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

Atlanta Constitution
July 30^th, 1913

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

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

“I do.”

“To whom did it belong?”

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

Mother and Daughter Sob.

A moist-eyed woman, gray beginning to fleck her hair and betray her fifty years looked sadly upon the articles in the solicitor’s hands. Her daughter beside her strove bravely to check her tears, but bowed her head in a sobbing fit she could not restrain.

They were Mrs. J. W. Coleman, Mary Phagan’s mother, and Mary’s sister, Ollie. Ollie could not remain in the courtroom and her mother lowered her head in tears as the lawyer displayed, piece by piece, every article of the slain child’s garments.

The solicitod [sic] held each bit of the girl’s apparel in view of the entire courtroom for identification from the witness. As Starnes would signify that he recognized the articles before him the solicitor would say:

“This is such and such an article identified as having been worn by Mary Phagan on the day of her death. Is it admissible as evidence.”

Counsel for the defense would group their hands together at their table, nod consent, and Judge Roan, upon the bench, would say:

“Admitted as evidence.”

It was a cruel proceeding, no doubt thought the mother and sister, but one made necessary by law. Many of the pieces they recognized, recalling with a tear the days they worked with thread and needle to fit Mary in the best their talents and home could afford.

Proud of Her Work.

And Mary, herself, had been a competent seamstress. She had always been making something and, whether it was doll clothing or her own dresses, she was always proud of it.

There the lawyer held in his hand the pink frock which had gladdened the little girl’s heard and which she had intended wearing to Marietta the next Monday. He had one of her shoes—the pair she, herself, had selected and contributed a dollar of her wages toward the purchase—and was waiting to display when the dress was admitted.

Mrs. Coleman was crying softly—what mother, who had lost a loving daughter could have held back her tears! It was the first time she had ever been in a courtroom—she had always striven to avoid them.

People stared at them all the while. The mother and daughter sat conspicuously, as the only seats they could find were two selected for them on the rostrula. Everywhere they looked eyes would be focussed upon them.

But, even the gaze of the morbid—the sensation-seeking court auditor whom you will find at every tragedy—melted into a warming look of sympathy as his eyes met those of the sorrowing mother and sister.

Garbed in Black.

They were garbed in black—black from head to foot with no relief. Heavy, dark veil’s fell over their faces, and they lifted them only to dab a handkerchief to filling eyes. Mrs. Coleman has said to reporters—and so has Ollie—that they would not be at the trial were they not subpoenaed as witnesses. It is as hard for them to bear as the tragedy itself, for every phase of the proceedings brings memory of that bleak and unforgettable day when the little girl next door ran over at daybreak and said to the home-folks of Mary’s:

“Oh, Mrs. Coleman—Mary’s been killed at the pencil factory!”

Monday morning Mrs. Coleman was the first witness called to the stand. She walked weakly and had to be assisted into the box. She whispered replies and choked back the catches in her throat. When the solicitor held the clothing of Mary before her eyes, asked her if they had been worn by the child, she tried to answer.

Breaks Down in Tears.

A sob was in her throat and a tear welled into her eye. She drew the handkerchief to her face and broke into weeping. The solicitor, as though his task were fully as distasteful as it looked, dropped the [g]arments to his table and began new questions.

Even Attorney Rosser, whose cross-questioning is feared by the strongest witnesses, put his questions to the sobbing mother in a tone in which his sympathy was most evident. He asked barely a half dozen questions, then said:

“You may come down, Mrs. Coleman,” without giving the state a chance for examination in rebuttal, knowing that even such a relentless thing as the state would not wish to further persecute the bereaved parent.

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

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Among all the hearts that are bowed down in sorrow over the murder of Mary Phagan, the 14-year-old factory child found dead in the National Pencil factory Saturday, there is none who feels the suffering and the anguish of the separation so keenly as her sister, Ollie, 18 years old, her companion since childhood.

For with her it is the suffering of youth, when the rose-veil of life has been lifted to show its tragic and terrible side in all its fullness for the first time. And it is all the more pitiful for her because it is the kind of suffering that brings to one that sense of despair and a later sadness that makes the whole world seem never quite the same again, no matter what happens. Something of its sweetness and joy has gone out to stay.

“Oh, I am so lonely without her,” the young girl told a Georgian reporter as the tears fell down her face unheeded. She was at her little home on Lindsay Street. “Mary and I were always together and we always told each other everything. We slept in the same bed at night; we had ever since we were little bit o’ kids; and we always talked after the lights went out. There wasn’t a thing that Mary wouldn’t tell me, and I would always advise her and tell her what I thought was right if little questions would come up between us. She was always such a good little thing, nobody could help loving her!”

She clasped and unclasped her hands in front of her as though she did not know what to do, and leaned upon the bureau as if she were tired.

“I Never Had But One Sister.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do—I haven’t got anybody now,” she said. “I never had but one sister, and she’s gone.”

Her voice choked and she could not go on for a time. When she did it was to speak of how she was in Marietta when the tragedy happened and how the news came home to her mother on Sunday morning. She had not been home to go to the poor little body in the undertakers’ parlors shortly after it was taken there.

“The first mother knew of it all was a little before 5 o’clock Sunday morning,” she said, her lips quivering. “A girl named Helen Ferguson who lives near here and who has a telephone, was called up by Grace Hicks, the girl who identified Mary’s body. Grace told her to come right on over and tell mother what had happened.

Saturday night when Mary hadn’t come home they had all been worried. Mary had said she was coming right back after the parade, but didn’t show up. Then somebody remembered she had said she had heard the show at the Bijou was good—some of the girls had told her—and she would like to go, but she wouldn’t go without she had some one to go with her. When she didn’t come home a little later they all though maybe she had found some of the girls anyway and gone, and so Mr. Coleman, her stepfather, went downtown to bring her home. He waited until the show was over and everybody had fled out of the theater, but Mary was not with the crowd. Mr. Coleman had returned home and found Mrs. Coleman and another woman, who had stayed with her while he had gone to town, still up and waiting for him. Then was when they decided that Mary had met up with her aunt from Marietta and gone home with her. She had intended going anyway Sunday.

“But I know Mary’s safe,” said Mrs. Coleman, and after a few minutes they all went to bed.

The Awful News.

When Helen Ferguson’s footsteps touched the front porch at 5 o’clock the sound waked her mother immediately.

“There’s Mary now!” Mrs. Coleman exclaimed as she sat up on the bed.

“No, it isn’t either,” declared Mr. Coleman. “I feel it’s news for us, and bad news.”

Mrs. Coleman went to the door.

“Mrs. Coleman,” said Miss Henderson [sic], “did you know that Mary had been killed?”

“Oh, it can’t be possible!” her mother sobbed. “What do you mean? I don’t understand you. Tell me how. Maybe you’re mistaken—maybe it isn’t Mary.”

But Miss Henderson [sic] said that Miss Hicks was positive in her identification.

And then Mr. Coleman came out and brought her mother in the house, she was crying so, and then as quickly as he could be dressed and went downtown to look at the body. There was no mistake. It was Mary.

Her voice was pitifully like a child’s when she had finished, as she asked The Georgian reporter if he thought the man would be captured.

“If they get him they ought to treat him just like he treated her,” she declared. “Oh, my poor little sister! He had no pity for her, and they oughtn’t to have any for him. Oh, God, I just feel as if I could die.”

She will attend the funeral of her sister in Marietta, going up with the family Tuesday. She was formerly employed at a downtown department store, but recently gave up her position. She is very pretty and attractive, slenderly built and resembles her sister to some extent, it is said.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 29th 1913, “‘I Feel as Though I Could Die,’ Sobs Mary Phagan’s Grief-Stricken Sister,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)