up from natural position, it could have got blood on the inside, couldn’t it?”

“But, I don’t think it was that way.”

“If my shirt-tail was tuned up, I could get it soiled on the inside as well as outside, couldn’t I?”

“Possibly.”

“The shirt had the odor of blood on it when you first got it, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then, wouldn’t the odor of blood have killed the odor of ‘nigger?’”

“No.”

Witness and Counsel Tilt.

“Then, if a nigger had just put on his shirt and had taken it off in an instant, your nose would ‘get him?’”

“Have you ever smelled a negro, Mr. Rosser?”

“More than you ever smelled. I was smelling them before you were born.”

“Doctor, you say one of the chips had blood spots on it and another had none?”

“No; I could find none.”

“If there had been any blood, you’d have found it?”

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t tell whether the blood was fresh or old?”

“No.”

“How long could blood corpuscles—or whatever you call ’em—be discernible?”

“For considerable while—according altogether to circumstances.”

Solicitor Takes Witness.

Dorsey here began questioning.

“Explain to the jury, Dr. Smith, why the blood wasn’t put on the shirt-tail, as Mr. Rosser suggests.”

“A spot of blood is on the garment above the waist line, which was not tucked within the trousers.”

“Could the spot you found on the chip have come from paint?”

“No.”

“What was it?”

“Blood.”

What followed was a lengthy tilt between Dr. Smith and counsel for defense in an argument over the shirt. Following which he was called from the stand.

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

Atlanta Journal
August 1^st, 1913

E. F. Holloway Angers Dorsey When He Testifies Contrary to Affidavit—Had Told Dorsey Elevator Switch Was Locked

Court adjourned at 4:58 o’clock until 9 o’clock Friday morning after a day of surprises in the trial of Leo M. Frank, charged with the murder of Mary Phagan, in the National Pencil factory building.

That the switch board which controls the motor used to operate the elevator in the National Pencil factory, where Mary Phagan was murdered was left unlocked Saturday morning when he left the building at 11:45 o’clock, and that anybody could have entered and run the elevator up and down the shaft during the balance of the day, was the statement of E. F. Holloway, one of the factory’s watchmen at the trial of Leo M. Frank late Thursday afternoon.

Although Holloway made an affidavit for Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey, which he identified in the court room, swearing to the fact that he left the switch box locked on that Saturday, he positively declared on Thursday that he left it unlocked, and when confronted with his own signature answered, “I forgot.”

When Holloway took the stand he had hardly started his narrative when Solicitor Dorsey cut him short and addressed the court.

“I wish to state that I have been entrapped by this witness.” The solicitor’s remarks followed the statement of Holloway that he unlocked the switch box to operate the motor to cut some boards and ran the elevator up to the third floor for White and Denham, and left the box unlocked.

Dr. Claude Smith, city bacteriologist, was on the stand for a while and testified that stains upon certain chips which were brought to him by city detectives, presumably cut from the second floor of the pencil factory, contained blood corpuscles. He could not say, however, that it was human blood, he only knew that it was the blood of a mammal, and under cross-examination by Attorney Rosser, admitted that it might have been the blood of a mouse. Dr. Smith examined the shirt said to have been found in the house of Newt Lee and declared that the shirt was not soiled save for blood stains and that it appeared not have been worn recently, as there were no body odors on it.

Mary Phagan had been dead ten or fifteen hours when her body was examined by William A. Gheesling, of P. J. Bloomfield’s undertaking establishment, shortly after 4 o’clock on the Sunday morning her body was discovered in the basement of the pencil factory, according to Gheesling’s testimony given at the trial of Leo M. Frank during Thursday afternoon’s session. Thus according to the undertaker, the little girl met her death some time between the time that she entered the factory at 12:10 o’clock Saturday afternoon and 6 o’clock of the same day, not later than 6 o’clock.

MRS. APPELBAUM PRESENT.

Mrs. Callie Scott Appelbaum, whose trial and acquittal upon the charge that she murdered her husband in an Atlanta hotel, was a recent sensation in Atlanta, because one of the women spectators in the court room shortly after the afternoon session convened.

Under cross-examination by Attorney Arnold, Stanford testified that on Friday preceding the murder he had swept the floor of the entire metal room. The job took him about three hours, he said. He worked from 9 o’clock until 12. He swept beneath all of the machines and even removing boxes and barrels and other debris stored next to the women’s toilet. He swept under Mary Phagan’s machine and under the lathe used by Barrett. The area that he swept is as big as the court room, he said.

“Was it your duty to sweep this room?” asked Attorney Arnold.

“It was my duty to sweep part of it, where the concrete floor is.” That, he said, is little less than half of the total area.

“Why did you go on and sweep the wood floor when you were supposed to sweep only the concrete floor? Did you just start to sweeping and then couldn’t stop?”

“No, sometimes I sweep the whole floor.”

“Who told you to sweep this part?”

“Nobody.”

“A negro was paid to sweep this, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Wasn’t it a negro’s duty to sweep that same place that same day?”

“No, the negro usually swept it on Saturday.”

“Were you paid by the hour or by the piece?”

“By the hour.”

In sweeping this floor, said Stanford, he saw a few paint spots near the entrance of the women’s dressing room, and also near the door of the room where lacquer is kept.

“Will you swear that there were not half a dozen other spots in that room, of one kind or another?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. George W. Jefferson was called to the stand. She is an employe of the National Pencil factory. She was in the factory on April 23 and again on April 28.

She passed through the metal room on the 28^th to the polishing room and didn’t notice any blood spots, but did see spots on the floor there Monday. She described the blood spots.

She works in the polishing room on the same floor with the metal room. In the polishing room about 50 feet from the blood spots, on a post a number of pieces of twine cord usually hang.

The color of the blood spots was dark, she said; but there was some whitish stuff spread over them. Picking up a cord, Solicitor Dorsey asked the witness if she had seen any cord like that in the factory.

“Yes,” she said. It was similar to lengths of cord that hung on the post.

“How long have you been working in the polishing room?”

“About five years.”

“Are there any paints kept in the polishing room?”

“Yes.”

“Any red paints?”

“Yes.”

“How many different shades of red paint are kept there?”

“Three—maroon red, red line and bright red.”

“Are you familiar with these paints?”

“Yes, I should be. I use them enough in polishing.”

“Those are all the paints there?”

“Yes.”

SPOT WAS NOT PAINT.

“Could you distinguish one of these paints from another?”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell whether or not the red spot had been made by one of the paints used in the polishing room?”

“It was not one of the paints.”

Attorney Rosser took up the cross-examination.

“How did you happen to discover those dory spots near the dressing room door?” he asked.

“Mr. Barrett and I discovered them together at about the same time.”

“Did you discover them or did Barrett call your attention to them?”

“I had been over to Mary Phagan’s machine and was on my way back to the polishing room where I worked when we saw the spot. I think Mr. Barrett saw it first.”

“Barrett was going around looking for spots, huh?”

“He made a search of the metal room.”

“The floor in the metal room is dirty and greasy, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“There are a good many dark spots on it?”

“I’ve seen greasy spots, but no spots like the one by the dressing room door.”

“Where were the paints kept?”

“In the polishing room.”
“Were there no paints in the metal room?”

“No.”

“After the coloring matter is mixed with the grease, it is difficult to tell the color, is it not?”

“I never tried that.”

“Did the white stuff hide the red spot?”

“No.”

“How many other red spots did you find around the metal room?”

“I didn’t find any others.”

“You say you knew Mary Phagan?”

“Yes, for about a year.”

SPOT CHIPPED UP LATER.

“How much of that white stuff was there?”

“It covered a place about as big as my fan.” The witness exhibited a palm leaf fan of ordinary size.

“This spot later was chipped up, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“Come down,” said Mr. Rosser.

Solicitor Dorsey told her to wait.

“Where are the pencils painted?” inquired the solicitor.

“On the third floor.”

“Where else are the paints used?”

“Nowhere, except on the third floor and in the polishing room on the second floor.”

“After the paints are carried into the polishing room, is there ever any occasion to take them out to the metal room?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. Dorsey sat down as if he had finished with the witness, and Mr. Rosser arose again.

“Mrs. Jefferson, these cords are scattered around all over the building, are they not?” inquired Mr. Rosser.

“No, sir, they are not supposed to be.”

“Well, where are they kept?”

“On the post in the polishing room.”

“Do you mean to say that there are none of these cords anywhere else about the building?”

CORDS IN POLISHING ROOM.

“As a matter of fact, don’t they sometimes fall on the floor and aren’t they sometimes carried in the sweepings to the basement?”

“I have never been to the basement have you?”

“No, sir.”

“You don’t know whether there are any cords down there or not?”

“No, sir.”

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Jefferson, haven’t you within the past three months seen cords like this on the first floor of the factory?”

“No, sir, I have not.”

“Well where else have you seen them beside the polishing room and the third floor?”

“Nowhere else.”

Mr. Rosser sat down, and Mr. Dorsey questioned the witness.

“Do they have any need for cords in the basement?”

“None that I know of.”

HASLETT ON STAND.

City Detective B. B. Haslett was called to the stand.

He told of going to Frank’s house Monday morning at 7 o’clock to get him to go to the police station. Answering questions put by Solicitor Dorsey, he said that Frank was not arrested at this time, and was kept at detective headquarters only two or three hours.

Haslett said that they told Frank at his house that Chief Lanford wanted to see him. Frank appeared willing to accompany them and said: “Wait a minute and I’ll be with you.”

“Do you know when Frank was arrested?”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“Whom did you see at detective headquarters that morning?”

“I saw Mr. Rosser and Mr. Haas, after I had gone up the street and come back.”

Attorney Rosser cross-examined him.

“What time did you say you saw Mr. Haas and me there?” asked Mr. Rosser.

“I think it was about 8 o’clock, as nearly as I can recollect. I won’t swear to the exact time.”

Mr. Rosser asked for details about the detectives’ actions at Frank’s house, in an apparent effort to gain from Detective Haslett an admission that Frank was detained against his will.

“You know, don’t you, that Frank didn’t get away from detective headquarters until nearly 12, don’t you?”

“No, I didn’t stay there until 12.”

“As a matter of fact, when you went out to Frank’s house, it wasn’t a question of whether or not he wanted to go, was it?”

“I don’t suppose it was.”

“Why did they send two of you?”

“Well, we generally work two together.”

“Well, now, if Frank had resisted, Mr. Haslett, wouldn’t you have brought him anyhow?”

“Yes, I guess we would.”

UNDERTAKER TESTIFIES.

William A. Gheesling was called to the stand. He is an undertaker employed by P. J. Bloomfield.

Gheesling said that he went to the pencil factory at about 10 minutes to 4 o’clock on [t]he morning that the body was discovered and found the body lying face down on the ground on the spot where it was discovered. The cord and the loop of an undergarment strip still were around the neck said he. He put the remains in a basket and carried them to the undertaking establishment, said he.

The impression that the loop and the cord had left on the neck of the body was an eighth of an inch deep, said he.

“What was the state of the body as regards rigor mortis?” asked the solicitor.

DEAD 10 OR 15 HOURS.

The body was rigid, said the witness.

“How long would you estimate that she had been dead?”

“Ten or fifteen hours and maybe more,” answered Gheesling.

He said that the blood on her clothes had coagulated. Blood had settled in her face, her head being lower than the rest of the body. The solicitor asked him how long it takes usually for blood to settle. Sometimes it settles in a few minutes, said the witness.

“Did you examine her nails?”

“After Dr. Hurt.”

“What did you discover under her finger nails?”

“Only dust.”

“Did you observe anything about her eyes?”

There was a bruise over the right eye, said the witness. Evidently it had been made before death, for it had swelled.

“Were there any other wounds?” asked the solicitor.

“There were two on the back of the head.”

DESCRIBES WOUNDS.

“If you made an examination, tell the jury about it.”

The skull was not fractured, said the witness, but the scalp was broken.

“Were there any marks on the body that could have been made by dragging?”

“There was a scar over each eye about the size of a dime.”

“What was the condition of her nose?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you present when Frank came to the undertaking place on the morning of Sunday, April 27?”

“Yes. I didn’t know who Frank was until afterward, though.”

“Did you observe his conduct particularly?”

“No.”

“Can you say whether or not he looked upon the body?”

“I cannoa [sic].”

“Can you say what caused the death of Mary Phagan?”

Before the witness could reply, Attorney Rosser objected on the ground that the witness was not competent, not being a physician. Judge Roan held that the solicitor would have to qualify the witness as an expert. The solicitor withdrew his question with the comment that he would prove that by somebody else.

ROSSER TAKES WITNESS.

The witness was cross-examined by Mr. Rosser.

“Was the blood under hair damp?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if it had been damp an hour before you found the body, how long would you say that she had been dead?”

“Between ten and fifteen hours, I would say. I don’t go by the blood at all but by the status of the rigor mortis.”

Attorney Rosser brought out from the witness the statement that rigor mortis sets in more quickly in certain cases than in others.

The witness admitted that he had little experience with strangulation cases. He had embalmed the bodies of a couple of men who were hanged. They were the only cases that he remembered. The witness discussed the action of blood after death, and said that no blood would come from wound after the last heart action unless the body was moved or it was forced out by some pressure.

Attorney Rosser brought out that in embalming the body, Gheesling removed half a gallon of blood and put in a gallon of embalming fluid. The witness was asked the formula of the embalming fluid that he used, and asked the court that he be not made to answer as the formula is one of his own which it has taken him fifteen years to perfect. The attorney withdrew the question.

BODY NOT MUTILATED.

The most interesting fact brought out by the cross examination of Gheesling was that Mary Phagan’s body was in no way mutilated. Attorney Rosser brought out that Dr. Hurt had probed under the girl’s finger nails, but the witness did not know what he had found. The witness stated that Dr. Hurt made a post mortem examination of the body on Monday. The witness convulsed the court when in reply to Rosser’s questions as to whether the girl’s underclothes had been torn or cut, he replied he was no dressmaker and couldn’t tell.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the witness a final question:

“Had the girl lost much blood when you examined the body?”

“She couldn’t have lost much,” was the answer.

Dr. Claude Smith was called as the next witness. He is a physician, and is the Atlanta city bacteriologist and chemist.

FOUND BLOOD ON CHIPS.

Solicitor Dorsey handed to the witness some chips.

“Dr. Smith, have you made any tests on these chips? If so, when?”

“These chips appear to be specimens that the detectives brought to me at my office.”

“What was their condition?”

“They were very dirty, and there appeared to be a stain upon them. I examined several specimens, and one one specimen I found blood corpuscles.”

The chips were the ones exhibited previously as having been dug from the metal room floor.

“Could you tell whether it was human blood or not?”

“I could not.”

The shirt that the detectives claim to have found in the bar[r]el at Newt Lee’s house was handed to the witnes[s]. He was asked if he had seen it before. The shirt was one that the detectives had brought to him, said the witness. He started to repeat something that the detectives told him when they delivered the shirt. Mr. Rosser objected. “We don’t care anything about that. We want to hear what you know of your own knowledge.”

SHIRT NEVER WORN.

Solicitor Dorsey added, “Yes, just tell us what you found.”

The witness stated that he examined the stains on the shirt. They reacted under the chemical test and also under the miscroscope [sic]. The witness examined the arm pits of the sihrt [sic] and it was his opinion that it hadn’t been worn.

Mr. Rosser objected. “We don’t want your opinion on common place subjects,” said he. Dr. Smith continued that blood had been smeared over the inside of the shirt, and very little of it had penetrated outside. It was wadded together in some places as if it had been used to wipe something.

Again Mr. Ros[s]er objected, declaring that the witness merely was giving his own conclusion; that he was supposed to give the condition of the shirt, without surmise.

Judge Roan advised the witness to state just what condition the shirt was in when it reached him.

Solicitor Dorsey declared that the shirt had been produced by Mr. Rosser for the defense, and that he wanted the witness to tell the jury what its condition was when the detectives gave it to him. Mr. Rosser rejoined: “I was just showing what John Black had been doing—that he had been finding a shirt.”

“Go ahead, doctor, and tell us about the condition of the shirt,” said Mr. Dorsey.

“It was not soiled around the inside of the collar,” said the witness. “It had every appearance of having been washed, but not worn.” He said there was no odor to it.

Manifesting some impatience, Mr. Rosser jumped to his feet and asked that the witness’ reply be stricken from the record. He declared that the witness was not discussing a scientific matter, but a common place one, which did not require expert testimony.

“All this stuff about odors is not a medical question,” asserted Mr. Rosser. He ought to discuss only those things which the jury cannot determine for themselves.”

Solicitor Dorsey asked the witness to tell the condition of the shirt and omit his conclusions.

There was no odor to the shirt. There was no evidence of soiling on the inside of the collar. Most of the blood was on the inside of the shirt.

ROSSER’S EXAMINATION.

Mr. Rosser cross-examined the witness. He endeavored to make the witness admit that under some circumstances, such as the tail of the shirt being turned up, it could be soiled outwardly yet appear to have been soiled from the inside. Dr. Smith was inclined to dispute that theory. Again growing impatient, Mr. Rosser declared that the witness had been arguing ever since he came on the stand.

“You say there was no stain on the inside of the collar?”

“There was none.”

“There was a pungent odor of blood, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, there was some odor from the blood.”

“Then the blood odor might destroy the body odor, might it not?”

“Somewhat.”

“You say the odor of the shirt was that of a garment that had been washed and was fresh?”

“If a person had just worn this shirt a short while, there wouldn’t be much odor, would there?”

“Yes, there would be some odor.”

“If he had put it right on and taken it right off, you still count detect it?”

Mr. Rosser counted out four chips in the package and handed them to the witness. Dr. Smith admitted that he could not tell on which one of the four chips he found the blood.

Dr. Smith continued that blood corpuscles could remain on the floor or piece of wood for years if they were not disturbed in any way. He said, however, that they dissolved rapidly when water was put with them.

He had not examined the blood on the chips for quantity, said the witness, but admitted that all of the corpuscles that he saw—some four or five—could have been left there from one drop of blood. He could only tell that it was the blood of a mammal.

BLOOD OF A MOUSE?

He admitted that the blood might have been from a mouse, but refused to state that it was not the blood of an animal. Some experts could tell the difference between human and brute blood, but he could not.

Dr. Smith was asked a number of questions relative to rigor mortis, which, said he, usually starts very soon after death. It was complete in a number of instances in about ten hours, he said.

Mr. Rosser attempted repeatedly to make the witness say that a person taking off the shirt could have folded it so that the different blood spots would have been distributed upon it as they appeared in court; but the witness contended that it was hardly possible. Some of the blood on the inside of the shirt was only six inches from the arm pits, he said.

E. F. Holloway, watchman at the National Pencil factory, was called to the stand. In reply to questions by Solicitor Dorsey, he said that he worked in the pencil factory on the Saturday of the murder, from 6:20 a. m., until 11:45, and that among his duties was the supervision of the elevator.

“What do you do when you leave, usually?” asked the solicitor. “What did you do regarding the elevator when you left on Saturday?”

“I had cut two plans for White and Denham, and I started the elevator to the third floor, where they were working.”

Solicitor Dorsey addressed the court.

“I want to say right now that I have been entrapped by this witness straight-out.”

The solicitor addressed this question to the witness after taking some affidavits and papers from his table:

“On May 12, 1913, in the presence of E. S. Smith, stenographer, Detectives Starnes and Campbell, and myself, didn’t you say regarding the power box that enables you to run the elevator, that you kept it locked all the time?”

“I said I left it locked Friday night.”

“Where did you leave the elevator Friday night?”

“I left it on the second floor.”

“Was it there when you left the building that Friday night?”

“Yes.”

“On Saturday, where was the elevator when you left?”

SWITCH BOX UNLOCKED.

“I did some sawing for Mr. White and Mr. Denham and sent it up and left the switch box unlocked Saturday.”

“Didn’t you say you never heard of the insurance company ordering the switch box kept open all the time, one day in my office? And don’t you know that you said Mr. Darley had instructed you to keep it locked all the time? And isn’t it a fact that the box was locked Saturday morning at 11:45 when you left the building?”

“It was not.”

“Why then, did you tell me it was?”

“I forgot.”

“What was it Frank said to Newt Lee Friday night—you heard what he said, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t hear him say anything to Newt Lee.”

Solicitor Dorsey picked up an affidavit.

“You signed your name to this paper, didn’t you?”

The witness replied “Yes.”

“Why did you say the box was always kept locked?”

“I forgot.”

Holloway proceeded to testify that he saw Frank leave the pencil factory at 9:45 a. m. Sturdaya [sic], April 26, to go to Montag Brothers.

“Did you ever see Gantt speak to Mary Phagan while he was working in the factory?”

“No.”

The witness had misunderstood the question, he said, asking that it be repeated. The lawyers for the defense interposed that he was hard of hearing. Mr. Dorsey repeated the question.

“I saw him talking to her frequently.”

[several words missing] and where?”

“Around the time clock. [several words missing] would stop to register.

“What is the condition of the stairs that lead from the ground floor to the back of the basement?”

“It is good,” answered the witness.

“Are these stairs nailed up? If so, how long have they been nailed up?”
“All this year.”

“Were you there Monday morning after the murder?”

“I was.”

“What do you know about the insurance people going through the building?”

“I saw a crowd of men in the basement.”
“Do you know when that area down there was cleaned up?”

“About two weeks after the murder.”

That closed the direct examination, and the witness was turned over to Attorney Arnold.

“Mr. Holloway, all Saturday morning the front doors were unlocked, were they not?” began Mr. Arnold.

“Yes.”
“When those men, Denham and White, wanted you to saw those boards for them, you had to use the motor, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the same motor that runs the elevator, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And you left the switch-box open when you left, did you?”

“Yes.”

ELEVATOR OPEN.

“Then anybody could run the elevator after that?”

“Anybody—yes.”

“Mr. Holloway, isn’t the floor of the metal department dirty and greasy?”

“There’s not a worse one in town.”
During the three years he has worked in the pencil factory, said the witness, the floor of the metal room has not been scoured once.

“Mr. Holloway, spots are not uncommon on this floor, are they?”

“No, sir.”
“Have you ever seen spots that looked like blood, around the ladies’ toilet?”
“Yes.”

“Did you ever see the spots that Barret[t] claims to have discovered, on the floor of the metal room?”

“I saw it late on Monday.”
“This man Barret[t] discovered mighty near everything that was found in the building, didn’t he?”

“So he claims,” said the watchman.

“Did you ever see Frank speak to Mary Phagan?”

“Did you see Newt Lee when he got there Monday?”

“Yes, he was just going out with the detectives.”

“Who came next?”

“Either White or Denham—I don’t know which. He went upstairs.”

“Who was the next to come in?”

“Alonzo Mann, the office boy.”

“Who next?”

“Mr. Frank, I think.”
“What did he do?”

“He opened the safe, got out the books and went to work.”

“Who came next?”
“Mattie Smith. She worked there.”

“Who came next?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Didn’t you see Corinthia Hall and another young woman come in?”

“No, I met them at Hunter and Broad streets after I left the factory. Miss Emma asked if there was anybody at the factory. She was getting cold and wanted to get a wrap, she said. I told her Mr. Frank was there and would let her in.”

“Who else came in the factory while you were there?”

“Graham and others came in while I was upstairs with White and Denham.”

“Are there double doors leading back to the metal room? Are they kept locked?”

“Yes, but they’re not kept locked. One stays closed and the other open. They couldn’t be locked. There’s not lock on them. The doors are there to keep the steam out of the packing department. One is kept closed all the time when the factory is working.”
“On the Friday before the murder, did you turn the building over to Newt Lee?”
“Yes.”

“Who closed up the building?”

“Lee.”

“He closes all doors and windows?”

“Yes.”

“On all the floors?”

“Yes.”

“It’s his duty to go to the basement and the back door of the basement?”

“Yes.”

“What other negroes are employed in the factory?”

“Knolys, the fireman; Jim Conley, the sweeper; Bill McKinley, Fred Howell, who sweeps the metal room, and Joe Williams.”

“Have you ever heard of Stanford sweeping up the cement floors and the wood floors around the metal room?”

“Yes, frequently. He’s done that all this year, when we’ve been short of hands.”

“The factory usually paid off on Saturdays at 12 o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Where were the employes paid off?”

“Near the clock.”
“Frank didn’t usually pay off, did he?”

“No, sir.”
“When were the employes paid off on the Friday before the murder—what time?”

“About 5:45 or 6 o’clock.”
“Saturday was a holiday?”

“Yes.”
“You put up signs notifying the employes that they would be paid off on Friday night?”

“Yes, sir, I put signs up on every floor.”

“What time did you usually get to the factory in the mornings, to relieve the night watchman?”

“Always at 6:20 o’clock.”

“Did you ever come to the factory on Sundays?”

“No, sir.”

“Who was there on Sundays?”

“Nobody.”

“How was the elevator entrance closed?”

“By sliding doors.”
“Could anybody raise them?”
“Yes.”

“What is the condition on the first floor?”

“Very dark. There are always a lot of boxes piled around. Anybody coming from the light of the street would find it hard to see.”

“Could anybody raise the doors and get into the elevator shaft from the first floor?”
“Yes, these doors slide up and down on weights, like windows.”

“Were the same kind of doors on the elevator on the second floor?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Mrs. White before you left the factory that Saturday morning?”

“No, sir; she came after I left.”
“You say there are two time clocks, one registering from 1 to 100, and the other from 101 to 200?”

“Yes. There are about 160 employes in the factory. Every one has a number. That makes it necessary to have two clocks.”
“Newt Lee, the night watchman, was expected to punch every half-hour to show he was there—twenty-four times every twelve hours?”

“Yes.”

“Was the shipping clerk at the factory that Saturday morning?”

“Yes, he was there about two hours. He came at 8 o’clock and stayed until 10 o’clock.”

“Where is the shipping department?”

“Just off from the packing department on the second floor.”

“When Mattie Smith was paid off, she found a mistake had been made in her pay, did she not?”

“Yes, she found it out just about the time she came out of the office and got as far as the clock. Darley accompanied her back into Mr. Frank’s office and corrected the mistake.”
“The stenographer, Miss Hattie Hall, came in during the morning, did she not?”

“Yes, I saw her at the typewriter in the outer office.”

“What time did Frank come back from Montag Brothers?”

“About 11 o’clock.”

“Did he have a paper in his hand, or a folder?”

“Yes, he always carried this folder over to Montag Brothers and brought it back with him.”

“When Frank returned from Montage Brothers, did he go right up to office?” continued Mr. Arnold.

“Yes.”

“The stenographer was still in the outer office?”

“Yes.”

“We have some cords here.” Mr. Arnold picked up a piece of cord. “You used these cords in various parts of the factory building, did you not?”

“Yes, everywhere in the building.”
“You can find them in various parts of the building?”
“Everywhere.”

“They come to the factory tied around bundles of slats, do they not?”
“And pencils are made out of these slats?”
“Yes.”
“These cords are hung about on nails and get into the trash every day, do they not?”
“Yes, it’s impossible to keep them from being scattered around.”

“Did you see Mae Barrett that Saturday morning?”
“Yes, I met her going up into the building.”
“Did you see Mary Phagan?”
“No, sir.”

“Did you see Mary Phagan’s body?”
“Yes.”

“Did you recognize it?”
“Yes.”
“You knew her by name?”
“Yes.”

“She was stout and stockily built?”
“Yes.”
“Was the negro Conley familiar with the metal room?”
“Yes, he was familiar with every part of the building.”

On re-direct examination. Solicitor Dorsey asked Holloway this question:

“In my office, did you not tell me that you locked the power box of the elevator on Saturday?”

“I don’t remember.”

Solicitor Dorsey took up a stenographic record and read this extract:

“Do you general[l]y keep the power box locked? Answer: Yes. Where do you keep the key? Answer: In the office. Did you lock the box on Saturday? Answer: Yes.’

“Did you read over this record before you signed it?” demanded the solicitor.

“Yes,” said the watchman. “I read it over, but I didn’t tell you anything about sawing wood on that Saturday, and I remembered that I left the box unlocked and put the key in the office, where I got it Monday.”

The solicitor grilled the witness on previous statements by himself in contrast with those offered there in court.

Attorney Arnold said to the witness:

“You forgot to tell him about sawing the planks and that reminded you about unlocking the elevator and then taking the key to the office, where it was left because there is a spring lock on the power box?”

“That’s right,” the witness said.

After the witness left the stand Solicitor Dorsey tendered in evidence that portion of the stenographic record of Holloway’s statement to him which referred to the power box, saying that the witness did not admit saying that he locked the box on Saturday. The attorneys for the defense contended that he did admit saying that he had locked the box, although he was mistaken about it.

The witness was called back to the stand, and then he clearly admitted that he had said to the solicitor that he had told him that he locked the box on Saturday.

Solicitor Dorsey then declared that he still wanted to put the stenographic record in record as it was highest and best evidence of the witness’ contradictory statement by which he, Dorsey, had been entrapped. To avoid a tedious argument, said the solicitor, he would waive the point inasmuch as he had secured the witness’ admission that he had contradicted himself.

Solicitor Dorsey called for Mrs. Arthur White as the next witness, but Judge Roan declared it was time to adjourn. Before adjourning, however, the court asked if any of the jurors had any complaint to make of treatment they were receiving.

Juror Winburn said they had had a complaint relative to their rooms, but he understood the matter would be rectified by the sheriff.

Atlanta Georgian
July 31^st, 1913

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

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

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

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

R. P. Barrett, a machinist in the factory, declares that he found blood spots, apparently swept over with a white substance, and a portion of pay envelope on the second floor, as well as strands of hair in a lathe.

Mell Stanford, an employee, testifies to having seen the spots. Dr. Claude Smith testifies that spots on chips taken from the second floor were blood.

E. F. Holloway, State’s witness and foreman at the National Pencil Factory, gave the first evidence directly contradictory to the sensational affidavits of Jim Conley Thursday afternoon when he testified that he saw Leo M. Frank return to the factory from Montague Selig’s home the morning of the crime and that no one was with him.

Conley swore that Frank met him on the street and that he (Conley) returned to the plant with the accused superintendent.

The charge that he was entrapped outright by a witness was repeated once more at the trial by Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey, when E. F. Holloway, foreman at the pencil Factory declared that the elevator at the plant was not locked Saturday.

Solicitor Dorsey declared that in an affidavit Holloway had said the elevator was locked. Holloway said that when he made the affidavit he had forgotten that he had used the elevator to carry some wood for factory employees and had not locked the power box which controls the lift.

* * *

Dr. Claude Smith, city bacteriologist, testified Thursday afternoon that one of the chips taken from the second floor of the National Pencil factory had upon it blood corpuscles; however, he could not say they were corpuscles of human blood, making the statement that it was impossible to distinguish between human and animal corpuscles after they were dry.

This piece of evidence is believed by the State to go a long distance into destroying the contention of the defense that the red spots might be those of paint or aniline dye.

Dr. Smith said of the bloody shirt found at the house of Newt Lee that it apparently never had been worn when the blood was placed upon it. He declared that there was no odor except of a freshly laundered garment and that the inside of the neck band was not at all soiled.

The expert witness added that the blood on the shirt appeared to have been originally on the inside of the shirt and to have seeped outward through the material. In his opinion, the garment had been used to wipe up a quantity of blood.

Rosser Attacks Smith’s Evidence.

Attorney Rosser at once attacked Dr. Smith’s finding of red corpuscles on one of the chips. He made the bacteriologist admit that the blood might have been that of a mouse, killed there, as well as that of a human being. He forced Dr. Smith to say that he had found only four or five corpuscles on the one chip. Rosser ridiculed the idea that any significance could be attached to the finding of four or five corpuscles on one chip, when the other chips stained in the same manner revealed no chemical indication of the presence of blood.

“If blood is present the corpuscles can be distinguished for a matter of years, so long as the blood is not dissolved or washed away, can’t they?” shouted Rosser.

Dr. Smith conceded that this is true.

The bloodstained garments of Mary Phagan were shown at this time and Frank’s wife displayed emotion.

R. P. Barrett, a machinist on the second floor of the National Pencil Factory, gave unexpected and important evidence for the State. He told for the first time of finding between April 28 and 30 part of a pay envelope under the machine used by Mary Phagan, who was murdered in the factory April 26.

who made the startling discoveries of the spots resembling blood near the water cooler at the ladies’ dressing room on the second floor and the strands of reddish-brown hair on the lathing machine about 20 feet from the Phagan girl’s machine.

Not Regarded Seriously.

Barrett’s finding of the pay envelope was not regarded seriously by the defense. The envelope was begrimed and dirty. It must have been scraped about the floor considerably if it had accumulated all its dirt between the time that Mary Phagan was last paid and the time that Barrett found it on the floor. It bore no date. It bore no number or name. It bore no amount. The only scrap of writing on it was the loop of a letter which remained after the top of the envelope had been torn off. The loop might have been that of a “g,” a “y,” or any of the other letters that extend below the line of writing. If it was the envelope of Mary Phagan there is still the possibility that it was of another week.

Originally published by the American Mercury on the 100th anniversary of the Leo Frank trial.

100 years ago today the trial of the 20th century ended its first week, shedding brilliant light on the greatest murder mystery of all time: the murder of Mary Phagan. And you are there.

by Bradford L. Huie

THE MOST IMPORTANT testimony in the first week of the trial of National Pencil Company superintendent Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan was that of the night watchman, Newt Lee (pictured, right, in custody), who had discovered 13-year-old Mary’s body in the basement of the pencil factory during his nightly rounds in the early morning darkness of April 27, 1913. Here at the Mercury we are following the events of this history-making trial as they unfolded exactly 100 years ago. We are fortunate indeed that Lee’s entire testimony has survived as part of the Leo Frank Trial Brief of Evidence, certified as accurate by both the defense and the prosecution during the appeal process. (For background on this case, read our introductory article and my exclusive summary of the evidence against Frank.)

Newt Lee, far right, on the witness stand (click for high resolution)

Almost all of the information published today about the Frank trial has two characteristics in common: 1) it is stridently pro-Frank with little pretense of objectivity, and 2) it is derivative — meaning that it consists of little more than cherry-picked paraphrases and interpretations of what witnesses said, and reporters and investigators discovered, during those fateful days. To say that much crucial information is left out or glossed over by the partisan writers of today is a vast understatement. We aim to correct some of these intentional omissions in this exclusive series.

The courtroom scene

We’ll begin with the entire testimony — taken during direct and cross examination — of Newt Lee. There had been an attempt to frame Lee — through the medium of a planted bloody shirt — before the trial began, an act almost certainly committed by pro-Frank forces. But subsequent events proved that Lee was entirely innocent, and by the time of the trial he was not under any suspicion whatever, and therefore had no known motive to lie. Here are his exact words (emphasis ours, some paragraph breaks added for increased readability):

NEWT LEE (colored), sworn for the State.

On the 26th day of April, 1913, I was night watchman at the National Pencil Factory. I had been night watchman there for about three weeks. When I began working there, Mr. Frank carried me around and showed me everything that I would have to do. I would have to get there at six o’clock on week days, and on Saturday evenings I have to come at five o’clock.

On Friday, the 25th of April, he [Leo Frank] told me “Tomorrow is a holiday and I want you to come back at four o’clock. I want to get off a little earlier than I have been getting off.”

I got to the factory on Saturday about three or four minutes before four. The front door was not locked. I pushed it open, went on in and got to the double door there. I was paid off Friday night [April 25, 1913 — Ed.] at six o’clock. It was put out that everybody would be paid off then [because Saturday was a State holiday, Confederate Memorial Day — Ed.]. Every Saturday when I get off he gives me the keys at twelve o’clock, so that if he happened to be gone when I get back there at five or six o’clock I could get in, and every Monday morning I return the keys to him. The front door has always been unlocked on previous Saturday afternoons. After you go inside and come up about middle ways of the steps, there are some double doors there.

It was locked on Saturday when I got there. Have never found it that way before.

I took my keys and unlocked it. When I went upstairs I had a sack of bananas and I stood to the left of that desk like I do every Saturday. I says like I always do, “Alright, Mr. Frank,” and he come bustling out of his office. He had never done that before. He always called me when he wanted to tell me anything and said “Step here a minute, Newt.”

This time he came up rubbing his hands and says, “Newt, I am sorry I had you come so soon, you could have been at home sleeping, I tell you what you do, you go out in town and have a good time.” He had never let me off before that.

I could have laid down there in the shipping room and gone to sleep, and I told him that. He says, “You needs to have a good time. You go down town, stay an hour and a half and come back your usual time at six o’clock. Be sure and be back at six o’clock.”

I then went out the door and stayed until about four minutes to six. When I came back the doors were unlocked just as I left them and I went and says,” All right, Mr. Frank,” and he says, “What time is it’?” and I says, “It lacks two minutes of six.” He says, “Don’t punch yet, there is a few worked today and I want to change the slip.”

It took him twice as long this time than it did the other times I saw him fix it. He fumbled putting it in, while I held the lever for him and I think he made some remark about he was not used to putting it in.

When Mr. Frank put the tape in I punched and I went on downstairs.

While I was down there Mr. Gantt [a young man who was a former pencil factory employee and who had been a friend of Mary Phagan’s — Ed.] came from across the street from the beer saloon and says “Newt, I got a pair of old shoes that I want to get upstairs to have fixed.”

I says, “I ain’t allowed to let anybody in here after six o’clock.”

About that time Mr. Frank come busting out of the door and run into Gantt unexpected and he jumped back frightened.

Gantt says, “I got a pair of old shoes upstairs, have you any objection to my getting them?”

Frank says, “I don’t think they are up there, I think I saw the boy sweep some up in the trash the other day.”

Mr. Gantt asked him what sort they were and Mr. Frank said “tans.” Gantt says, “Well, I had a pair of black ones, too.” Frank says, “Well, I don’t know,” and he dropped his head down just so. Then he raised his head and says, “Newt, go with him and stay with him and help him find them,” and I went up there with Mr. Gantt and found them in the shipping room, two pair, the tans and the black ones.

Mr. Frank phoned me that night about an hour after he left, it was sometime after seven o’clock. He says”How is everything?” and I says, “Everything is all right so far as I know,” and he says, “Good-bye.”

No, he did not ask anything about Gantt. Yes, that is the first time he ever phoned to me on a Saturday night, or at all.

There is a light on the street floor just after you get in the entrance to the building. The light is right up here where that partition comes across. Mr. Frank told me when I first went there, “Keep that light burning bright, so the officers can see in when they pass by.” It wasn’t burning that day at all. I lit it at six o’clock myself. On Saturdays I always lit it, but week-days it would always be lit when I got there. On Saturdays I always got there at five o’clock. This Saturday he got me there an hour earlier and let me off later.

There is a light in the basement down there at the foot of the ladder. He told me to keep that burning all the time. It has two little chains to it to turn on and turn off the gas. When I got there on making my rounds at 7 p. m. on the 26th of April, it was burning just as low as you could turn it, like a lightning bug. I left it Saturday morning burning bright.

I made my rounds regularly every half hour Saturday night. I punched on the hour and punched on the half and I made all my punches. The elevator doors on the street floor and office floor were closed when I got there on Saturday. They were fastened down just like we fasten them down every other night.

When three o’clock came I went down the basement and when I went down and got ready to come back I discovered the body there. I went down to the toilet and when I got through I looked at the dust bin back to the door to see how the door was and it being dark I picked up my lantern and went there and I saw something laying there which I thought some of the boys had put there to scare me, then I walked a little piece towards it and I seen what it was and I got out of there.

I got up the ladder and called up [the] police station. It was after three o’clock. I carried the officers down where I found the body.

I tried to get Mr. Frank on the telephone and was still trying when the officers came. I guess I was trying about eight minutes.

The jury listens intently to the testimony in the Leo Frank case.

I saw Mr. Frank Sunday morning at about seven or eight o’clock. He was coming in the office. He looked down on the floor and never spoke to me. He dropped his head right down this way. Mr. Frank was there and didn’t say nothing while Mr. Darley was speaking to me. Boots Rogers, Chief Lanford, Darley, Mr. Frank and I were there when they opened the clock [the time clock — Ed.].

Mr. Frank opened the clock and said the punches were all right, that I hadn’t missed any punches. I punched every half hour from six o’clock until three o’clock, which was the last punch I made. I don’t know whether they took out that slip or not.

On Tuesday night, April 29th at about ten o’clock I had a conversation at the station house with Mr. Frank. They handcuffed me to a chair. They went and got Mr. Frank and brought him in and he sat down next to the door. He dropped his head and looked down. We were all alone.

I said, “Mr. Frank, it’s mighty hard for me to be handcuffed here for something I don’t know anything about.”

He said, “What’s the difference, they have got me locked up and a man guarding me.”

I said, “Mr. Frank, do you believe I committed that crime,” and he said, “No, Newt, I know you didn’t, but I believe you know something about it.”

I said, “Mr. Frank, I don’t know a thing about it, no more than finding the body.”

He said, “We are not talking about that now, we will let that go. If you keep that up we will both go to hell.” Then the officers both came in.

When Mr. Frank came out of his office that Saturday he was looking down and rubbing his hands. I have never seen him rubbing his hands that way before.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I don’t know how many times I told this story before. Everybody was after me all the time down there at the station house. Yes, I testified at the coroner’s inquest and I told them there that Mr. Frank jumped back like he was frightened when he saw Mr. Gantt. I am sure I told them, and I told them that Mr. Frank jumped back and held his head down. I didn’t say before the coroner that he said he had given one of the pair of shoes of Mr. Gantt to one of the boys; they got that wrong.

On Saturdays I had to wake up usually and get to the factory at twelve o’clock. This time Mr. Frank told me to get back at four. I did say before the coroner that he was looking down when he came out of his office. I told them also that there was a place in that building [where] I could go to sleep, but they didn’t ask me where.

When you come in the front door of the factory, you can go right on by the elevator and right down into the basement, anybody could do it. The fact that the double doors on the steps were locked wouldn’t prevent anybody from going in the basement. That would only prevent anybody from up stairs from going into the basement unless they went by the elevator or by unlocking those double doors.

All of the doors to the factory were unlocked when I got back there Saturday afternoon about 6 o’clock, the first floor, the second floor, the third floor and the fourth floor. Anybody could come right in from the street and go all over the factory without Mr. Frank in his office knowing anything about it.

The doors are never closed at all. That is a great big, old, rambling place up there. The shutters, the blinds to the factory were all closed that day because it was a holiday, excepting two or three on the first floor which I closed up that night. It’s a very dark place when the shutters are closed. That is why we have to burn a light.

There is a light on the first floor near the clock, it burns all the time because that is a dark spot. There are two clocks, one punches to a hundred, the other punches to two hundred, because there are more than a hundred employees. I punch both of them.

About Mr. Frank and Mr. Gantt, they had had a difficulty and I knew that Mr. Frank didn’t want him in there. Mr. Frank had told me “Lee, I have discharged Mr. Gantt, I don’t want him in here, keep him out of here,” and he had said,” When you see him hanging around here, watch him.”

That is the reason I thought Mr. Frank was startled when he saw Mr. Gantt. Mr. Gantt is a great big fellow, nearly seven feet. When he went out I watched him as he went to the beer saloon and I went on upstairs. He left the factory about half past six.

I went through the machine room every time I made a punch that night. I went to the ladies’ dressing room every half hour that night until three o’clock. I went all over the building every half hour, excepting the basement. I went down to the basement every hour that night, but not all the way back.

Mr. Frank had instructed me to go over the building every half hour and he said go down in the basement once in awhile. He said go back far enough to see the door was closed. He told me to look out for the dust bin because that is where we might have a fire and to see that the back door is shut and to go over all the building every half hour.

No, he didn’t give me any different instructions on that Saturday, he didn’t tell me not to go in the basement or in the metal department. He allowed me to carry out the instructions just like I had been doing before. Yes, if I had gone back to find out whether that door was closed or not, I would have found the body, but I could see if the door was open, because there was a light back there. No, it wasn’t open that night. It was shut when I found the body.

It was about ten minutes after I telephoned the police that they arrived. When I was down there I was close enough to the door to see it was shut, there was a light in front of it. There was no light between the body and the door. It was dark back there. The body was about sixty feet from that door. If the back door had been open I could have seen that big light back there in the alley. The back door was closed when I found the body.

The first time I went down the basement that night was seven o’clock. I went just a little piece beyond the dark, so I could see whether there was any fire down there. That’s what I was looking for.

Yes, I could tell whether the door was open from there. No, I didn’t go back as far as they found the body, I didn’t go back that far at all during the night. The reason I went that far back when I saw the body was because I went to the closet. There are two closets on the second floor, one on the third floor and one on the fourth floor. I didn’t see the lady’s hat or shoe when I went down to that little place with my lantern, nor the parasol. My lantern was dirty.

I was sitting down there, after I had punched, on the seat, set my lantern on the outside. When I got through I picked up my lantern, I walked a few steps down that way, I seed something over there, about that much of the lady’s leg and dress.

I guess I walked about three or four feet, or five or six. I guess the body was about ten feet from the closet. As to what made me look in that direction from the closet, because I wanted to look that way. I picked up the lantern to go down there to see the dust bin, to see whether there was any fire there. The dust bin was to the right of me. When I was sit- ting down there the dust bin was not entirely hid behind the partition. I could see where the dust came down.

The balance of the night in order to see whether there was any fire in the dust bin or not I went twenty or twenty-five feet from the scuttle hole, and when I was down in the closet I had to go at least ten feet to see whether or not there was any fire in the dust bin. I would have gone further if I hadn’t discovered the body.

When I saw the body, the closest I ever got to it was about six feet. I was holding my lantern in my hand. I just saw the feet. When I first saw it I was about ten feet from it. As to how far the body was from where I was sitting in the closet, it was not less than ten feet and not more than thirty. I stood and looked at it to see whether or not it was a natural body.

When I first got there I didn’t think it was a white woman because her face was so dirty and her hair was so crinkled and there were white spots on her face. When the police came back upstairs they said it was a white girl. I think I reported to the police that it was a white woman. She was lying on her back with her face turned kinder to one side. I could see her forehead. I saw a little blood on the side of her head that was turned next to me. The blood was on the right side of her head. I am sure she was lying on her back.

Mr. Frank had told me if anything serious happened to call up the police and if anything like fire to call up fire department. I already knew the number of the station house.

I did say at the coroner’s inquest that it took Mr. Frank longer to put the tape on this time than it did before. I did not say it took twice as long at the coroner’s inquest, because they didn’t ask me. I didn’t pay any attention to him the first time he put the tape on. The reason the last time I know it took him longer because I held the lever and had to move it backwards and forwards.

When I was in the basement one of the policemen read the note that they found. They read these words, “The tall, black, slim negro did this, he will try to lay it on the night” — and when they got to the word “night” I said “They must be trying to put it off on me.” I didn’t say, “Boss, that’s me.”

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

The first time I saw Mr. Frank put any tape on, he didn’t say anything about it being any trouble. The last time he put it on, he said something about that he wasn’t used to putting it on. I was holding the lever there and he got it on twice and he had put it on wrong and he would have to slip it out and put it back.

When Mr. Frank came out rubbing his hands, he came out of his inner office into the outer office and from there in front of the clock.

I did not go down in the basement as far as the boiler during the night, except when I discovered the body. The officers talked to me the whole time. I didn’t get to sleep hardly, day or night. Just the time I would get ready to go to sleep, here they was after me. Then I would go back to my cell, stay a while and then another would come and get me. They carried me where I could sleep, but they wouldn’t let me stay there long enough to sleep. I didn’t get no sleep until I went over to the jail, and I didn’t get no sleep at jail for about two weeks. That was before the coroner’s inquest, when I was first arrested.

When I went back to the jail I was treated nicely. As to who talked to me longer, Mr. Frank or Black, Mr. Black did. Mr. Arnold talked to me longer than Mr. Frank did on April 29th.

In the southwest corner is some toilets for men and women.

Modern accounts of the Frank trial often include the claim that Frank could not have been convicted without the testimony of Jim Conley, and that, except for Conley, no one’s testimony made out much of a case for Frank’s guilt. But Lee’s testimony was very damaging indeed to Frank. And neither the Coroner’s Jury nor the grand jury which indicted Frank (which included several Jews) heard a word from Jim Conley.

Courtroom sketch of the defendant, Leo M. Frank

Frank’s decision to have Newt Lee arrive early, and then, when he arrived, sending him away for two hours might be seen as an innocent change of plans — but Frank’s absolute insistence that Newt could not rest on the premises during the two-hour gap is definitely suspicious — as is Frank’s first and only telephone call ever made to Lee, at 7:30 PM on the night of the murder, asking him if everything was “all right.” It also seems quite strange that every single person in Frank’s sizable household would fail to be awakened by a telephone that rang insistently for some eight minutes. The police would also find it difficult to reach Frank via telephone, not getting an answer until 6:30 AM.

Lee’s testimony that Frank was so nervous (some six hours after the murder, with Mary Phagan’s body hidden in the basement) that he wrung his hands, jumped in fear when seeing Mary’s friend Gantt (who could have been theoretically looking for her), and couldn’t properly operate the time clock (that he had previously worked with ease for nearly five years) without help made an impression. But even more significant was the statement (later corroborated by other witnesses) that Frank had inspected Lee’s time card the day after the murder and had declared that it was all correct, with every punch made at the proper time. Later the bloody shirt was found at Lee’s home — and Frank would be telling a very different tale about the time card, contradicting himself and declaring that several punches were missing. It’s hard to explain that about-face as anything other than a ham-handed attempt to implicate Lee.

In fact, the Frank defense team were still trying to plant the idea in the jurors’ minds that Lee might have had something to do with the crime. Frank’s lead defense lawyers, Reuben Arnold and Luther Rosser, explained their strategy to the judge while the jury was not present, citing Lee’s reaction to the Ebonics-style “death notes” found near the body which included references to a “night witch,” which seemed a semi-literate allusion to the night watchman:

“In an instant, Lee said, ‘That night witch means me.’ It showed familiarity with the notes. Isn’t it strange that a negro so ignorant and dull that Mr. Rosser had to ask him a question ten times over could in a flash interpret this illegible scrawl?”

“We’ve got to commence somewhere and at some time to show the negro is a criminal and we might as well begin here as anywhere else.”

Rosser’s and Arnold’s effort was to imply that Newt Lee had something to do with the crime, at least the writing of the death notes at the behest of factory sweeper Jim Conley, who the defense would allege was the real murderer. This theory was greatly weakened while aborning, though, when Lee told the court that he hadn’t even met Conley until he saw him — a month after the murder — in jail.

Reuben R. Arnold, attorney for the defense

On Sunday, April 27, 1913, Leo Frank had said that Lee had punched his time card correctly — even reviewing it in front of police officers. Frank was then allowed to put it back in the company safe.

Defendant’s Exhibit 1, supposedly a copy of Newt Lee’s “time slip, dated April 26, taken out of clock by Frank.” It indicates four missed punches, though Frank showed officers Lee’s time slip the day after the murder, and no punches had been missed.

On Monday, April 28, Frank changed his story. Now he said that Lee had missed three or four punches on the clock. This would have amounted to three to four hours of Lee’s time unaccounted for. It took about 30 minutes to get to Lee’s home home from the factory — plenty of time to have committed the murder and dispose of evidence.

Leo Frank asked the police to check his laundry for blood two days after the murder, possibly to suggest they should check Newt Lee’s home as well. When Lee’s residence was searched, a bloody shirt — later proven to have been planted, obviously by someone trying to incriminate Lee — was indeed found at the bottom of Newt Lee’s garbage burning barrel. It suggested to police that Lee had “forgotten to burn the bloody shirt that had been stained during the Mary Phagan murder.”

The defense subjected Lee to a grueling ordeal of confusing questions, cross-questions, insults, and accusations — but they could not rattle him nor catch him in any contradiction.

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs told the jury of how he found the lifeless body of Mary Phagan: “The girl was lying on her face, the left side on the ground, the right side up. Her face was punctured, full of holes, and was swollen and black. The cord was around her neck, sunk into the flesh. Her tongue was protruding.”

Detective John Starnes was called to the stand. Here is his complete testimony from the Brief of Evidence:

 J. N. STARNES, sworn for the State.

I am a city officer. Went to the pencil company’s place of business between five and six o’clock, April 27th. The pencil company is located in Fulton County, Georgia. That is where the body was found. The staple to the back door looked as if it had been prized out with a pipe pressed against the wood. There was a pipe there that fitted the indentation on the wood.

I called Mr. Frank on the telephone, and told him I wanted him to come to the pencil factory right away. He said he hadn’t had any breakfast. He asked where the night watchman was. I told him it was very necessary for him to come and if he would come I would send an automobile for him, and I asked Boots Rogers to go for him. I didn’t tell him what had happened, and he didn’t ask me.

Mr. Frank appeared to be nervous; this was indicated by his manner of speaking to Mr. Darley; he was in a trembling condition.

I was guarded with him in my conversation over the phone.

About a week afterwards I went to the factory and had the night watchman there, Mr. Hendricks, to show me about the clock. He took a new slip and put it in the clock and punched the slip all the way around in less than five minutes (State’s Exhibit P).

I got some cord on the second floor of the pencil factory, the knots in these cords are similar to the knots in this cord (State’s Exhibit C [the cord used to strangle Mary Phagan — Ed.]).

On the floor right at the opposite corner, what might be called the northwest corner of the dressing room, on Monday morning, April 28th, I saw splotches that looked like blood about a foot and a half or two feet from the end of the dressing room, some of which I chipped up. It looked like splotches of blood and something had been thrown there and in throwing it had spread out and splattered.

There was no great amount of it. I should judge that the area around these spots was a foot and a half. The splotch looked as if something had been swept over it, some white substance. There is a lot of that white stuff in the metal department.

It looked like blood. I found a nail fifty feet this side of the metal room toward the elevator on the second floor that looked like it had blood on the top of it. It was between the office and the double doors. I chipped two places off on the back door which looked like they had bloody finger prints.

I don’t know when Frank was arrested. I don’t think he was arrested on Monday. He was asked to come to the station house on Monday. It takes not over three minutes to walk from Marietta Street at the corner of Forsyth across the viaduct and through Forsyth Street down to the pencil factory.

Lee was composed at the factory; he never tried to get away.

The door to the stairs from the office floor to the third floor was barred when I first went up there.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I am guessing about the time. It wouldn’t take over five minutes to get off the car, walk to the pencil factory, walk in, walk up the stairs and back into Mr. Frank’s office.

The hasp is bent a little.

I heard Boots Rogers testify at the coroner’s inquest and I testified twice. I did not correct any statement at the coroner’s inquest that Boots Rogers made. I am the prosecutor in this case. I cannot give the words of the conversation of the telephone message between myself and Mr. Frank. I could be mistaken as to the very words he used. It was just a casual telephone conversation.

I don’t know that the splotches that I saw there were blood. The floor at the ladies’ dressing room is a very dark color.

I saw cord like that in the basement, but it was cut up in pieces. I saw a good many cords like that all over the factory. I never found the purse, or the flowers or the ribbon on the little girl’s hat. This diagram (State’s Exhibit A) is a correct diagram of second floor and basement of pencil company and other places. No. 11 on diagram (State’s Exhibit A) is the toilets.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

I was guarded in what I said over the phone to Mr. Frank though it was just a conversation between two gentlemen. These pieces of wood look like what I chipped off the floor. I turned them over to Chief Lanford. (Referring to State’s Exhibit E).

RECALLED FOR THE STATE.

I saw Mr. Rosser at the coroner’s inquest. I never heard him say anything throughout the hearing.

The most important facts brought forth by Starnes were the pointed contrast between Leo Frank’s extreme nervousness compared with Newt Lee’s relative calm. This was all the more remarkable because, as the jury well knew, Lee, a black man in racially-stratified 1913 Atlanta, who had been caught alone in a dark factory at night with the body of a dead white girl, was under a much heavier cloud of suspicion than Frank — and had in fact been arrested, while Frank had not.

Next came the testimony of W.W. “Boots” Rogers, who had accompanied the officers:

W. W. ROGERS, sworn for the State.

I am now connected with Judge Girardeau’s court. I was at the station house Saturday night, April 26th, and went to the National Pencil Company’s place of business. It was between five and five thirty that I heard Mr. Starnes have a conversation over the phone. I heard him say, “If you will come I will send an automobile after you.”

It took us five or six minutes to get out to Mr. Frank’s residence at 68 E. Georgia Avenue. Mr. Black was with me. Mrs. Frank opened the door. She wore a heavy bath robe. Mr. Black asked if Mr. Frank was in. Mr. Frank stepped into the hall through the curtain. He was dressed for the street with the exception of his collar, tie, coat and hat. He had on no vest.

Mr. Frank asked Mr. Black if anything had happened at the factory. Mr. Black didn’t answer. He asked me had anything happened at the factory. I didn’t answer. Mr. Frank said, “Did the night watchman call up and report anything to you?” Mr. Black said, “Mr. Frank, you had better get your clothes on and let us go to the factory and see what has happened.” Mr. Frank said that he thought he dreamt in the morning about 3 a. m. about hearing the telephone ring.

Leo Frank

Mr. Black said something about whiskey to Mrs. Frank in Mr. Frank’s presence. Mrs. Frank said Mr. Frank hadn’t had any breakfast and would we allow him to get breakfast. I told Mr. Black that I was hungry myself. Mr. Frank said let me have a cup of coffee. Mr. Black in a kind of sideways, said, “I think a drink of whiskey would do him good,” and Mrs. Frank made the remark that she didn’t think there was any whiskey in the house.

Mr. Frank seemed to be extremely nervous. His questions were jumpy. I never heard him speak in my life until that morning. His voice was a refined voice, it was not coarse. He was rubbing his hands when he came through the curtains. He moved about briskly. He seemed to be excited. He asked questions in rapid succession, but gave plenty of time between questions to have received an answer.

Mr. Frank and Mr. Black got on the rear seat and I took the front seat and as I was fixing to turn around, one of us asked Mr. Frank if he knew a little girl by the name of Mary Phagan. Mr. Frank says: “Does she work at the factory?” and I said, “I think she does.” Mr. Frank said, “I cannot tell whether or not she works there until I look on my pay roll book, I know very few of the girls that work there. I pay them off, but I very seldom go back in the factory and I know very few of them, but I can look on my pay roll book and tell you if a girl by the name of Mary Phagan works there.”

One of us suggested that we take Mr. Frank by the undertaking establishment and let him see if he knew this young lady. Mr. Frank readily consented, so we stopped at the telephone exchange, Mr. Frank, Mr. Black and myself got out and went in the undertaking establishment.

I saw the corpse. The corpse was lying in a little kind of side out room to the right of a large room. The light was not lit in this little room where the body was laying, and Mr. Gheesling stepped in ahead of me and went around behind the corpse and lit the light above her head and her head was lying then towards the wall. I stepped up on the opposite side of the corpse with a door to my left. Mr. Gheesling caught the face of the dead girl and turned it over towards me. I looked then to see if anybody followed me and I saw Mr. Frank step from outside of the door into what I thought was a closet, but I have afterwards found it was where Mr. Gheesling slept, or where somebody slept. There was a little single bed in there.

The clothes worn by Mary Phagan when she was killed

I immediately turned around and came back out, in front of the office. I didn’t see Frank look at the corpse. I don’t remember that Mr. Frank ever followed me in this room. He may have stopped on the outside of the door, but my back was toward him and I don’t know where he stopped. Mr. Gheesling turned the head of the dead girl over towards me and I looked around to see who was behind me and I saw Mr. Frank as he made that movement behind me. He didn’t go into the closet as far as I could see, but he got out of my view. He could have looked at the corpse from the time that Mr. Gheesling was going around behind, but he could not have seen her face because it was lying over towards the wall. The face was away from me and I presume that was the cause of Mr. Gheesling turning it over.

There was some question asked Mr. Frank if he knew the girl, and I think he replied that he didn’t know whether he did or not but that he could tell whether she worked at the factory by looking at his pay roll book.

As we were leaving Mr. Frank’s house, Mr. Frank asked Mrs. Frank to telephone Mr. Darley to come to the factory.

Mr. Frank was apparently still nervous at the undertaking establishment, he stepped lively. It was just his general manner that indicated to me that he was nervous. I never saw Mr. Frank in my life until that morning.

After we got out of Mr. Frank’s house and was in my car, was the first time Mr. Frank had been told that the young lady was named Mary Phagan and that there had been any murder committed at the factory.

From the undertaker’s we went to the pencil factory in my car. We went into Mr. Frank’s office, he went up to the safe, turned the combination, opened the safe, took out his time book, laid the book down on the table, ran his finger down until he came to the name Mary Phagan, and said, “Yes, Mary Phagan worked here, she was here yesterday to get her pay.” He said, “I will tell you about the exact time she left there. My stenographer left about twelve o’clock, and a few minutes after she left the office boy left and Mary came in and got her money and left.” He said she got $1.20 and he asked whether anybody had found the envelope that the money was in.

Frank still seemed to be nervous like the first time I seen him. It was just his quick manner of stepping around and his manner of speech like he had done at the house that indicated to me that he was nervous.

He then wanted to see where the girl was found. Mr. Frank went around by the elevator, where there was a switch box on the wall and Mr. Frank put the switch in. The box was not locked. Somebody asked him if he was used to keeping the switch box locked. He said they had kept it locked up to a certain time until the insurance company told him that he would have to leave it unlocked, that it was a violation of the law to keep an electric switch box locked. We then stepped on the elevator. He still stepped about lively and spoke up lively, answering questions, just like he had always done.

After we got on the elevator, he jerked at the rope and it hung and he called Mr. Darley to start it and we all stepped out of the elevator. Mr. Darley came and pulled at the rope two or three times and the elevator started.

As to whether anybody made any statement down in the basement as to who was responsible for the murder, I think Mr. Frank made the remark that Mr. Darley had worked Newt Lee for sometime out at the Oakland plant and that if Lee knew anything about the murder that Darley would stand a better chance of getting it out of him than anybody else.

After we came back from the basement it was suggested that we go to the station house and as we started out Mr. Frank says, “I had better put in a new slip, hadn’t I, Darley?” Darley told him yes to put in a slip. Frank took his keys out, unlocked the door of the right-hand clock and lifted out the slip, looked at it and made the remark that the slip was punched correctly. Mr. Darley and Newt Lee was standing there at the time Mr. Frank said the punches had been made correctly. Mr. Frank then put in a new slip, closed the door, locked it and took his pencil and wrote on the slip that he had already taken out of the machine, “April 26, 1913.”

I looked at the slip that Mr. Frank took out (Defendant’s Exhibit I), the first punch was 6:01, the second one was 6:32 or 6:33. He took the slip back in his office. I glanced all the way down and there was a punch for every number.

While we were walking through the factory Mr. Frank asked two or three times to get a cup of coffee. As to what Mr. Frank said about the murder, I don’t know that I heard him express himself except down in the basement. The officers showed him where the body was found and he made the remark that it was too bad or something to that effect. When we left the factory to go to police headquarters, Newt Lee was under arrest. I never considered Mr. Frank as being under arrest at that time. There had never been said anything to him in my presence about putting him under arrest. Mr. Frank’s appearance at the station house was exactly like it was when I first saw him. He stepped quickly, when the door of the automobile was open, he jumped lightly off Mr. Darley’s lap, went up the steps pretty rapid.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I never saw Mr. Frank until that morning. I don’t know whether his natural movements or manner of speech were quick or not. We didn’t know whether the girl was a white girl or not until we rubbed the dirt from the child’s face and pulled down her stocking a little piece. The tongue was not sticking out, it was wedged between the teeth. She had dirt in her eye and mouth. The cord around her neck was drawn so tight it was sunk in her flesh and the piece of underskirt was loose over her hair.

I don’t know whether Mr. Frank went upstairs or not after we reached his house. I think he called to his wife to get him his collar and tie. He got his coat and vest some place, but I don’t know where. At the time Mrs. Frank was calling Mr. Darley, Mr. Frank was putting on his collar and tie down in the reception hall. We were at the house 15 or 20 minutes. After Mrs. Frank had said something about Mr. Frank getting his breakfast before he went, Mr. Black said something about a drink would do good. Mrs. Frank then called her mother, who said that there wasn’t any liquor in the house, that Mr. Selig had an acute attack of indigestion the night before and used it all up.

Mr. Frank readily consented to go to the undertaker’s with us. When we got in the car we told him it was Mary Phagan and he said he could tell whether she was an employee or not by looking at his book, that he knew very few of the girls.

Yes, anybody facing the door of the little chapel at the undertaker’s could have seen the corpse. As to whether I know that Mr. Frank didn’t see the corpse he could have got a glance at the whole corpse, but when Mr. Gheesling turned the face over no one could have got a good look at the face unless they stepped in the room. Mr. Gheesling turned the young lady’s face directly toward me, Mr. Frank was standing somewhere behind me, outside of the room. I turned around to see if Mr. Frank was looking. I don’t know that he didn’t get a glance at the corpse, but no one but Mr. Gheesling and I at this moment stepped up and looked at the little girl’s face. What Mr. Frank and Mr. Black saw behind my back, I can’t say. I don’t say that Mr. Frank stepped into that dressing room, but he passed out of my view. So did Mr. Black. Mr. Gheesling had a better view of Mr. Black and Mr. Frank than I did, because my back was to them and Mr. Gheesling was looking straight across the body at them.

Mr. Frank had no difficulty in unlocking the safe when we went back to the factory. The elevator we went down on is a freight elevator, makes considerable noise. It stops itself when it gets to the bottom. I don’t think it hits the ground.

She was lying on her face with her hands folded up. Her face was turned somewhat toward the left wall. A bruise on the left side of her head, some dry blood in her hair. One of her eyes were blackened. There were several little scratches on her face. Somebody worked her arms to see if they were stiff. The arms worked a little bit. The joints in her arms worked just a little bit.

Mary Phagan — and the spot where her body was discovered

When we first went down the basement we stayed down there about 20 or 25 minutes. During that time neither the shoe, the hat, nor the umbrella had been found. In the elevator shaft there was some excrement. When we went down on the elevator, the elevator mashed it. You could smell it all around. It looked like the ordinary healthy man’s excrement. It looked like somebody had dumped naturally; that was before the elevator came down. When the elevator came down afterwards it smashed it and then we smelled it. As to the hair of the girl anyone could tell at first glance that it was that of a white girl.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

The body wasn’t lying at the undertakers where it could have been seen from the door.

RE-CROSS EXAMINATION.

At the moment the face was turned towards me, I didn’t see Mr. Frank but I know a person couldn’t have looked into the face unless he was somewhere close to me. I was inside and Mr. Frank never came into that little room.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

When the face was turned towards me, Mr. Frank stepped out of my vision in the direction of Mr. Gheesling’s sleeping room.

Well, the tangled issue of whether Frank actually dared to look directly into the dead face of Mary Phagan is interesting but not conclusive: Many’s the person too sensitive to want to do that. But Frank’s denial of knowing Mary Phagan by name is hardly credible: he had paid her some 52 times prior to the murder, and written her initials each time in his accounting book. And Rogers confirmed the fact that Leo Frank had — initially — stated that all of Lee’s time clock punches were correct. He also revealed that the original time slip was, unfortunately, left in Frank’s custody instead of that of the police.

The next important testimony was that of Detective John R. Black, who had known Frank before the Phagan murder. He stated that Leo Frank was not naturally nervous or excitable, giving his nervousness immediately after the killing more  significance. Black also had knowledge of Frank’s change of heart regarding the “missed punches” on Newt Lee’s time slip and the circumstances surrounding the finding of the bloody shirt. But Black, unlike Lee, was easily confused and rattled by the defense’s rapid-fire cross-examination, damaging his credibility.

JOHN R. BLACK, sworn for the State.

I am a city policeman. I don’t know the details of the conversation between Mr. Starnes and Mr. Frank over the ’phone. I didn’t pay very much attention to it. I went over to Mr. Frank’s house with Boots Rogers. Mrs. Frank came to the door. Mrs. Frank had on a bath robe. I stated that I would like to see Mr. Frank and about that time Mr. Frank stepped out from behind a curtain. His voice was hoarse and trembling and nervous and excited. He looked to me like he was pale.

I had met Mr. Frank on two different occasions before. On this occasion he seemed to be nervous in handling his collar. He could not get his tie tied, and talked very rapid in asking questions in regard to what had happened.

He wanted to know if he would have time to get something to eat, to get some breakfast. He wanted to know if something had happened at the pencil factory and if the night watchman had reported it, and he asked this last question before I had time to answer the first. He kept insisting for a cup of coffee.

When we got into the automobile as Mr. Rogers was turning around Mr. Frank wanted to know what had happened at the factory, and I asked him if he knew Mary Phagan and told him that she had been found dead in the basement of the pencil factory. Mr. Frank said he didn’t know any girl by the name of Mary Phagan, that he knew very few of the employes.

I suggested to Mr. Rogers that we drive by the undertaker’s. In the undertaking establishment Mr. Frank looked at her. He gave a casual glance at her and stepped aside. I couldn’t say whether he saw the face of the girl or not. There was a curtain hanging near the room and Mr. Frank stepped behind the curtain. He could get no view from behind the curtain. He walked behind the curtain and came right out. Mr. Frank stated as we left the undertaking establishment that he didn’t know the girl but he believed he had paid her off on Saturday. He thought he recognized her being at the factory on Saturday by the dress that she wore but he could tell by going over to the factory and looking at his cash book.

At the pencil factory Mr. Frank took the slip out, looked over it [Newt Lee’s time clock slip — Ed.] and said it had been punched correctly. On Monday and Tuesday following Mr. Frank stated that the clock had been mis-punched three times. This slip was turned over to Chief Lanford on Monday. I saw Mr. Frank take it out of the clock and went back with it toward his office. I don’t know of my own personal knowledge that it was turned over to Chief Lanford Monday.

When Mr. Frank was down at police station on Monday morning Mr. Rosser and Mr. Haas [Lawyers for Frank and the National Pencil Company. — Ed.] were there. About 8 or 8:30 o’clock Monday morning Mr. Rosser came in police headquarters. That’s the first time he had counsel with him. That morning Mr. Haslett and myself went to Mr. Frank’s house and asked him to come down to police headquarters. About 1 1:30 Monday Mr. Haas demanded of Chief Lanford that officers accompany Mr. Frank out to his residence and search his residence. Mr. Haas stated in Frank’s presence that he was Mr. Frank’s attorney and demanded to show that there was nothing left undone, that we go out to Mr. Frank’s house and search for anything that we might find in connection with the case.

On Tuesday night Mr. Scott and myself suggested to Mr. Frank to talk to Newt Lee. Mr. Frank spoke well of the negro, said he had always found him trusty and honest. They went in a room and stayed from about 5 to 10 minutes alone. I couldn’t hear enough to swear that I understood what was said. Mr. Frank stated that Newt still stuck to the story that he knew nothing about it.

Mr. Frank stated that Mr. Gantt was there on Saturday evening and that he told Newt Lee to let him go and get the shoes but to watch him, as he knew the surroundings of the office. After this conversation Gantt was arrested. Frank made no objections to talking to Newt Lee.

Mr. Frank was nervous on Monday. After his release Monday he seemed very jovial.

On Tuesday night Frank said at station house that there was nobody at [the] factory at 6 o’clock but Newt Lee and that Newt ought to know more about it, as it was his duty to look over factory every thirty minutes. Also that Gantt was there Saturday evening and he left him there at 6 o’clock and that he and Gantt had some trouble previous to discharge of Gantt and that he at first refused to allow Gantt to go in factory, but Gantt told him he left a pair of shoes there.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

When I said that Mr. Frank was released I spoke before I thought. I retracted it on cross-examination. I don’t know that Mr. Rosser was at the police station between 8 and 8:30 Monday morning, I said that to the best of my recollection. I wouldn’t swear Mr. Rosser was there. I heard Mr. Rosser say to Mr. Frank to give them a statement without a conference at all between Mr. Frank and Mr. Rosser. I said that we wanted to have a private talk with Mr. Frank without Mr. Rosser being present. I wanted to talk to Mr. Frank without Mr. Rosser being present. While I was at the coroner’s inquest Mr. Frank answered every question readily.

I wouldn’t swear positively, but to the best of my recollection I had a conversation with Mr. Frank on two previous occasions. When I met Mr. Frank on previous occasions I don’t remember anything that caused me to believe he was nervous, nothing unusual about him.

I heard the conversation Mr. Starnes had over the telephone with Mr. Frank early that morning. It was about a quarter to six, or a quarter past six. I think we got to the undertaker’s about 6:20. As to the reason why I didn’t tell Mr. Frank about the murder when I was inside the house, but did tell him as soon as he got in the automobile, I had a conversation with Newt Lee and I wanted to watch Mr. Frank and see how he felt about the murder.

Mr. Frank didn’t go upstairs and put his collar and cravat on. Mrs. Frank brought him his collar and tie, I don’t know where she got them. He told her to bring his collar and tie and he got his coat and hat. I don’t know whether he went back to his home or not. He put his collar and tie on right there. I don’t know where he got his coat and vest at. I don’t know what sort of tie or collar he had. He put his collar and tie on like anybody else would; tied it himself. I don’t know whether Mr. Frank finished dressing upstairs or not. I couldn’t see him when he went behind those curtains.

We stayed at the Frank home about ten minutes. At the undertaking establishment I was right behind Mr. Frank. He was between me and the body. I saw the face when the undertaker turned her over. Yes, Mr. Frank being in front of me had an opportunity to see it also. No, Mr. Frank didn’t go into that sleeping room. Mr. Frank went out just ahead of me. When we went back to the pencil factory, Mr. Frank went to the safe and unlocked it readily at the first effort. He got the book, put it on the table, opened it at the right place, ran his finger down until he came to the name of Mary Phagan and says, “Yes, this little girl worked here and I paid her $1.20 yesterday.”

We went all over the factory that day. Nobody saw that blood spot that morning. I guess there must have been thirty people there during that day. Nobody saw it. I was there twice that day. Mr. Starnes was there with me. He didn’t call attention to any blood spots. Chief Lanford was there, and he didn’t discover any blood spots.

Mr. Frank was at the police station on Monday from 8:30 until about 1 1:30. Mr. Frank told me he had discharged Mr. Gantt on account of shortage and had given orders not to let him in the factory.

As regards Mr. Frank’s linen, Mr. Haas said he was Mr. Frank’s attorney and requested that we go to Mr. Frank’s house and look over the clothes he had worn the week before and the laundry too. Yes, we went out there and examined it. Mr. Frank had had no opportunity to telephone his house from the time we mentioned it until we got out there. He went with us and showed us the dirty linen. I examined Newt Lee’s house. I found a bloody shirt in the bottom of a clothes barrel there on Tuesday morning about 9 o’clock.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

Mr. Frank had told me that he didn’t think Newt Lee had told all he knew about the murder. He also said after looking over the time sheet and seeing that it hadn’t been punched correctly that that would have given Lee an hour to have gone out to his house and back. I don’t know when he made this last statement. I don’t remember whether that was before or after I went out to Lee’s house and found the shirt. We went into his house with a skeleton key. It was after Frank told me about the skips in the punches. The shirt is just like it was the day I found it. The blood looks like it is on both sides of the shirt.

RE-CROSS EXAMINATION.

I don’t know whether I went out to Lee’s house before or after Mr. Frank suggested the skips in the time slips. I don’t like to admit it, but I am so crossed up and worried that I don’t know where I am at, but I think to the best of my knowledge it was Monday that Frank said that the slips had been changed.

Much is made of Black getting “crossed up and worried” on cross-examination, and his vagueness about just when Frank started suggesting that houses ought to be searched. (It was Dorsey’s theory that Frank wanted his own house to be searched because it would naturally follow that Lee’s house would then be searched also, and the planted bloody shirt be found.) But far more important than any of the confusion are the two elements that Black could not be “crossed up” on: Frank’s extreme nervousness on the morning after the murder — he could not even properly tie his own tie — and the fact that he did indeed change his position on Lee’s time slips by 180 degrees.

Leo Frank, center, and the legal minds arrayed for and against him

Next in the witness box was James Gantt, the man whose presence at the factory Sunday evening had so frightened Frank. Whether the fright was because Gantt had been fired by Frank, or because Gantt was a friend of Mary Phagan’s, was a matter of contention. But Gantt had much more to say, too:

J. M. GANTT, sworn for the State.

From June last until the first of January I was shipping clerk at the National Pencil Company. I was discharged April 7th by Mr. Frank for alleged shortage in the pay roll. I have known Mary Phagan when she was a little girl.

Mr. Frank knew her, too. One Saturday afternoon she came in the office to have her time corrected, and after I had gotten through Mr. Frank came in and said, “You seem to know Mary pretty well.” No, I had not told him her name.

I used to know Mary when she was a little girl, but I have not seen her up to the time I went to work for the factory. My work was in the office and she worked in the rear of the building on the same floor in the tip department.

After I was discharged, I went back to the factory on two occasions. Mr. Frank saw me both times. He made no objection to my going there.

One girl used to get pay envelopes for another girl with Mr. Frank’s knowledge. There was an alleged shortage in the pay roll of $2.00. Mr. Frank came to see me about it and I told him I didn’t know anything about it, and he said he wasn’t going to make it good, and I said I wasn’t, and he then discharged me. Prior to my being discharged Mr. Frank told me he had the best office force he ever had. I was the time keeper.

Mr. Frank could sit at his desk and see the employees register at the time clock if the safe door was closed. Mr. Frank did not fix the clock frequently, possibly two or three times. On April 26th, about six o’clock I saw Newt Lee sitting out in front of the factory and I remembered that I left a pair of shoes up there and I asked Newt Lee what about my getting them, and he said he couldn’t let me up. I said Mr. Frank is up there, isn’t he? because I had seen him in the window from across the street, and while we were standing there talking, in two or three minutes, Mr. Frank was coming down the stairway and got within fifteen feet of the door when he saw me and when he saw me he kind of stepped back like he was going to go back, but when he looked up and saw that I was looking at him he came on out, and I said “Howdy, Mr. Frank,” and he kind of jumped again.

I told him I had a pair of shoes up there I would like to get and he said, “Do you want to go with me, or will Newt Lee be all right?” and he kind of studied a little bit, and said, “What kind of shoes were they?” and I said, “They were tan shoes,” and he said, “I think I saw a negro sweeping them up the other day.” And I said, “Well, I have a pair of black ones there, too,” and he kind of studied a little bit, and said “Newt, go ahead with him and stay with him until he gets his shoes,” and I went up there and found both pair right where I had left them.

Mr. Frank looked pale, hung his head, and nervous and kind of hesitated and stuttered like he didn’t like me in there somehow or other.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I testified at the coroner’s inquest. I admit I did not testify about Frank’s knowing Mary very well there, that has been recalled to my mind since I was arrested on Monday, April 28th, at 11 o’clock and held until Thursday night about six.

Frank, according to Gantt, remarking “You seem to know Mary pretty well,” did not jibe with Frank’s claim that he didn’t know the murdered girl by name. It was a riveting moment. It implied far more than a mere knowledge of the dead girl’s name or the catching of the superintendent in a lie — it implied that Leo Frank was noticing who noticed Mary, and therefore might have had designs on her for some time. The prosecution’s theory was that Frank’s killing of Mary had proceeded from a failed attempt to seduce her.

Mary Phagan and her aunt

Next in the witness box was Pinkerton agent Harry Scott, whose testimony was particularly credible because his agency had been brought into the case at the specific request of the National Pencil Company and was being paid by forces friendly to Frank.

HARRY SCOTT, sworn for the State.

I am Superintendent of the local branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I have worked on this case with John Black, city detective. I was employed by Mr. Frank representing the National Pencil Company.

I saw Mr. Frank Monday afternoon, April 28th, at the pencil factory. We went into Mr. Frank’s private office. Mr. Darley and a third party were with us. Mr. Frank said, “I guess you read in the newspapers about the horrible crime that was committed in this factory, and the directors of this company and myself have had a conference and thought that the public should demand that we have an investigation made, and endeavor to determine who is responsible for this murder.” And Mr. Frank then said he had just come from police barracks and that Detective Black seemed to suspect him of the crime, and he then related to me his movements on Saturday, April 26th, in detail.

He stated that he arrived at the factory at 8 a.m., that he left the factory between 9:30 and 10 with Mr. Darley for Montag Bros. for the mail, that he remained at Montag Bros. for about an hour; that he returned to the factory at about 11 o’clock, and just before twelve o’clock Mrs. White, the wife of Arthur White, who was working on the top floor of the building that day with Harry Denham, came in and asked permission to go upstairs and see her husband. Mr. Frank granted her permission to do so.

He then stated that Mary Phagan came in to the factory at 12:10 p. m. to draw her pay; that she had been laid off the Monday previous and she was paid $1.20; that he paid her off in his inside office where he was at his desk, and when she left his office and went in the outer office, she had reached the outer office door, leading into the hall and turned around to Mr. Frank and asked if the metal had come yet; Mr. Frank replied that he didn’t know and that Mary Phagan then, he thought, reached the stairway, and he heard voices, but he could not distinguish whether they were men or girls talking, that about 12:50 he went up to the fourth floor and asked White and Denham when they would finish up their work and they replied they wouldn’t finish up for a couple of hours; that Mrs. White was up there at the time and Frank informed Mrs. White that he was going to lock up the factory, that she had better leave; Mrs. White preceded Mr. Frank down the stairway and went on out of the factory as far as he knew, but on the way out, Mrs. White made the statement that she had seen a negro on the street floor of the building behind some boxes, and Mr. Frank stated that at 1:10 p.m. he left the factory for home to go to luncheon; he arrived at the factory again at 3 p. m., went to work on some financial work and at about four o’clock the night watchman reported for work, as per Mr. Frank’s instructions the previous day; that he allowed Newt Lee to go out and have a good time for a couple of hours and report again at six o’clock, which Newt did and at six o’clock when Lee returned to the factory, he asked Mr. Frank, as he usually did, if everything was all right, and Mr. Frank replied “Yes” and Lee went on about his business.

Mr. Frank left the factory at 6:04 p. m. and when he reached the street door entrance he found Lee talking to Gantt, an ex-book-keeper who Frank had discharged for thieving. Mr. Frank stated that he had arrived home at about 6:25 p. m. and knowing that he had discharged Gantt, he tried to get Lee on the telephone at about 6:30; knowing that Lee would be in the vicinity of the time clock at that time and could hear the telephone ring; that he did not succeed in getting him at 6:30, but that he got him at seven; that he asked Lee the question if Gantt had left the factory and if everything was all right, to which Lee replied “Yes,” and he hung up the receiver. Mr. Frank stated he went to bed somewhere around 9:30.

After that Mr. Frank and Mr. Darley accompanied me around the factory and showed me what the police had found. Mr. Darley being the spokesman. We went first to the metal room on the second floor, where I was shown some spots supposed to be blood spots, they were already chipped up, and I was taken to a machine where some strands of hair were supposed to have been found. From there we went down and examined the time clock and went through the scuttle hole and down the ladder into the basement, where I was shown where everything had been found.

As to Mr. Frank’s manner and deportment at the time we were in his office, he seemed to be perfectly natural. I saw no signs of nervousness. Occasionally between words he seemed to take a deep breath, and deep sighs about four or five times. His eyes were very large and piercing. They looked about the same they do now. He was a little pale. He gave his narrative rather rapidly.

As to whether he stated any fixed definite time as to hours or minutes, he didn’t state any definite time as to when Mary Phagan came in, he said she came in at about 12:10. We furnished attorneys for Frank with reports. After refreshing my memory I now state that Mr. Frank informed me at the time I had that conversation with him that he heard these voices before 12 o’clock, before Mary Phagan came.

He also stated during our conversation that Gantt knew Mary Phagan very well, that he was familiar and intimate with her. He seemed to lay special stress on it at the time. He said that Gantt paid a good deal of attention to her.

As to whether anything was said by any attorney of Frank’s as to our suppressing any evidence as to this murder, it was the first week in May when Mr. Pierce and I went to Mr. Herbert J. Haas’ office in the 4th National Bank Building and had a conference with him as to the Pinkerton Agency’s position in the matter. Mr. Haas stated that he would rather we would submit our reports to him first before we turned it over to the public and let them know what evidence we had gathered. We told him we would withdraw before we would adopt any practice of that sort, that it was our intention to work in hearty co-operation with the police.

I saw the place near the girls’ dressing room on the office floor, fresh chips had already been cut out of the floor and I saw white smeared where the chips had been cut out and there were also some dark spots near the chipped out places. It was just as though somebody had taken a cloth and rubbed some white substance around in a circle, about eight inches in diameter. This white stuff covered all of the dark spots.

I didn’t note any unusual signs of nervousness about Frank in his office. There wasn’t any trembling or anything of that sort at that time. He was not composed.

On Tuesday night, April 29th, Black, Mr. Frank and myself were together and Mr. Black told Mr. Frank that he believed Newt Lee was not telling all that he knew. I also said to Mr. Frank that Newt knew more than he was telling, and that as he was his employer, I thought he could get more out of the nigger than we could, and I asked him if he would consent to go into a room as employer and employee and try to get it out of him. Mr. Frank readily consented and we put them in a private room, they were together there for about ten minutes alone. When about ten minutes was up, Mr. Black and I entered the room and Lee hadn’t finished his conversation with Frank and was saying, “Mr. Frank it is awful hard for me to remain handcuffed to this chair,” and Frank hung his head the entire time the negro was talking to him, and finally in about thirty seconds, he said, “Well, they have got me too.” After that we asked Mr. Frank if he had gotten anything out of the negro and he said, “No, Lee still sticks to his original story.” Mr. Frank was extremely nervous at that time. He was very squirmy in his chair, crossing one leg after the other and didn’t know where to put his hands; he was moving them up and down his face, and he hung his head a great deal of the time while the negro was talking to him. He breathed very heavily and took deep swallows, and sighed and hesitated somewhat. His eyes were about the same as they are now.

That interview between Lee and Frank took place shortly after midnight, Wednesday, April 30th. On Monday afternoon, Frank said to me that the first punch on Newt Lee’s slip was 6:33 p. m., and his last punch was 3 a. m. Sunday. He didn’t say anything at that time about there being any error in Lee’s punches. Mr. Black and I took Mr. Frank into custody about 1 1 :30 a.m. Tuesday, April 29th. His hands were quivering very much, he was very pale.

On Saturday, May 3d, I went to Frank’s cell at the jail with Black and I asked Mr. Frank if from the time he arrived at the factory from Montag Bros. up until 12:50 p. m., the time he went upstairs to the fourth floor, was he inside of his office the entire time, and he stated “Yes.” Then I asked him if he was inside his office every minute from 12 o’clock until 12:30 and he said “Yes.”

I made a very thorough search of the area around the elevator and radiator and back in there. I made a surface search. I found nothing at all. I found no ribbon or purse, or pay envelope, or bludgeon or stick. I spent a great deal of time around the trap door and I remember running the light around the door way right close to the elevator, looking for splotches of blood, but I found nothing.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Yes, I sent you this report as to what happened between Mr. Herbert J. Haas and myself: “This afternoon Supt. H.B. Pierce and myself held a conference with Mr. Herbert Haas, at which the agency’s position in the matter was discussed, and Mr. Haas stated they wanted to learn who the murderer was, regardless of who it involved.” Mr. Haas told me that after I had told him we would withdraw from the cause before we would not co-operate with the police. No, I did not report that to you. I reported the motive of our conference. No, I did not say anything about Mr. Haas wanting us to do anything except locate the murderer. Yes, I talked to you afterwards and you also told me to find the murderer, even if it was Frank.

Mr. Haas had said to Mr. Pierce and me that he would rather that we submit our reports of evidence to him before we turned it over to the police. No, there was nothing said about not giving this to the police.

I testified at the coroner’s inquest as to what conversation I had with Mr. Frank. I did not give you in my report the details of Mr. Frank’s morning movements, when he left home, arrived at the factory and went to Montag Bros., and returned to the factory. As to my not saying one word about Gantt being familiar with this little girl, that was just an oversight, that is all. No, I did not testify to that either at the coroner’s inquest. I didn’t put it in the report to you, because Gantt was released the next day and I didn’t consider him a suspect.

There was no reason for my not giving it to you. It was an oversight. I am representing the National Pencil Company, who employed me, and not Mr. Frank individually. It is true in my report to you with reference to the interview between me and Mr. Frank that I stated “I had no way of knowing what they said because they were both together privately in a room there and we had no way of knowing except what Lee told us afterwards.” I now state that I did hear the last words of Lee.

I didn’t put in my notes that Gantt was familiar with Mary Phagan, I don’t put everything in my notes and the coroner didn’t examine me about it either. No, I didn’t tell the coroner anything about Frank crossing his legs and putting his hands up to his face. I never went into detail down there. No I didn’t mention his hanging his head.

We always work with the police on criminal cases. No, I did not testify before the coroner about any white stuff having been smeared over those supposed blood spots.

I am not sure whether I got the statement about Mary Phagan being familiar with Gantt from Mr. Darley or Mr. Frank. Mr. Frank was present at the time.

Mr. Frank told me when the little girl asked if the metal had come back that he said “I don’t know.” It may be true that I swore before the coroner that in answer to that question from Mary Phagan as to whether the metal had come yet that Frank said, “No,” and it is possible that I so reported to you. If I said “No,” I meant “I don’t know.” I say now that Mr. Frank told me he left the factory at 1:10 p.m. If I reported to you that he told me he left at one o’clock, I made a very serious mistake. That is an oversight. Yes, I reported to the police before I reported to Mr. Haas or Mr. Montag.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

Yes, our agency reported to the police about finding the club. I find it is in our report of May 15th. I don’t know when it was reported; I was out of town. I worked all through this case with Detective Black and every move he made was known to both of us. As to the stairway from the basement to the upper floor, there was a great deal of dust on the stairs and the dust didn’t seem to be disturbed. This stairway is not in the picture but is near the back door. It was nailed and closed.

The “club” referred to was, along with part of a company pay envelope, “discovered” on the first floor of the factory — where African-American sweeper Jim Conley had been sitting on the day of the murder — by a rogue Pinkerton agent who was soon dismissed. (The “discovery” occurred days after minute examination by police investigators and by Scott, who found nothing.)

The real bombshell in Scott’s testimony was his revelation that Frank — who had denied even knowing Mary Phagan, to say nothing of her relationships — had told Scott that “Gantt knew Mary Phagan very well, that he was familiar and intimate with her.” Shortly thereafter, Gantt was arrested as a suspect. He was eventually released.

The testimony of the next witness on the stand, brief as it was, would prove devastating to Frank. She was pretty blonde Monteen Stover, a co-worker of Mary Phagan’s. She was not hostile to Frank, and in fact thought highly of him. But one thing she was sure of — he definitely was not in his office continuously from noon to 12:45 on the day Mary Phagan died, as he had claimed:

Miss Monteen Stover

MISS MONTEEN STOVER, sworn for the State.

I worked at the National Pencil Company prior to April 26th, 1913. I was at the factory at five minutes after twelve on that day. I stayed there five minutes and left at ten minutes after twelve. I went there to get my money. I went in Mr. Frank’s office. He was not there. I didn’t see or hear anybody in the building. The door to the metal room was closed. I had on tennis shoes, a yellow hat and a brown rain coat. I looked at the clock on my way up, it was five minutes after twelve and it was ten minutes after twelve when I started out. I had never been in his office before. The door to the metal room is sometimes open and some- times closed.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I didn’t look at the clock to see what time it was when I left home or when I got back home. I didn’t notice the safe in Mr. Frank’s office. I walked right in and walked right out. I went right through into the office and turned around and came out. I didn’t notice how many desks were in the outer office. I didn’t notice any wardrobe to put clothes in. I don’t know how many windows are in the front office. I went through the first office into the second office. The factory was still and quiet when I was there. I am fourteen years old and I worked on the fourth floor of the factory. I knew the paying-off time was twelve o’clock on Saturday and that is why I went there. They don’t pay off in the office, you have to go up to a little window they open.

Diagram of Leo Frank’s outer and inner office: How likely is it that Monteen Stover could have missed Frank had he really been in his office as he claimed?

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

The door to the metal room is sometimes closed and sometimes open. When the factory isn’t running the door is closed.

Next to the stand came pencil company machinist R.P. Barrett, who had discovered hair that looked like Mary’s on a factory metal room lathe, and bloodstains hastily covered with a lubricant nearby. The hair and stains had not been there when work ended on Friday, he said.

The hair found on the lathe. Where did it come from?

R.P. BARRETT, sworn for the State.

I am a machinist for the National Pencil Company. I have been there about eight weeks. On Monday morning, April 28th, I found an unusual spot that I had never seen before at the west end of the dressing room on the second floor of the pencil factory. That spot was not there Friday. The spot was about 4 or 5 inches in diameter and little spots behind these from the rear — 6 or 8 in number. I discovered these between 6:30 and 7 o’clock Monday. It was blood. It looked like some white substance had been wiped over it. We kept potash and haskoline, both white substances, on this floor. This white stuff was smeared over the spots. It looked like it had been smeared with a coarse broom. There was a broom on that floor, leaning up against the wall. No, the broom didn’t show any evidence of having been used, except that it was dirty. It was used in the metal department for cleaning up the grease. The floor was regularly swept with a broom of finer straw.

I found some hair on the handle of a bench lathe. The handle was in the shape of an “L.” The hair was hanging on the handle, swinging down. Mell Stanford saw this hair. The hair was not there on Friday.

The gas jet that the girls sometimes use to curl their hair on is about ten feet from the machine where the hair was found. Machine Number is No. 10. It is my machine. I know the hair wasn’t there on Friday, for I had used that machine up to quitting time, 5:30.

There was a pan of haskoline about 8 feet from where the blood was found. The nearest potash was in vats in the plating department, 20 or 25 feet away. The latter part of the week I found a piece of a pay envelope (State’s Exhibit U) under Mary Phagan’s machine. I have examined the area around the elevator on the main floor and I looked down the ladder and I never saw any stick. I did not find any envelope or blood or anything else there.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I never searched for any blood spots before, until Miss Jefferson came in and said she understood Mary had been murdered in the metal department, then I started to search right away; that was the only spot I could find; I could tell it was blood by looking at it. I can tell the difference between blood and other substances. I found the hair some few minutes afterward — about 6 or 8 strands of hair and pretty long. When I left the machine on Friday I left a piece of work in there. When I got back the piece of work was still there. It had not been disturbed. The machine was in the same position in which I left it Friday night; there was no blood under this machine.

There is no number or amount on the envelope I found, and no name on it, just a little loop, a part of a letter. Yes, I have been aiding Mr. Dorsey and the detectives search the building. Yes, Mr. Dorsey subpoenaed me to come to his office; it was a State subpoena. I gave him an affidavit.

DNA evidence didn’t exist in 1913, so it was impossible to test the hair or blood to see if they had come from Mary Phagan. But the hair looked like Mary’s, and it’s hard to imagine another plausible explanation for their appearance over a holiday weekend.

Witnesses: Mrs. Jefferson, R.P. Barrett, Mrs. White

After Barrett left the stand, janitor Mel Stanford confirmed Barrett’s statement that neither the hair nor the bloodstains had been present at the end of business on the Friday before the murder. Then Mrs. G.W. Jefferson testified that she had found the bloodstains with Barrett, and that they covered an area “as big as a fan.”

Dr. Claude Smith, a chemist for the city of Atlanta, stated that although he had only seen four or five corpuscles on the wood chips, his analysis had proved them to be blood:

DR. CLAUDE SMITH, sworn for the State.

I am physician and City Bacteriologist and Chemist. These chips (Exhibit E, State) appear to be the specimen which the detectives brought to my office and which I examined. They had considerable dirt on them and some coloring stain. On one of them I found some blood corpuscles. I do not know whether it was human blood. This shirt (Exhibit E for State [The shirt planted at Newt Lee’s residence — Ed.]) appears to be the same shirt brought to my office by detectives which I examined. I examined spots and it showed blood stain. I got no odor from the arm pits that it had been worn. The blood I noticed was smeared a little on the inside in places. It didn’t extend out on the outside. The blood on shirt was somewhat on the inside of the garment high up about the waist line which to my mind could not have been produced by turning up the tail.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I found grit and stain on all of the chips. I couldn’t tell the one that I found blood on. I did the work in the ordinary way. The whole surface of the chips was coated with dirt. I couldn’t tell whether the blood stain was fresh or old. I have kept blood corpuscles in the laboratory for several years. I found probably three or four or five blood corpuscles in a field. I don’t know how much blood was there. A drop or half drop would have caused it, or even less than that. Rigor mortis begins very soon after death. Sometimes starts quicker, but usually starts very soon. I could not say when rigor mortis would end.

The next significant witness was Frank’s business associate N.V. Darley. While Darley verbally fenced with Solicitor Dorsey to avoid incriminating his friend Frank, he finally did confirm that Frank was nearly out of his mind with anxiety after the murder was discovered, admitting that Frank was “trembling all over.”

Prosecutor Hugh Dorsey

Dr. Henry F. Harris established the time of Mary Phagan’s death as very close to that of Monteen Stover’s visit to Leo Frank’s empty office, and stated he had determined the cause of death to be strangulation, though it had been preceded by a blow with a blunt object, probably a fist, and a collision of her head with a sharp object, possibly a lathe. He also testified that, although no seminal fluid was present, some violence had been done to Mary’s private parts before she died.

Mrs. Arthur White, who had been visiting her husband who was working on an upper floor, testified that she had seen a black man lurking near the elevator on the first floor when she left around 1 PM. This fitted with the prosecution’s theory that the man was Jim Conley, on watch during Frank’s attempted tryst, and who would eventually help Frank move the body.

* * *

Source: American Mercury

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

Atlanta Constitution

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

City Bacteriologist Makes His Report After Examination of Garment of Negro Which Was Found in Trash Barrel.

LEE’S CELLMATE MAY TESTIFY AT INQUEST

Witness Spent 24 Hours in Same Cell With Phagan Prisoner — Body of Girl Exhumed for Second Time.

DAY’S DEVELOPMENTS IN PHAGAN MYSTERY

Dr. Claude Smith, city bacteriologist, completes examination of negro’s blood-stained shirt, and finds that the blood stains are new.

Body of Mary Phagan was exhumed shortly after noon on Wednesday for the purpose of making a second examination.

Mrs. Mattie Smith, wife of one of the mechanics who were last men to leave pencil factory, tells detectives that shortly before 1 o’clock, when she left the building, she saw strange negro near elevator.

Bill Bailey, negro convict who was placed in cell with Newt Lee for twenty-four hours, now at liberty, and will probably be called upon at inquest today to testify.

Leo Frank will be placed upon the stand again today at 9:30 o’clock, when the coroner’s inquest is resumed.

Solicitor General Hugh Dorsey holds a long conference in cell with Newt Lee, but declines to tell what passed.

Detectives announce they are searching for a Greek, who is now believed to be in Alabama.

Chief Lanford declares that somebody is blocking Phagan investigation, silencing witnesses, and “planting” evidence.

The report of Dr. Claude A. Smith’s analysis of the bloodstains on the shirt found in the home of Newt Lee, who is held in connection with the Mary Phagan murder, has been submitted to the detective department. It reveals that the stains were caused by human blood, not more than a month old.

The report is brief. The examination was thorough, but no comparison was made with the stains on the garment and with other stains. The only specimen possessed by Dr. Smith beside the shirt were small shavings, flecked with blood, which were chipped from the flooring at the spot near the machine, where the girl is supposed to have received her death blow.

Comparison with the stains on the chip were impossible because of the stain’s dimness. Dr. Smith said to a reporter for The Constitution that he had not been given the bloody garments which Mary Phagan wore to use for the purpose of comparisons. The shirt has been returned to police headquarters. It will be used in the inquest today.

When the negro was confronted with the tell-tale garment Tuesday a week ago he admitted to its ownership, but said he could not account for the blood spots. He had not worn it, he declared, for two years. He said it was not bloody when he discarded it in 1911. Lee said he knew no manner in which the stains could have been made.

Shirt Found In Trash Barrel.

The shirt was found by Detectives Scott and Black in the bottom of a barrel filled with trash, which stood in the back yard of Lee’s home on Henry Street. The sleuths never would tell the clew which led them to search for it.

Dr. Smith states that his inspection revealed the fact that the garment was not being worn when the stains were made. It had been used to mop up the blood, he said, and could not possibly have been worn at the time. He could not determine whether or not the blood was that of a white person or a negro.

He will probably be summoned to testify at the inquest.

Mary Phagan’s body was exhumed shortly after noon Wednesday. Profound secrecy surrounds the action and it probably will not be known until the inquest today why the disinterment was made. Dr. H. F. Harris of the state board of health, was the only official at the graveside in the Marietta cemetery when the corpse was unearthed.

Body Exhumed For Last Time.

After an examination lasting two hours the body was again hurled and, according to a responsible report, some organ removed and brought by Dr. Harris to Atlanta. When the body was replaced it was consigned forever to its last resting place. Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Coleman, the dead girl’s parents, objected so strenuously to further exhumations that it will never be removed again.

Until late at night Dr. Harris labored in his laboratory in the state capitol over the examination. He was reached by a reporter shortly after 16 o’clock.

“I am pledged to secrecy,” he said. “It was under the condition that I make public nothing whatever pertaining to the examination that I was selected for the work. I cannot disclose the object of the analysis or its nature until allowed to do so by Solicitor Dorsey.”

Solicitor Dorsey said about 9:30 o’clock that he was not prepared to talk of the exhumation. He admitted, however, requesting Coroner Donehoo and Dr. Harris to remove the body and make certain examinations which he expected to result in new and valuable evidence.

Reliable reports are to the effect that one motive of the disinterment was for the purpose of obtaining some hair from the victim’s head with which to compare the stands found on the lathing machine in the pencil factory.

Another rumor is that a chart was made of the cuts and bruises on the face and body and that photographic plates were made of the finger prints on the throat.

No one outside the solicitor’s staff, Dr. Hurt, Dr. Harris and Coroner Donehoo are aware of the motive for the exhumation. Even Chief Lanford and the Pinkerton men expressed their lack of knowledge. They have not been taken into the confidence of the officials supervising the mysterious move.

His Work Hampered Says Lanford.

Accusing mysterious forces of blocking his detectives, Chief Lanford said Wednesday that the work of investigation is being seriously hampered. In many instances, he declared, his men had been refused evidence which they sought, and had encountered a number of prospective witnesses, who refused to divulge the information it was believed they could give.

“I cannot account for the situation,” he told a reporter for The Constitution. “We are being sorely handicapped. Not only are we being opposed, but, as has been shown many times, evidence is being planted. We have discovered numerous signs of “plants” in the past few days, and are not surprised at any “frame up.”

The chief also hinted that arrests would probably result from the discoveries of planted evidence. A squad of men have been detailed to run down clues pointing to guilty persons. They are finding their task a baffling one.

Although he would say but little, Chief Beavers also hinted of efforts he had met to frustrate the work of the detective department. “It seems that we are being opposed,” he said.

Lee’s Cellmate May Testify.

Imprisoned for twenty-four hours in the same cell with Newt Lee, the nightwatchman suspect in the Mary Phagan mystery, Bill Bailey, an ex-convict, will probably be called to the stand in the coroner’s inquest this morning to testify to certain admissions he is believed to have got from the negro.

Bailey is a negro youth, apparently 20 years old. He served eight years in the Fulton chaingang on a charge of shooting, during which time he was bunkmate of the suspected watchman. Lee was serving sentence at that time on a charge of gambling.

The negroes were intimate friends. Bailey is working with J. Mayo. Several days ago Mr. Mayo brought him to police headquarters and conferred with Chief Lanford on a plan to imprison the two ex-convicts. Monday night Bailey was sent to the Tower and locked in Lee’s cell.

He was released twenty-four hours later. Chief Lanford nor any of his detectives will disclose the result of the scheme, but it is freely rumored around headquarters that the Bailey negro succeeded in obtaining valuable evidence, which he is expected to deliver at the inquest.

Did Negro Write Notes?

After minute examination of the mysterious notes found beside the body on the morning of the discovery, A. M. Richardson, inspector of service with the Adams and Southern Express companies, told a reporter for The Constitution yesterday morning that he was fully convinced that the negro nightwatchman did not write them.

“They were written by a white man,” he said, “and an educated man, at that. The letters are formed too expertly, and adhere too closely to the ruling of the paper on which they were written. In my opinion, they were written by the murderer, a shrewd man, with intention of reflecting guilt upon an illiterate negro.”

Mr. Richardson has made a lifetime study of handwriting. He is thoroughly acquainted with detective methods and operations, and has taken decided interest in the Phagan mystery. Most of his investigation in the case has been concentrated upon the notes. He hopes to trace their origin by means of comparing suspected script under strong microscopic examination.

New Witnesses Summoned.

Another new witness summoned yesterday for the inquest this morning was Miss Grace Hicks, of 100 McDonough road, an intimate acquaintance of the murdered girl, and the woman who identified the body before it had been removed from the cellar of the pencil factory.

The sleuths will not disclose the character of the testimony she will be expected to render. She stated to reporters, however, that she held out little evidence, and that the last time she saw the girl of tragedy alive, was on the Monday preceding her death, when she left the pencil plant.

Miss Hicks was quizzed for an hour Wednesday morning in the office of Chief Lanford. She operated a tipping machine adjoining the machine operated by the Phagan girl. She came at 6 o’clock Sunday morning in answer to summons to the factory building. The moment the tragic face of the slain girl was revealed in the dim, flickering light of the watchman’s lantern, she exclaimed:

“That’s Mary Phagan—Oh, my God!” falling into a swoon in the arms of her brother-in-law, Boots Rogers.

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Atlanta Constitution, May 8th 1913, “Stains of Blood on Shirt Fresh, Says Dr. Smith,” 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

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

A number of new witnesses had been summoned for the inquest, and the indications were said to be that the session (promised as final in the coroner’s investigation) might last all day.

It became known, before the inquest convened, that several witnesses whom the detectives have discovered would not be introduced there at all. The evidence that they can furnish, whatever it may be, will not become public until some later time, it was said.

It was stated further Thursday morning that the report by Dr. Claude A. Smith, city bacteriologist, upon the analysis by him of stains upon the shirt supposed to have been found at the house of Newt Lee, the negro, had been mailed to Chief of Police Beavers late Wednesday afternoon. The report set forth, it was said, that the stains are not old, and that probably they are stains of human blood.

It was learned further regarding the bacteriologist’s report that it stated that the shirt had not been worn since it was washed—in other words, that the blood had been thrown on the shirt or had been mopped up by it.

Regarding the chips taken from the floor of the factory, the report concluded that they, too, showed human blood.

No comparison between the blood on the chips and that on the shirt was made.

BODY IS EXHUMED.

The body of Mary Phagan was removed Wednesday from the grave at Marietta for a second time Wednesday evening, and Dr. H. F. Harris, of the state board of health, made another examination, the nature of which is being kept secret.

Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Coleman, parents of the murdered child, have objected so strenuously to the second exhumation, it is said, that it is not expected that the body will be again removed from its resting place.

Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey, who has taken active charge of the investigation in the murder case, spent more than an hour in Newt Lee’s cell at the Tower Wednesday, questioning the negro. It is said that Lee stuck closely to his first story, despite a vigorous cross examination.

Bill Bailey, who was bunkmate of Lee, when both were in the chain gang some years ago, spent twenty-four hours in the his cell, having been sent there by the detectives. It is probable that Bailey may be used as a witness at the inquest.

DETECTIVES VISIT FACTORY.

Shortly after 1 o’clock City Detective John Black and Harry Scott, of the Pinkerton agency, who are working on the Phagan murder mystery, were driven to the building of the National Pencil company’s plant in the automobile of ex-County Policeman “Boots” Rogers.

The officers entered the place and remained about half an hour. When they returned to the street, both detectives were non committal. They acknowledged, however, that they had visited the factory in an effort to make themselves clear on some points.

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Atlanta Journal, May 8th 1913, “Stains On Shirt Were Not Made While Shirt Was Being Worn,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)