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

Atlanta Constitution
August 15^th, 1913

Henry Smith, a mechanic in the pencil factory, who admitted on cross-examination that he had received a raise in salary in the past two weeks, went upon the stand to tell of Barrett’s attitude in the case.

“What department do you work in?”
“The metal department.”

“Do you know of a man named Barrett who used to work there?”
“Yes.”

“Ever hear of him getting a reward if Frank was convicted?”
“I’ve heard him talk of it.”

“Did he ever go through the motions of counting money?”
“Yes, he used to go by me and laugh and make motions like counting bills.”

Cross-examination by Hooper.

“This man Barrett was a sensible fellow, wasn’t he?”
Arnold objected, but was overruled.

“Yes.”

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 15th 1913, “Defense Witness Admit Barrett is Sensible Fellow,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Constitution
August 1^st, 1913

R. B. Barrett, a machinist at the National Pencil factory, who declares that he found strands of hair similar to Mary Phagan’s on his machine after the murder, and who also told of finding a torn piece of pay envelope in the same room and under the machine where the hair was found, followed Monteen Stover on the stand.

He was asked if he had testified before the coroner’s and the grand jury, and replied that he had.

“What did you see near Mary Phagan’s machine?”

“A peculiar spot on the floor,” he replied.

“Was the spot there Friday?”

He described the spot as being four or five inches in diameter and with similar spots back of it and leading toward the entrance to the rear.

“What hour Monday did you find these spots?”

“Between 6:30 and 7 o’clock on Monday.”

“What was the spot?”

“Blood.”

“What else?”

“There was a white substance partially covering it.”
“Had you ever seen any white substance on the floor before?”

“No.”

“What white substances were on the second floor?”

“Potash and oscaline.”

“How did the white substance look?”

“It looked like it had been applied with a heavy cane broom.”

“Did you ever see such a broom there?”

“Yes, there was one nearby.”

“Did the broom show evidence of being used?”

“No; no more than that it was dirty.”

“What was the broom kept there for?”

“To sweep with in the metal department.”

“What was ordinarily used to sweep with?”

“A finer broom.”

Tells of Finding Hair.

“Did you find any hair?”

“Yes, on an iron handle to my machine near there.”

“Anybody else see the hair?”

“Yes, Mel Stanford did.”

“Where is the gas jet where the girls sometimes curl their hair?”

“About ten feet from where I found the strands.”
Barrett then located on the cross-section the spot where his machine stood, and declared that when he left there at 5:30 o’clock on the previous Friday that the hair was not on the machine. He said that he had left a piece of work in the machine, and that this was not disturbed Monday at the time he found the hair.

“Were any of the girls working Saturday?”

“No, the factory was closed down. About fifteen or twenty feet from Mary Phagan’s machine I found a pay envelop and went and picked it up. It had a mark on it that looked as though someone had started to make the letter ‘G’ or ‘F,’ and that was all that was on it,” Barrett told.

“On what day did you find the envelope?”

“Between April 28 and 30.”

“What else did you find besides the envelope?”

“I found some fillings.”

“Do you know anything about the acid room?”
“I never had any experience with it.”

“What effect would the acid have on a pocket book or similar thing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you look carefully around the elevator shaft?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when you searched previous to May 15, did you see a stick, looking like a baseball bat?”

“No; I found nothing at all.”

“You were searching for evidence, having already been told of the murder?” asked Attorney Rosser, who here started his cross-examination.

Sure Spots Were Blood.

“Yes; I was told Mary Phagan had been murdered and that she was thought to have been killed on the second floor.”

“When did you get to the factory?”

“About 6:30 or 7 o’clock Monday morning.”

“You said that the spot on the floor was blood; how do you know that it was?”

“I know it was blood.”

“Are you a chemist?”

“No, but I know blood when I see it.”

“Didn’t you say before the coroner that the spot looked like blood?”

“I don’t know what I said before the coroner exactly, but I know that it was blood,” replied the machinist in a positive tone.

“About the hair, there were six or eight strands about a foot long, weren’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Was there no number, no amount, or other writing on the pay envelope you found?”

“No; nothing but the little loop.”

“Was it like the pay envelopes regularly used in the factory?”

“Yes.”

Barrett was then allowed to leave the stand. It was 12:15.

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

Atlanta Journal
July 31^st, 1913

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barrett’s testimony was decidedly the most important that the state has thus far managed to get before the jury and no doubt will be stressed by the solicitor in support of the state’s theory that Mary Phagan met her death in the metal room on the second floor of the factory.

By both Pinkerton Detectives Harry Scott and Barrett the state showed that careful searches had been made of the first floor shortly after the tragedy and that neither a pay envelope, a purse, a bludgeon or stick, had been found there. The prediction has been frequently made that the defense would introduce evidence to show that both Mary Phagan’s pay envelope and a bloody bludgeon were found on the first floor by Pinkerton detectives.

NOT THE SAME ENVELOPE.

Whether the defense will introduce the piece of envelope found by the Pinkertons on the first floor of the factory is not known. In the event they do so two pay envelopes will be in evidence. These two pieces are not from the same envelope. This fact was demonstrated by Attorney Frank A. Hooper, who is assisting in the prosecution. After the state can contend that the envelopes are separate and distinct.

Mary Phagan’s machine, Mr. Hooper took it and endeavored to fit it with the piece of envelope held by the defense. It did not fit, thus the state can contend that the envelopes are separate and distinct.

It is quite evident that the state will insis[t] that the envelope and bludgeon found by Pinkerton detectives and turned over to the defense are nothing more than “plants.”

Monteen Stover, a twelve-wear-old [sic] girl employed at the factory, stated that she had gone to the factory on the Saturday of the murder arriving at 12:05 and leaving at 12:10. She swore that she had gone into the office and that she did not see nor hear anyone in the building. She had gone for her pay.

Scott swore that Frank had told him that he was in his office and did not leave it from 12 to 12:30.

Solicitor Dorsey has begun to weave the chain of circumstantial evidence with which the state expects to convict Frank with the murder. The remainder of the week will most likely be taken up by the state in the introduction of witnesses.

WILL CONLEY BE CALLED?

James Conley, the negro sweeper, who swore that he helped Frank carry the girl’s body into the basement and wrote the notes found beside it at Frank’s suggestion, may or may not be introduced as a principal witness. The state may hold him back as a rebuttal witness, and there is a slight possibility that he may not be put upon the stand at all.

Throughout the Thursday session of the trial Frank remained as impassive as he has been heretofore. He took a keen interest in the proceedings, but did not display the slightest trace of emotion.

The testimony of Detective Scott was not satisfactory to either the state or the defense. He engaged in frequent clashes with Mr. Rosser while the latter was cross-examining him, but unlike Detective John Black, he never once lost his head.

MANY WOMEN PRESENT.

A number of women were among the early arrivals in the crowd of spectators who surrounded the court house before court convened Thursday morning for the resumption of the Frank trial. The women stood in line for an hour to be among those close to the doors when those portals were opened.

The crowd was admitted at 8:40 o’clock. Leo M. Frank, the accused, had arrived early, as usual, under custody of the sheriff. At 3:55, Mrs. Frank, wife of the accused, joined her husband in an ante-room of the court. Court convened, with Judge Roan on the bench, at 9 o’clock.

J. M. Gantt was recalled to the stand.

“When were you arrested?”

“Monday, April 28, at 11:30 o’clock in Marietta. I was released on Thursday of the following week.”

The witness was excused.

SCOTT TAKES STAND.

Harry Scott, assistant superintendent of the Atlanta branch of the Pinkerton detective agency, was called to the stand.

“When did you first see Leo M. Frank?”

“At 4:30 o’clock Monday, April 28, at the National Pencil factory.”

“With whom have you worked on this case.”

“John Black, city detective of Atlanta.”

“By whom were you engaged?”

“By Mr. Frank, representing the National Pencil company.”

“Tell all about your engagement.”

“I went up to the National Pencil company’s factory on request, and saw Mr. Frank standing about where the time clocks are. Accompanied by Mr. Darley and another man, we went back into Mr. Frank’s private office for a conference.

FRANK ASKED PROBE.

“He stated that the directors of the company and himself thought that the public demanded an investigation of the horrible crime committed in the factory. He, Frank, had just come from police headquarters, and John Black seemed to suspect him. Then he detailed to me his movements on Saturday. He arrived at the factory about 8 o’clock. Between 9:30 and 10 o’clock he went to Montag’s, and returned to the factory about 11, he said.

“About 12 o’clock Mrs. White came in and went up to the fourth floor where her husband and Harry Denham were working. About 12:10 Mary Phagan came in and he paid her two half dollars and two dimes. She received the money in his private office and when she reached the outer office asked if the metal had come.

“He replied that he didn’t know. When she had reached the stairway, he heard voices, but couldn’t tell w[h]ether it was a man or two women talking. About 12:50 he went up to the fourth floor and found that White and Denham wanted to work about two hours longer. Mrs. White preceded him down the steps and mentioned that when he came in she had seen a negro sitting behind some boxes on the first floor.

“At 1:10 Frank went to lunch. He returned at 3, and at 4 o’clock Newt Lee reported and was told that he could go out and have a good time for two hours. Lee returned at 6 o’clock and about 6:04 Frank left the factory. On the outside he met J. M. Gantt, a former bookkeeper, who had been discharged […]

PENCIL FACTORY MACHINIST GIVES STARTLING TESTIMONY

[…] for thieving. Frank reached home at 6:25 o’clock and at 6:30 tried to get the night watchman to ask him if Gantt had left. He didn’t get him then, but did get him at 7 o’clock. He went to bed about 9:30 o’clock.

SEARCH IN FACTORY.

“After Frank had detailed his movements, said the witness, he and Scott and Darley went through the factory. Darley was the spokesman, pointing out the supposed blood spots, and the point where the hair was said to have been found. From the second floor they went to the basement through the scuttle hole, where Scott saw the place where the body and several objects were found.

Solicitor Dorsey asked Scott if he observed Frank’s manner when Frank engaged him.

SCOTT SURPRISES DORSEY.

“Yes, it was perfectly natural and he exhibited no sign of nervousness.”

“How did Frank breathe?”

“Between words he seemed to take a deep breath.”

Attorney Rosser objected to the question and answer. In reply, the solicitor said he was surprised by the evidence of Detective Scott, and that he had been misinformed as to what his testimony would be. He then asked permission of the court to ask the witness some questions to refresh his memory. This was granted.

“How did his eyes look?”

“They were large and piercing.”

The witness said further that Frank sighed several times during the conversation in Frank’s private office. Attorney Rosser entered another objection, and said that the answers of Detective Scott were conclusions merely inasmuch as he had never seen Frank before that time.

Scott testified, after looking at Frank in court, that his eyes looked then as they did during the conversation.

“Didn’t you say to me—“

Attorney Rosser objected, interrupting. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

“How about his complexion, Mr. Scott,” asked Dorsey.

“He was a little pale at that time.”

“What pauses did he make in this conversation?”

Attorney Rosser objected, and was sustained.

“How did he give this narrative?”

ANSWER STRICKEN.

“Very specifically as to time.”

Attorney Rosser asked that the question and answer mbe [sic] stricken. The details themselves were the best evidence, said he. The answer was a conclusion. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

“What did he state with reference to his movements about the time Mary Phagan entered the factory?”

“He was not very definite. He said she came about 12:10.”

“What did he say about having heard anybody talking before she came?”

“I don’t remember that he said anything about that.”

Solicitor Dorsey asked Judge Roan if he could see the written reports that Scott had made to him to refresh the witness’ mind. Attorney Rosser objected, and before there was a ruling on the issue the solicitor asked:

GAVE REPORTS TO DEFENSE.

“Did you not furnish your reports to the defendant?”

“Yes.”

Attorney Rosser demanded, “Whom do you mean?”

“To Sig Montag, Herbert Haas and Luther Z. Rosser.” Scott added that the reports were sent either by special messenger or by mail.

“Did the Pinkertons furnish reports to counsel?” asked Solicitor Dorsey.

“Yes.”

“Reports that they could read?”

“Yes.”

The solicitor picked up some papers and asked:

“Is this one of the reports that you furnished to the state?”

“I don’t know until I look at my original notes.”

The solicitor requested the witness to refer to his original notes. The court permitted this. The witness did so. He started to read his notes. The defense objected. The court sustained the objection, explaining to the witness that while he could refresh his memory from the notes, he could not read the notes aloud to the court, but must give his evidence from his mind as it had been refreshed.

BEFORE GIRL ENTERED FACTORY.

“I now say,” continued Detective Scott, “that Frank stated to me that he heard the voices before 12 o’clock.”

“Was this before or after Mary Phagan came to the factory?” inquired the solicitor.

“Before.”

“What did Frank tell you about the location of the voices?”

“He told me that he thought the voices were near the stairway, although he could not say for certain, as he had remained inside the office himself.”

“What did Frank say to you about what happened when he went home that Saturday?”

“He said he went home for luncheon.”

DIDN’T SAY HOW LONG.

“Did he say how long he remained there?”

“He did not.”

“Did he say whether he ate lunch?”

“No, sir.”

“What did Frank say to you on that occasion with reference to Gantt?”

“During the conversation in Frank’s office, Frank said to me that Gante [sic] knew Mary Phagan and was familiar and intimate with her.”

“Did he tell you how he knew?”

“He did not.”

“What, if anything, was said to you by Frank about Gantt’s attention to Mary Phagan?”

Attorney Rosser interrupted, declaring “Questions like these grate on my ears like the false notes from a piano.”

Judge Roan ruled that it was a leading question and could not be put.

Solicitor Dorsey modified the question.

“Was anything said by Frank about Gantt’s attention to Mary Phagan?” he asked.

“Not that I recall,” replied Scott.

SAYS HE WAS MISLED.

The solicitor sought to question the witness as to what he, Scott, had told him, the solicitor, on this point. Attorney Rosser objected, declaring that what the witness had told the solicitor was not material.

“Your honor,” said the solicitor, “I’ve been misled on this proposition by the witness. If there ever was a case for a leading question, this is one; and it is entirely within the court’s discretion to permit such a question. This witness is a detective. He is in the employ of the defendant. I certainly should be allowed to refresh his memory as to what he told me about his conversation with Frank.”

Mr. Rosser made the point that before the solicitor could proceed along this line he must charge that he had been entrapped by the witness. The solicitor did not insist that he had been entrapped, but did maintain that he had been misled on this particular point.

Detective Scott, addressing the solicitor, demanded to know if the solicitor was intimating that he was holding back any evidence.

Solicitor Dorsey addressed his reply to the court.

“I do say, your honor, that I did expect this witness to testify differently on this proposition.”

Attorney Rosser renewed his objection, and insisted that before the solicitor could proceed further on his line of questioning he must charge that the witness had entrapped him. The colloquy was suspended until the attorneys on both sides could consult the code.

Mr. Dorsey explained that he was not trying to impeach the witness, but sought to refresh his memory. He claimed the right to ask leading questions.

“He has just had a lapse of memory,” said the solicitor. “And I want to read to him notes which I made in his presence about a conversation between us.”

Attorney Rosser objected, and Judge Roan sustained him.

“Didn’t I make a memoranda in your presence?” asked the solicitor.

DIDN’T READ DORSEY’S NOTES.

“Yes, but I didn’t read your memoranda.”

“Did Frank discuss the friendliness between Gantt and Mary Phagan?”

“Yes, he said that they were familiar and intimate, and that Gantt paid a good deal of attention to her.”

“Do you know when Gantt was arrested?”

“He was at police headquarters when I went down there after the conference with Frank.”

“Was any suggestion made to you subsequent to your employment by an attorney of Leo M. Frank relative to your suppression of evidence?”

Mr. Rosser objected immediately. Before Judge Roan ruled, the solicitor withdrew the question. Attorney Rosser demurred. “I’ll withdraw the objection,” said he.

“About the first week in May,” said Scott, “Mr. Pierce and I went to the office of Herbert J. Haas, attorney for Frank, to hold a conference relative to the Pinkerton’s position in the investigation. I told him that there was strong suspicion against Frank.”

The last sentence was ruled out.

“After a conversation, Mr. Haas said that he would rather we would submit our reports to him before we did to the police. We told him we would get out of the case before we would do that.”

“Who did the most talking about your inspection trip through the factory?”

asked the solicitor.

“Darley, but Frank talked some.”

BLOOD SPOTS CLIPPED UP?

Scott continued that he saw the place on the floor of the metal room whence the supposed blood spots had been clipped up. Some white substance had been smeared there.

“Are you sure it was a smear or was it a spill?” asked the solicitor.

“It was a smear.”

“Did Frank show unusual signs of nervousness that first interview you had with him?”

After objection and argument, the question was allowed.

“He was a little pale and sighed four or five times.”

“Was he composed.”

“No.”

“What happened at the police station Tuesday night in the presence of this defendant?”

“Frank and I were together in a private room when Detective Black came up and said Newt Lee wasn’t telling all he knew. At that time I also expressed this same opinion. We asked Frank if he would go into the private room and talk to Lee as an employer to an employe and see if he couldn’t get something out of him. They were together alone for about ten minutes. At the end of that time, Detective Black and I went in. Lee evidently hadn’t finished some reply he was making to a question by Mr. Frank. As we entered the room and took seats beside them he said to Frank: ‘It’s awful hard for me to be handcu[ff]ed to this chair.’ Frank hung his head and said “They’ve got me, too.”

“What was the appearance and deportment of Frank at the police station?”

“He was very nervous. He was squirming in his chair, hung his head, didn’t appear to know what to do with his hands, was pale, and sighed heavily.”

“How were his eyes then?”

“Just the same as they are now. You can’t tell anything by his eyes.”

“Did you hear any conversation between Frank and Lee about the punch clock?”

“I have a slight recollection of one Monday afternoon at the police station.”

“What did Frank say about that?”

“He said that the first punch Lee made was at 6:33 p. m., and the last one at 3 o’clock. No discrepancy was remarked by Frank then.”

“Describe Frank’s appearance and deportment on April 29 at 11 a. m., when he was taken into custody.”

“We went to the factory and told Frank that he had better go to police headquarters with us. He was trembling and was very pale. He had nothing to say in the automobile on the way to the station house.”

“Did you see Mr. Rosser with Frank on Monday previous to Frank’s arrest on Tuesday?”

“I did not.”

“Illustrate to the jury Frank’s manner when Frank stated to Lee ‘Well, they’ve got me, too.’”

FRANK’S MANNER.

“When Black and I entered the room Lee was just finishing an answer to one of Frank’s questions. He was saying: ‘It’s awful hard, Mr. Frank, on me. You see, they’ve got me chained to this chair.’ Lee repeated this about three times. Frank hung his head, squirmed in his chair, and holding his hands in the air said, ‘Well, they’ve got me, too.’”

“Did you see Frank at the jail on Saturday, May 3, 1913.”

“I did.”

“Did you have any conversation with him then?”

“I did.”

“Tell the jury what you said to Frank and what Frank said to you.”

“I went to Frank’s cell in company with Black. I asked Frank: ‘From the time you went back to the factory from Montag Brothers until you went upstairs where Denham and White were working, did you remain in your office?’ ‘Yes,’ Frank answered. ‘From the time you got back to the factory until Mary Phagan arrived at 12:10, did you remain in your office?’ Frank answered ‘yes.’ ‘From 12 noon up to 12:30 of that Saturday, were you in your private office?’ Frank answered ‘yes.’”

“Up to this conversation you had with Frank in the jail, had he made any similar statement?”

“No.”

“He did tell you that he was in the office all the time from 12 to 12:30 o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have any conversation with Frank as to suspects previous to the offering of rewards?”

“No.”

SEARCHING THE FACTORY.

“Did you make any search of the factory immediately after your employment?”

“I did.”

“Did you make any search of the area around the elevator and the radiator on the street floor?”

“I did. I made a surface search. I didn’t dig into the dirt.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you find a pay envelope, a purse, a ribbon, a bludgeon, a stick, or anything like these?”

“No, sir.”

“When did you make this search?”

“Right after I was engaged. I ran the elevator up and down, and examined the scuttle hole or trap hole and ladder.”

Attorney Rosser took up the cross-examination.

“You made a report as to what happened between you and Haas, didn’t you?” asked Mr. Rosser.

“Yes.”

ROSSER’S CROSS-EXAMINATION.

“The report reads something like this, doesn’t it? ‘This p. m., H. B. P. and I discussed agency’s position. Haas said he wanted murderer caught regardless of who it was.’”

“Yes.”

Solicitor Dorsey objected on the ground that a self-serving declaration of an attorney for the defendant was not admissible. Mr. Rosser contended that he had the right to go into the whole conversation. Judge Roan sustained Mr. Rosser.

In the discussion of the matter Mr. Rosser said he wanted to make it clear that at no time had attorneys for the defendant asked that evidence be suppressed. He wanted the witness to answer a question relative to a conversation with him, Rosser. Solicitor Dorsey objected. After some discussion and after he had made the remark “Mr. Dorsey is a little fractious this morning.” Mr. Rosser withdrew the question about his conversation, and asked Scott:

“Did Mr. Haas request you to suppress any evidence?”

“No. He said he wanted it submitted to him before it went to the police, and we told him that we could not do that.”

SCOTT AND ROSSER TILT.

Scott proved a difficult witness for Mr. Rosser. The detective made frequent and sharp retorts from the witness chair, and comments on Mr. Rosser’s tactics is trying to tangle him. Scott’s answers were direct and pointed.

Mr. Rosser produced a transcript of the evidence by Scott at the coroner’s jury. Mr. Rosser asked Scott if when he was before the coroner’s jury be told what Frank had said in relation to Gantt. Scott replied that he did not remember.

“Did you mention this remark by Mr. Frank in your report to the defense?”

“No, because the day I made this report Gantt was released from police headquarters and was regarded no longer as a suspect. It is customary in Pinkerton reports also to mention no names of suspects.”

“You didn’t testify before the coroner’s jury about hearing Frank say ‘They’ve got me, too,’ when he and Lee had their interview, did you?”

“I don’t remember whether I did or not.”

“You didn’t tell the coroner’s jury about Frank hanging his head, did you?”

Scott replied that he didn’t remember.

Mr. Rosser read from the transcript. “See if this is what you testified before the coroner’s jury,” he asked. He read a lengthy excerpt from Scott’s testimony. It contained neither of these assertions. Scott said he assumed that was what he said before the coroner’s jury.

A DIFFERENT WITNESS.

“You should remember, Mr. Rosser,” added Scott, “that I was answering only questions that were asked me by the coroner, and that he didn’t draw out and cross question me like you and Mr. Dorsey have done.”

Mr. Rosser read another excerpt from Scott’s testimony before the coroner.

“’I am working for the interests of the pencil factory,’” Mr. Rosser read. “You didn’t represent Frank personally, then, did you?”

“I was engaged by Frank.”

In reply to a retort by Mr. Rosser, Scott said: “It’s impossible for any man to repeat verbatim what he said years ago.”

Attorney Rosser took out of a leather case some papers, perhaps notes. “There is some reference to Gantt, there, isn’t there?” he asked. “About Gantt knowing Mary Phagan intimately. Did you have these notes when you were writing your reports to me?”

“We never put in the names of suspects,” replied Scott.

“When you were before the coroner’s jury you didn’t say Frank was nervous at the pencil factory, did you?”

Scott said he didn’t know—that his testimony there was the same as in court.

“When you were before the coroner, these facts were fresh in your mind, were they not?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t relate them?”

“I wasn’t asked. There is something different in telling what you know, and going into detailed sheets.”

“Well, let’s see about these detailed sheets,” said Mr. Rosser, picking up the transcript of testimony by Scott before the coroner’s inquest. “I count here, Mr. Scott, ten pages in which you detailed your testimony. In all these ten pages, you only told of two matters, your conversation with Frank, and that evening with Frank and Newt Lee.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t state in any of it about this matter? When you were telling about that conversation with Frank, you said nothing about him being nervous?”

“I said he hung his head.”

“Let me see,” said Mr. Rosser, examining the transcript. “I don’t find that you used anything about Frank crossing his legs, putting his hands up, and things of that kind.”

“No.”

“It was not until three or four weeks ago that you told these things to Dorsey?”

“I told him when Mr. Dorsey asked me the question.”

“Then it took ten pages to carry your brief details?”

“I guess Dorsey has a line of attack that the coroner did not have.”

“What do you mean by ‘line of attack,’ Mr. Scott?”

“Line of questions.”

ROSSER’S FAST QUESTIONS.

“And you didn’t says a word about Frank putting his hands up to his face?”

“No.”

“You are a trained detective?”

“Yes.”

“And you make a habit of noticing the appearance and actions of people?”

“Yes.”

“And you never told the coroner about this?”

“I’ve got more sense than to tell all I know at a coroner’s inquest.”

“Uh-huh!” grunted Mr. Rosser. “Weren’t you recalled, Mr. Scott, and asked if you had told all that you knew?”

Solicitor Dorsey interrupted with an objection against Mr. Rosser’s method of questioning the witness.

“Your honor, the witness provoked me,” said Mr. Rosser. Addressing the witness again, Mr. Rosser asked: “You undertook to tell all you knew at the coroner’s inquest?”

“Only in a general way.”

“General way, eh?”

“I was not such a fool as to go in with a fine-tooth comb at a preliminary hearing, added Scott.

Mr. Rosser called the court’s attention to the manner in which the witness was replaying to his questions. Before he had finished, Solicitor Dorsey was on his feet, making the point that the witness repeatedly had explained to Mr. Rosser why he had not testified everything at the inquest. He had stated that he was not accustomed to give out everything at preliminary hearings, and that he was not asked as to certain facts.

ROSSER CHANGES TACTICS.

Mr. Rosser changed abruptly his line of questioning. He asked the witness if Darley and others were not present when he walked with Frank in Frank’s office. They were, answered the witness. They saw and heard all that was said.

“Black was present at the station house when you talked with Frank, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“Your agency works with the police, does it not?”

“Yes, on criminal investigations.”

“You always hook up with the police and go on down the road with them, don’t you?”

“We work in harmony with the police.”

“You quit work if you don’t agree with the police?”

“We never clash over views.”

“Were you in the pencil factory on Sunday morning, April 27?”

“No, it was Monday afternoon about 1:30 o’clock that I first went to the pencil factory.”

“Did you testify before the coroner about any blood stains?”

“Yes.”

“Let me read you what you said before the coroner’s jury. ‘Also to a point about ten feet from the lathe, supposed blood stains had been chipped up from the floor by the police. Did you testify to anything about the white smear over these blood stains?”

“No.”

“These original notes of yours—when did you make them?”

“All in Frank’s private office on Monday afternoon, April 28.”

“On your trip through the factory that afternoon, didn’t Darley do some talking?”

“Yes. Both Darley and Frank talked.”

“Wasn’t it Darley who told you about Gantt being familiar with Mary Phagan?”

“No—it was Frank.”

SCOTT ADMITS UNCERTAINTY.

“I simply want to refresh your memory, Mr. Scott. Are you absolutely clear whether you got that statement from Frank or Darley?”

“No, not exactly clear; but Frank did the talking in the office and all the notes were taken in the office.”

“Did you take down any notes as you went through the factory?”

“No, I made memoranda later at my office.”

Holding up Scott’s original notes, Attorney Rosser asked, “Some of these were written at your office?”

“No, all were written at the factory. I’ll swear positively to the last word that those notes were taken in Frank’s office.”

“But you won’t be positive whether it was Darley or Frank who made the statement about Gantt being familiar with Mary Phagan?”

“I think it was Frank, but I am not entirely clear. As far as I can recollect, Frank was the spokesman. I only took down what Frank said. Darley may have made some statements.”

Mr. Rosser quoted the evidence by Scott at the coroner’s inquest and a report made by Scott to him in which he had stated that Frank told Mary Phagan that the metal had not come.

“How is it that you now say Frank answered, ‘I don’t know?’”

BLAMES STENOGRAPHER.

“It must be stenographic error,” said Scott. “I now swear positively that Frank told me he answered ‘I don’t know’”

“It’s peculiar that the same error occurred twice,” remarked Mr. Rosser.

“Yes, it is,” smiled the witness.

“Why didn’t you put the Gantt episode in your report to me?”

“Because he had been eliminated from my mind as a suspect when I dictated that report.”

“You say now that Frank left the office at 1:10. Why did you say in your report to me that he left at 1?”

“Either I made a mistake or the stenographed did,” answered Scott.

Attorney Rosser reverted to Scott’s relations with the city police, bringing out the statement from Scott that the police received repor[t]s on his work before his clients did.

Solicitor Dorsey took up the re-direct examination.

“Did your agency report the finding of any ribbons, pay envelopes, or sticks, to the police?”

“I don’t know. I was out of town part of the time.”

Solicitor Dorsey referred to the Pinkertons’ relations to the city police, asking what the Pinkertons did when the facts did not harmonize with the theories of the police.

“We fight it out then and there,” Scott answered.

“Did you carry a lantern with you when you went around through the factory?”

“Yes, I held one in my hand.”

The solicitor asked Scott to describe his route through the factory on the diagram. Before Scott left the stand, Attorney Rosser asked this question:

“Did you notice any stairway from the basement to the first floor?”

“Yes.” The witness pointed to a spot on the diagram, which was not marked, near the boiler in the basement. Solicitor Dorsey asked him to describe that. The witness did, saying it was nailed up when he saw it and was covered with dust and cobwebs.

MONTEEN STOVER ON STAND.

Scott was excused from the stand.

Miss Monteen Stover was called as the next witness.

Miss Stover testified that she is not working anywhere now, but until the Monday preceding the murder of Mary Phagan she worked at the National Pencil factory. On the day of the murder she was in the factory building from 12:05 o’clock until 12:10 o’clock, and that she did not see Frank or anyone else.

“What purpose did you have in going to the factory?”

“To get my pay.”

“When do they usually pay?”

“At 12 o’clock on Saturday.”

“What part of the factory were you in?” pursued the solicitor.

“Mr. Frank’s office.”

“Was he there?”

“He was not.”

“Did you see anybody at all anywhere in the building?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you hear anybody anywhere in the building?”

“No, sir.”

Solicitor Dorsey, taking Mary Phagan’s parasol as a pointer, went to the diagram hanging on the wall, and pointing to the location of the women’s dressing room, asked Miss Stover if the door of it was open or shut.

“I don’t know.”

“How were you dressed that day?”

“I had on a yellow hat.”

“What kind of shoes did you wear?”

“Tennis slippers.”

“How far toward the rear of the building did you go?”

“I went as far as the time clock.”

“Did you look at the clock?”

“Yes.”

LOOKED AT THE CLOCK.

“What time did it register then?”

“The hands stood at 12:05 o’clock.”

“What did it register when you went out of the factory?”

“Ten minutes after 12 o’clock.”

“Did you see any man’s apparel in Frank’s office?”

“No, sir.”

“Had you ever previously noticed this door of the women’s dressing room? Was it usually open or closed?”

The solicitor picked up a paper from his desk and said to the court: “May I show her this affidavit to refresh her memory, your honor?” Attorney Rosser objected. Solicitor Dorsey explained: “I want to show her what she said to me about this door when it was fresher in her memory than it is now.”

An argument followed, and Judge Roan called for citation of authorities. The solicitor sent Special Deputy Newt Garner to his office for an authority, turning the witness over to the defense for the interim.

ROSSER TAKES WITNESS.

Attorney Rosser’s manner toward the witness was gentle. Her voice was low.

“Did Mr. Frank have one or two offices?”

“There are two offices there.”

“How far did you go into the office?”

“Into the outer office far enough to get a full view of the inner office.”

“Did you notice several articles of furniture and fixtures in there? Did you notice the safe in the inner office?”

“No, I was looking for a person and didn’t notice any of these objects.” Miss Stover added that entering the building she went directly to the office, entered the outer office and looked into Frank’s private office, sat on a bench outside the outer office for a minute and a half or two minutes, lingered around a little while, and then left.

Attorney Rosser questioned her as to who saw her leave home and who saw her return. Miss Stover gave the names of several people who saw her leave and return.

“You didn’t see Miss White or Miss Corinthia Hall that day, did you?”

“No, sir,” she replied.

How many times have you talked to the solicitor about this case?”

“Once, and I saw him at the grand jury.”

“It’s the truth, is it, that sometimes you saw the door of the women’s dressing room closed and sometimes open?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the truth, no matter what kind of an affidavit you made, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Attorney Rosser was through with the cross-examination. Solicitor Dorsey cited his authority for asking permission to show her the affidavit in order to refresh her memory. Judge Roan granted the point to Solicitor Dorsey. The affidavit was shown to her. After she had read it, the solicitor asked:

“Having refreshed your memory, Miss Stover, tell us about that back door?”

“Sometimes it was open, and some times it was closed.”

“In what position was it when the factory was not running?”

“Then it was shut.”

Mr. Rosser interposed: “You went to the solicitor’s office before you went to the grand jury, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

IMPORTANT WITNESS.

R. P. Barrett, a machinist at the National Pencil factory, was the next witness. He stated that he had been employed at the pencil factory for about eight weeks before the murder and that he still is employed there. He appeared before the coroner’s jury and the grand jury, he said.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the witness what if anything he had seen at the water cooler near the dressing room used by Mary Phagan, on Monday morning, April 28.

“An unusual spot,” replied the witness.

“Had you ever seen this spot before?”

“No.”

“Did you work at the factory Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Was the spot there on Friday?”

“No.”

Describe this spot.”

“There was a large spot about four or five inches in diameter. There were several little spots just behind it.”

“How many of these little spots?”

“About six or eight.”

“When did you discover these spots?”

“Between 6:30 and 7 o’clock Monday morning after the murder.”

“Of what was this spot?”

BLOOD SPOTS FOUND.

“It was blood.”

“Did you notice anything else about it?”

“Yes, there was some white substance over it.”

“Do you know what this substance was?”

“I do not.”

“Had you ever noticed any white substance like this on the floor before?”

“No.”

“Are there any white substances kept on this floor?”

“Yes, potash and hascoline.”

“Do you know which it was that was smeared over the spot?”

“No.”

“What was the appearance of the spots and the potash and hascoline?”

“The large spot was about four or five inches in diameter. There was a white substance smeared over it. There was nothing on the little spots.”

“How had this white substance been applied?”

“By a broom.”

“What kind of a broom?”

“A course cane broom.”

“Did you find the broom anywhere near these spots?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“About four or five feet away, leaning up against the wall.”

“Was this broom in its regular place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know whether this broom was there on Friday?”

“I do not.”

“What makes you think this white substance was applied with the broom?”

“Because there were large streaks through the blood and the white stuff.”

“Did you examine the broom?”

“Yes. It was very dirty.”

“Did it show any evidence of having been used?”

“No, I couldn’t tell.”

“For what was this broom used?”

“To clean up the grease on the floor in the metal department.”

“What sort of broom is used for sweeping the floor regularly?”

“A broom with finer straw.”

“What else, if anything, did you find in the metal room?”

FOUND STRANDS OF HAIR.

“I found some strands of hair on the handle of the bench lathe where I worked.”

“What is the shape of this handle?”

“L-shaped.”

“Describe it.”

The witness asked for a pencil and a piece of paper. He drew an illustration of the lathe handle.”

“Where was the hair?”

“It was hanging over the handle.”

Witness indicated where the hair hung, on his pencil sketch.

“Of what material was the handle?”

“Iron.”

“Did anyone else see the hair?”

OTHERS SAW THE HAIR.

“Yes—Mell Stanford.”

“Was Magnolia Kennedy there?”

“Yes.”

“Did she identify this hair?”

Attorney Rosser objected. Solicitor Dorsey insisted, contending that Mr. Rosser had gone into great detail concerning hair; that he had asked many questions of Miss Grace Hix about hair, inquiring the shade of Mary Phagan’s hair, that of Magnolia Kennedy, and even went so far as to have the witness point out Mr. Arnold’s hair as a sample. Judge Roan ruled that what Magnolia Kennedy said about the hair after the discovery would be hearsay evidence. Solicitor Dorsey remarked: “I just wanted to show, your honor, by this witness, whether Magnolia Kennedy identified the hair.” Mr. Rosser interrupted, declaring that only the God of the universe would know whether she identified it—that it was purely a matter of opinion.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the witness, “How far away from the bench lathe where the hair was found, is the gas jet where the girls curled their hair?”

“About ten feet,” answered the witness.

The solicitor had the witness locate the machine and the gas jet on the diagram.

“You say the hair was not there Friday?”

“No,” said the witness.

“When did you discover it?”

“Monday morning.”

“Whose attention did you call to it?”

TOLD QUINN ABOUT IT.

“I called Quinn and Quinn called Darley.”

“How do you know that the hair was not there on Friday?”

“Because I used the machine myself up to quitting time.”

“When is quitting time?”

“Five thirty p. m.”

“Was the factory closed Saturday?”

“Yes.”

“Were there any girls working there Saturday?”

“No.”

“How far is the nearest lot of hascoline and potash from where the broom and blood were found?”

FOUND PAY ENVELOPE.

“There was a can of hascoline about eight feet away. The potash is in the plating department about twenty or twenty-five feet away.”

“What was the color of the smearing?”

“White.”

“You found no black stuff around?”

“Nothing but streaks of grease on the floor.”

“Did you examine the area around Mary Phagan’s machine? If so, when?”

“Yes—the latter part of the week.”

“What did you find?”

“I found a piece of a pay envelope under her machine.”

The witness said that was between the 28^th and 30^th of April. On that part of the pay envelope was a mark that looked like it was a part of the letter P or G or F. He gave that to one of the solicitor’s attaches. He identified a piece of pay envelope handed to him as the piece which he had found. He found nothing else except filings under that machine.

The envelope could not be seen where he found it, unless a person looking toward it was standing ten or fifteen feet away from the machine. Solicitor Dorsey indicated on the diagram where a bloody stick is supposed to have been found, and asked the witness if he made a search of that area.

The witness said that he did, during the latter part of the week following the tragedy, and that he found no stick, blood, nor part of any pay envelope. Solicitor Dorsey asked the attorneys for the defense if they had in court the bloody stick, said to have been found by the Pinkertons.

The attorneys answered in the negative, saying they could produce it Thursday afternoon. The solicitor announced that he would bring the witness back later.

CAN’T IDENTIFY IT.

Attorney Rosser took up the cross-examination and developed that there was no distinguishing mark on the piece of envelope found by Barrett except the little loop. There was no number, no amount, nor anything like that, to distinguish it from hundreds of others used in the factory.

Barrett testified under cross-examination that he found the hair when he turned the handle of the lathe on Monday morning and the hair caught on his fingers. Barret[t] was positive that the spots which he found were blood spots, although he admitted he had made no chemical analysis.

Mr. Rosser concluded his cross-examination, and Mell Stanford, another employe of the pencil factory, was called to the witness stand.

Stanford declared that on Friday, April 25, he swept the second floor of the pencil factory, including the metal room, and was certain that he swept around the water cooler and by the dressing room. On Monday he was again in the metal room and saw the hascoline smeared on the floor, where it had not been when he swept the metal room between 9 and 10 o’clock Friday morning. He was certain that a heavy broom had been used for smearing the hascoline. The spots leading from the hascoline smear went back toward the dressing room.

Attorney Arnold took up the cross-examination of the witness, but at 12:25 o’clock, before he could ask a question, Judge Roan ordered a recess of the court until 2 o’clock.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

A number of people remained in the court room throughout the noon recess, preferring to run no risk of losing their seats. A small boy who somehow got past the guards brought a basket of lunch and sold it out in short order.

Leo M. Frank, the accused, and his wife lunched together in one of the rooms adjoining the court.

Some fifty or seventy-five women were in the crowd which entered the court room just before 2 o’clock. [T]hey were more numerous than at the morning session. The number of women attending the trial grows with each session of the court.

At 2 o’clock court re[c]onvened with Mell Stanford in the witness [c]hair, and with Attorney R. R. Arnold conducting the cross-examination.

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

Atlanta Journal

Monday, June 9th, 1913

Apparently Prosecuting Officials Consider Their Investigation Complete

Chief of Detectives Lanford has announced that Jim Conley, the negro sweeper, who is the state’s principal witness in the case against Leo M. Frank, indicted for the murder of Mary Phagan, will not be cross-examined again unless he voluntarily sends for the officers to make a statement.

It is known that no developments have changed the theory of the prosecuting authorities, and it is apparent from the remark of Chief Lanford and other statements that the officials consider the investigation of the Phagan murder as complete, and are now waiting for the big legal fight to be staged before Judge L. S. Roan probably on Monday, June 30.

With the state “resting on its oars,” it is naturally expected that the next move, if there is to be one, will come from the defense of Mr. Frank.

To forecast any “move” which may be made by the defense before the case actually comes before the court, is a difficult proposition since Luther Z. Rosser, the leading counsel, continues silent.

It is known that friends of the accused man have been actively at work in his behalf, but what they have developed remains a matter for conjectures.

Frank spent a quiet day in the tower Sunday and was visited by his wife and quite a number of the friends, who are standing by him in his trouble.

R. P. Barrett, one of the foreman at the National Pencil factory, and the man who found the strands of hair on the lathe in the metal room, has issued a statement giving his reason for sharing the opinion of practically all of the pencil factory employees, that the negro Conley is guilty of the crime with which the factory superintendent is charged.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, June 9th 1913, “Defense to Make Next Move in Phagan Case,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Georgian

Monday, June 9th, 1913

R. P. Barrett, in Letter to Georgian, Gives Reasons for Suspecting Negro of Crime.

R. P. Barrett, foreman of the metal department at the National Pencil Factory, in a letter to The Georgian Monday, gives his reasons for believing that Jim Conley, negro sweeper at the plant, attacked and strangled Mary Phagan.

It was Barrett who found the strands of hair on the lathing machine in his department. This is supposed to be where the girl was thrown against the machine in her struggles.

Later Barrett testified positively that the blood stains in the second floor were not there before the crime. He is certain that the girl was attacked on the second floor and just as certain that Conley, not Frank was the slayer.

The letter reads:

Editor The Georgian:

I would like to make a statement in regard to the Mary Phagan murder.

Sees Motive for Notes.

If Jim Conley found Mary’s body in the plating department near the ladies’ toilet, why wasn’t blood found on the floor there? He said that he carried the dead girl to where the blood was found, but it looks to me as though he must have let her fall with some force to cause all of that blood when there was none where he says she was found.

If Jim Conley wrote that note reading “that long tall black negro did this by hisself,” it looks like to me as though it were a trap to catch “Snowball,” the elevator boy, but “Snowball’s” handwriting does not correspond with Conley’s or Newt Lee’s, and I guess Jim had to switch onto another track and lay the blame on Frank.

It looks shaky to me. I don’t think that Mr. Frank would stand at the head of the stairs and let Jim holler, “Come on and help me; she is too heavy.” Nor do I think that Mr. Frank would carry the dead girl to the elevator when there were people working on the top floor who might come down at any minute and see him carrying the body. It seems to me that if Mr. Frank committed the murder of Mary Phagan, he would have left her body in the metal department. No, Jim carried her to the basement, where the night watchman found the body, and I will tell you how he found it.

Why Did He Go to Basement?

He went from the second floor down one flight of stairs, then crawled through the scuttle hole, about 2 1-2 feet square, and went down the ladder into the basement. Then he walked about 125 feet to the dingy toilet and he saw the body about 20 feet from there, for there is a toilet on every floor. There is no clock in the basement to punch and Lee had no fire to make in the boiler, it being Sunday morning. Why at this particular time did he go to this part of the basement?

Why did Jim Conley come down to the metal department the day that he was arrested? He came down to wash his shirt. Why didn’t he do that on some other floor? He knows that he came in our department to watch and see if they had found Mary’s hat and shoe. He probably knew that they had not found her money, for money is not a good thing to lay around.

Frank is Optimistic.

Leo M. Frank maintained his cheerful and optimistic attitude during the visits of many of his friends and relatives Sunday and Monday. Thirty persons were admitted to the Tower to see him on the Sabbath. Among them was Mrs. Frank, with whom he dined in the afternoon.

He had little to say to any of his visitors directly in regard to the charges which have been made against him. He declared, however, that he was awaiting his trial with every expectation of receiving complete vindication. He said that he believed not only that his own innocence would be proved, but that the guilt would be fixed upon the real author of the crime.

Frank’s appearance beats out his statement that he is not worrying about the outcome. He is a man of silence. He has done no talking since he was lodged in a cell at the county jail—that is, he has had nothing to say in regard to the crime. Of other things he has talked freely to all who have visited him.

“I have told my story completely and in detail,” he says to all who seek to get him to talk. “I will tell the same story, no matter how often I have to repeat it. It is the absolute truth, and it is impossible, therefore, to trap me on any of its details.”

Newt Lee takes his confinement philosophically, even though no charge is held against him. He is willing to stay in jail and be well fed and well cared for until he is called to appear in court as a material witness.

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, June 9th 1913, “Foreman Tells Why He Holds Conley Guilty,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

The trial of Leo Frank (pictured) for the murder of Mary Phagan ended its third week 100 years ago today. Join us as we break through the myths surrounding the case and investigate what really happened.

by Bradford L. Huie

AS THE THIRD WEEK of the trial dawned, the prosecution had just made its case that National Pencil Company Superintendent Leo Max Frank had murdered 13-year-old laborer Mary Phagan — and a powerful case it was. Now it was the defense’s turn — and the defense team was a formidable one, the best that money could buy in 1913 Atlanta, led by Reuben Arnold and Luther Rosser. And many would argue that the city’s well-known promoter and attorney Thomas B. Felder was also secretly working for Frank and his friends, along with the two biggest detective agencies in the United States, the Burns agency — sub rosa, under the direction of Felder — and the Pinkertons — openly, cooperating with the police, and under the direction of the National Pencil Company. (For background on this case, read our introductory article, our coverage of Week One and Week Two of the trial, and my exclusive summary of the evidence against Frank.)

As the defense began its parade of witnesses, few suspected that the defendant himself, Leo Frank, would soon take the stand and make an admission so astonishing that it strained belief.

The testimony of Jim Conley for the prosecution was still fresh in every spectator’s and juror’s mind. Conley, an African-American sweeper for the pencil company, had admitted to helping Leo Frank move the lifeless body of Mary Phagan from the pencil factory’s Metal Room bathroom on the second floor to a spot in the basement just in front of the gaping maw of the furnace, adding that Frank had asked him to come back later and burn the body in return for a promised payment of $200 — an appointment that was never kept. He also told a rapt courtroom how he had written the black-dialect “death notes” at Frank’s instruction.

Jim Conley on the witness stand; prosecutor Hugh Dorsey; ladies in the audience

Conley said that Frank had admitted to striking the girl, when she refused his advances, and accidentally killing her. (Conley evidently missed seeing the marks of strangulation, probably being deceived by a ripped piece of lace underwear that the killer had placed around Mary’s neck to conceal the deep lacerations made by the cord.)

Not only had Conley stood up to one of the most intense cross-examinations imaginable, but, before the trial, he had led investigators on an on-location step-by-step re-enactment of his part in the crime that was so detailed and factual that it convinced almost all observers that he was telling the truth. The Atlanta Georgian‘s James B. Nevin, whose paper was beginning to show sympathy for Frank, nevertheless expressed the popular view when he wrote:

If the story Conley tells IS a lie, then it is the most inhumanly devilish, the most cunningly clever, and the most amazingly sustained lie ever told in Georgia!

With the final confession of Conley, police believed they had fully solved the case.

W.W. Matthews, a motorman for the Georgia Railway & Electric Co., was sworn for the defense and stated that Mary Phagan got off his car at 12:10, meaning that if the motorman’s watch and memory were accurate she must have arrived shortly after Monteen Stover, not before her as other witnesses had testified. W.T. Hollis, a streetcar conductor, was called to confirm Matthews’ timing. Here is their testimony:

W.W. MATTHEWS, sworn for the Defendant.

I work for the Georgia Railway & Electric Co. as a motorman. On the 26th day of April I was running on English Avenue. Mary Phagan got on my car at Lindsey Street at 11:50. Our route was from Bellwood to English Avenue, down English Avenue to Kennedy, down Kennedy to Gray, Gray to Jones Avenue, Jones Avenue to Marietta, Marietta to Broad, and out Broad Street. From Lindsey Street to Broad Street is about a mile and a half or two miles. We make frequent stops. We were scheduled to arrive at Marietta and Broad at 12:07(1/2). We were on schedule. We stayed on time all day. Our car turned up Broad St.

Atlanta circa 1913, as viewed from Hunter Street

Mary Phagan got off at Hunter and Broad. It takes generally from two and a half to three minutes to go from Broad and Marietta to Broad and Hunter. That is a very congested street and you must go slow. I was relieved at Broad and Marietta by another motorman, but sat down in the same car one seat behind Mary Phagan. Another little girl was sitting in the seat with her. We got to Broad and Hunter about 12:10. Mary and the other little girl both got off and walked to the sidewalk and they wheeled like they were going to turn around on Hunter Street, both of them together. The pencil factory is about a block and a half from where they got off at Hunter and Broad. Nobody got on with Mary at Lindsey Street. There wasn’t any little boy with her. The first time I noticed the little girl sitting with Mary was when we left Broad and Marietta Streets and I went back into the car and saw this little girl sitting with her. I know the little Epps boy. I have seen him riding on my car. He did not get on the car with her at Lindsey Street. I saw Mary’s body at the undertaker’s. It was the same girl that got on my car.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I did not tell one of the detectives that we might have been running three or four minutes ahead of schedule that day. I remember that Mary did not get off the car at Broad and Marietta because there was a street car conductor sitting behind me, an ex-conductor and he had a badge on his coat and I looked at it and it had a little girl’s picture and I reached over to where Mary was and said, “Little girl, here is your picture,” and she said, “No, it is not.” I don’t know who the other little girl was sitting with her. The other little girl was dressed something like Mary. I didn’t pay much attention to their dresses, but they looked sort of alike. Mary’s dress wasn’t black. It was light colored. I know Epps since this case came up. I could identify him. I never paid much attention to her hat. It was light colored I reckon but I am not sure. It just seemed that way.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

I identified Mary’s body Sunday afternoon after the murder at the undertaker’s. There was no doubt about her being the same girl. I knew her well by sight. She rode on my car lots.

RE-CROSS EXAMINATION.

I can’t tell you whether that is the hat or not she wore.

W. T. HOLLIS, sworn for the Defendant.

I am a street car conductor. On the 26th of April I was on the English Avenue line. We ran on schedule that day. Mary Phagan got on at Lindsey Street at about 11:50. She is the same girl I identified at the undertaker’s. She had been on my car frequently and I knew her well. No one else got on with her at Lindsey Street. Epps did not get on with her. I took up her fare on English Avenue, several blocks from where she got on. And no one was sitting with her then. I do not recollect Epps getting on the car at all that morning. Don’t know whether anybody else afterwards sat with Mary or not. We got to Broad and Marietta seven and a half minutes after twelve, schedule time. I was relieved at Forsyth and Marietta Streets, where I got off. Mary was still on the car when I got off. It takes two and a half minutes to run from Broad and Marietta to Broad and Hunter. I have timed the car again and again since then. I identified the little girl at the undertaker’s Sunday afternoon. Didn’t notice the color of her clothes.

Defense witnesses Hollis, Matthews, and Kaufman: Ira Kauffman testified that Mary Phagan’s body could have been pushed down the scuttle hole to the basement, an idea essential to the defense’s theory that Jim Conley was the killer.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Mary rode with us two or three times a week. So did Epps. I don’t know where he got off or where he got on. We are not supposed to come in ahead of time. We never come in two or three minutes ahead of time. We are a little late sometimes. I never noticed anybody sitting with Mary. She was sitting by herself when I got her fare. There wasn’t but two or three passengers on the car and I know there wasn’t anybody sitting with her. If Epps was on the car I don’t recollect it. I don’t re- call the name of any other passengers except Mary Phagan. As to what attracted my attention to Mary getting on the front end of the car, as a general rule when she would catch our car Mr. Matthews would say to her “You are late to-day,” and sometimes she would come in and remark that she was mad; that she was late to-day and when she came that morning Mr. Matthews said to her, “Are you mad to-day?” and she said, “Yes, I am late.” And sort of laughed and came on in the car and sat down. She usually caught our car when she came in the morning, the one due in town at 7:07. I didn’t know Mary’s name, I just recognized Mary’s face as the little girl who traveled with us.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

I heard of the murder the next day. Newspaper reporters asked us to go down and identify the girl. There was no doubt about her being the little girl who was on our car. Oliver Street is the next street to Lindsey. I did not see Epps get on at Oliver Street. It is against the rule of the company to get to the city ahead of time.

RE-GROSS EXAMINATION.

It is not against the rules to get in behind time. Sometimes we might get there a few minutes ahead of time, but hardly ever. We always look at our watches at the main destination, just at Broad and Marietta. We are supposed to do that.

But — and this issue dogs both sides of this case — how accurate were watches and clocks in 1913? (Even in 2013, my quartz watch is sometimes off by a few minutes, especially when the battery is over a year old, and my remaining spring-wound watch is, to put it charitably, just approximate even when freshly-wound.) And, if Mary really didn’t get off the car until 12:10, why didn’t Monteen Stover meet her, then? And a later-arriving Mary Phagan still doesn’t explain Leo Frank’s empty office while the factory clock ticked off every second from 12:05 to 12:10 in Monteen Stover’s presence.

Herbert Schiff

Herbert G. Schiff, the factory’s assistant superintendent directly under Leo Frank, then testified, stating that he’d never seen women brought to the office as the prosecution had alleged, nor had he seen Conley “watching” for Frank. He stated that he, not Frank, had paid off Helen Ferguson the Friday before the murder, and that Ferguson has not asked for Mary Phagan’s pay. He also went into excruciating detail — thousands of words’ worth — about how the books were kept at the factory, with the unstated implication being that Frank would have simply been too busy calculating sums and making entries to have entertained young ladies — or killed them. This “too busy” line of reasoning would be returned to again and again by the defense, and would form the larger part of Leo Frank’s own statement in his own defense. It was reinforced by the next witness, public accountant Joel Hunter, and yet another accountant, C.E. Pollard.

Hattie Hall, the plant stenographer, confirmed that she had worked with Frank until about noon, and had punched out at 12:02, seeing no one come in as she went out. Interestingly, Hall said of the important financial sheet that supposedly took up so much time every Saturday that “I didn’t see Mr. Frank working on any of these books that day, that I was in the outer office and he was in the inner office. There wasn’t any such looking sheet as the financial on his desk. When I was in there he was at work on a pile of letters and things like that.”

Corinthia Hall: Why would Conley have had to hide when she and a friend visited Leo Frank’s office?

Emma Clarke Freeman and Corinthia Hall then testified that they had come briefly to the factory at 11:45, contradicting Jim Conley’s testimony that they had arrived at 12:45 when he had gone into Leo Frank’s wardrobe to hide from them while they talked to Frank. If the women spoke the truth, and it’s hard to imagine a reason for them not to do so, it does appear that Conley was mistaken about the time, but why would he deliberately lie about it? The timing of their visit isn’t crucial in any way — even its complete absence would just have given Frank and Conley a few more minutes to move Mary Phagan’s body and write the death notes. But it is interesting that, according to Conley’s testimony, Frank obviously didn’t want to be seen with Conley that day, which is odd and suspicious in itself — what’s wrong with being seen talking with the factory sweeper? Maybe a lot is wrong with it, if you’re planning to use him to facilitate a secret sexual tryst with an underage girl.

Pinkerton detective Harry Scott was recalled by the defense, mainly to show that Jim Conley had changed his story and contradicted himself thereby many times. But there wasn’t too much sting in that for the prosecution, since Conley himself had freely admitted as much.

Miss Magnolia Kennedy challenged the idea that Helen Ferguson had asked for Mary’s pay, but confirmed that the hair found on the lathe in the Metal Room looked like Mary’s, and that she had never seen blood on the floor there until after the murder:

Misses McMurtrey, Kennedy, and Johnson said they had never experienced inappropriate behavior from Leo Frank.

MISS MAGNOLIA KENNEDY, sworn for the Defendant.

I have been working for the pencil factory for about four years, in the metal department. I drew my pay on Friday, April 25th, from Mr. Schiff at the pay window. Helen Ferguson was there when I went up there. I was behind her and had my hand on her shoulder. Mr. Frank was not there, Mr. Schiff gave Helen Ferguson her pay envelope. Helen Ferguson did not ask Mr. Schiff for Mary Phagan’s money. I came out right behind Helen Ferguson. We waited for Grace Hicks and then went down stairs. Helen didn’t say anything about Mr. Frank at all. We went down stairs about five minutes to six. We saw Helen Ferguson start up Forsyth Street.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

On Monday, April 28th, Mr. Barrett called my attention to the hair which he found on the machine. It looked like Mary’s hair. My machine was right next to Mary’s. There is a good deal of water over there by Mr. Quinn’s room. Mary’s hair was a light brown, kind of sandy color. You could plainly see the dark spots and white spot over it ten or twelve feet away. [The smear of Haskoline or other white substance, apparently placed over the blood spots. — Ed.] Helen and Mary were the best of friends and were neighbors. Helen made mention that Mary was not there when we were paid off. I have never noticed any spots around the metal room. That’s the first time I had ever seen anything like that.

Machinist R.P. Barrett

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

I have never looked for spots before. It’s a dirty floor, full of oil dirt. I don’t know whose hair that was. Helen did not ask Mr. Schiff for Mary’s money. She did not have any business going to Mr. Frank when Mr. Schiff was there paying off. She did not go in and ask Mr. Frank for Mary’s money. I left with her. I went one way and she went another.

RE-CROSS EXAMINATION.

Mr. Frank paid off sometimes. If there is any trouble about the amount of our money, we would go to anybody that was in the office. Mr. Frank was not paying off that day.

Pencil factory employee Wade Campbell was then sworn and told of his interactions on the day of the murder. The defense hoped he could cast doubt on the blood spot evidence and Frank’s interactions with Conley, but note well his testimony about how cheerful and playful Frank was before noon:

WADE CAMPBELL, sworn for the Defendant.

I have been working for the pencil factory for about a year and a half. I had a conversation with my sister, Mrs. Arthur White, on Monday, April 28th. She told me that she had seen a negro sitting at the elevator shaft when she went in the factory at twelve o’clock on Saturday and that she came out at 12:30, she heard low voices, but couldn’t see anybody. On April 26th, I got to the factory about 9:30. Mr. Frank was in his outer office. He was laughing and joking with people there, and joked with me. He thought I wanted to borrow some money. I stayed about five or ten minutes and left the factory. That was about 9:40. I have never seen Mr. Frank talk to Mary Phagan. On Tuesday after the murder I went up on the fourth floor with Mr. Frank. I did not see the negro Conley talk to him at all that time.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

My sister said she saw the negro when she went in the factory. When she heard the voices coming out, she was coming down the steps from the second floor. I saw the spots where they claim was blood, close to the girls’ dressing room on second floor. I couldn’t say whether it was blood or not. I deny that I ever said that my sister said she saw the negro on the box when she came out of the factory. He was sitting on a box between the elevator shaft and the staircase. That looks like my signature. I don’t know whether it is or not. Yes, I corrected certain statements in that paper.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

I went to Mr. Dorsey’s office because he subpoenaed me. I thought I had to obey it. Mr. Starnes and Mr. Campbell and the stenographer were there. All of them asked me questions. I signed a statement about twenty-one pages long. I have seen Jim Conley reading newspapers up on the fourth floor, twice since the murder. It is not unusual to see spots all over the metal room floor.

RE-CROSS EXAMINATION.

Conley was sitting by the elevator when he was reading those papers, during working hours. The other time he was reading down at the rear end of the building. It was an extra, but I don’t know what paper it was. I knew that he could write because I had seen him do it several times, with pen and ink. I don’t know whether he was making up his report of boxes, but I have seen him writing. Yes, I have seen spots along the route from the ladies’ closet to the elevator ever since I have been there. They have red varnish and red paint and such things like that that look like blood. I am sure there are spots all around in the metal room, but I won’t say they look like the spots near the ladies’ dressing room.

How jocular and playful Leo Max Frank was in the forenoon of April 26, 1913, apparently a man without a care in the world. Was he possibly even a man with the anticipated pleasure of a sexual tryst in mind? Contrast this with his nervousness and trembling and startling inability to perform everyday tasks when Newt Lee arrived at four in the afternoon — a time when, according to his story, he didn’t have any idea that Mary Phagan was dead and had nothing but a possible rain shower to worry about.

Factory employee Lemmie Quinn testified that he had been to the factory and glimpsed Frank in his office about 12:20, though he hadn’t mentioned that visit to anyone until days had passed — and even Frank failed to mention it until Quinn came forward. Quinn admitted that he had told Frank he “didn’t want to be brought into it,” but that he would mention the visit “if it would help.” He also confirmed the time of Miss Hall’s and Mrs. Freeman’s visit to the factory, but only indirectly, saying that he saw them in a nearby eatery, The Busy Bee, at around 12:30. He also claimed that “we have blood spots quite frequently” in the Metal Room.

Harry Denham, who was working on the fourth floor of the pencil factory the day of the killing, said that he saw Leo Frank around three and he did not appear especially anxious or nervous. If Jim Conley’s account is accurate, this would have been a time when Frank still might have been expecting Conley to return to “finish the job” — that is, burn the body. An hour later, when Newt Lee arrived, Frank would probably have realized that Conley had skipped out.

These 12 jurors listened attentively as the witnesses testified

Minola McKnight, the Frank’s African-American cook, had earlier signed a statement saying that she had overheard a conversation between Frank and his wife in which Frank admitted to killing a girl earlier that day. Her statement was brought to the attention of the police by her husband. But she later denied her former statement, said her husband was lying, and that she had only signed the statement (even though her lawyer was present) because of a fear of jail and the detective’s “third degree” methods. Amid allegations that Mrs. Frank had suddenly started to give her money, both she and her husband stuck to their respective stories. If Minola McKnight was telling the truth the second time around and not the first, the Atlanta police were engaged in the crudest kind of abuse and subornation of perjury. Here is her testimony — the reader may assign whatever credibility he thinks it deserves:

MINOLA McKNIGHT (c[olored]), sworn for the Defendant.

I work for Mrs. Selig. I cook for her. Mr. and Mrs. Frank live with Mr. and Mrs. Selig. His wife is Mrs. Selig’s daughter. I cooked breakfast for the family on April 26th. Mr. Frank finished breakfast a little after seven o’clock. Mr. Frank came to dinner about 20 minutes after one that day. That was not the dinner hour, but Mrs. Frank and Mrs. Selig were going off on the two o’clock car. They were already eating when Mr. Frank came in. My husband, Albert McKnight, wasn’t in the kitchen that day between one and two o’clock at all. Standing in the kitchen door you can not see the mirror in the dining room. If you move up to the north end of the kitchen where you can see the mirror, you can’t see the dining room table. My husband wasn’t there all that day.

Mr. Frank left that day sometime after two o’clock. I next saw him at half past six at supper. I left about eight o’clock. Mr. Frank was still at home when I left. He took supper with the rest of the family. After this happened the detectives came out and arrested me and took me to Mr. Dorsey’s office, where Mr. Dorsey, my husband and another man were there. I was working at the Selig’s when they come and got me. They tried to get me to say that Mr. Frank would not allow his wife to sleep that night and that he told her to get up and get his gun and let him kill himself, and that he made her get out of bed. They had my husband there to bulldoze me, claiming that I had told him that. I had never told him anything of the kind. I told them right there in Mr. Dorsey’s office that it was a lie. Then they carried me down to the station house in the patrol wagon. They came to me for another statement about half past eleven or twelve o’clock that night and made me sign something before they turned me loose, but it wasn’t true. I signed it to get out of jail, because they said they would not let me out. It was all written out for me before they made me sign it.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I signed that statement (State’s Exhibit ” J “), but I didn’t tell you some of the things you got in there. I didn’t say he left home about three o’clock. I said somewhere about two. I did not say he was not there at one o’clock. Mr. Graves and Mr. Pickett, of Beck & Gregg Hardware Co., came down to see me. A detective took me to your (Mr. Dorsey’s) office. My husband was there and told me that I had told him certain things. Yes, I denied it. Yes, I wept and cried and stuck to it. When they first brought me out of jail, they said they did not want anything else but the truth, then they said I had to tell a lot of lies and I told them I would not do it. That man sitting right there (pointing to Mr. Campbell) and a whole lot of men wanted me to tell lies. They wanted me to witness to what my husband was saying. My husband tried to get me to tell lies. They made me sign that statement, but it was a lie. If Mr. Frank didn’t eat any dinner that day I ain’t sitting in this chair. Mrs. Selig never gave me no money. The statement that I signed is not the truth. They told me if I didn’t sign it they were going to keep me locked up. That man there (indicating) and that man made me sign it. Mr. Graves and Mr. Pickett made me sign it. They did not give me any more money after this thing happened. One week I was paid two weeks’ wages.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

None of the things in that statement is true. It’s all a lie. My wages never have been raised since this thing happened. They did not tell me to keep quiet. They always told me to tell the truth and it couldn’t hurt.

Mr. and Mrs. Selig, Frank’s in-laws. testified that Frank had acted normally on the day of the murder and the next day. A number of other witnesses, many of them Jewish, testified that they had seen Frank going to or coming back from lunch on April 26, a few adding that they saw no signs of nervousness as he made his way via the streetcar system.

Several workers at the factory, testifying for the defense, said they’d never seen Leo Frank talking to Mary Phagan, that they’d never seen him with women in his office after hours, and that Conley’s reputation for veracity was bad. One of them, Iora Small, went further, volunteering for the benefit of the all-white jury that “I don’t know of any nigger on earth that I would believe on oath.” Miss Small, on cross-examination, stated that she and several of her co-workers had seen blood spots in the metal room the following Monday, near where the samples had been chipped up, “two or three spots, some the size of a nickle and some the size of a quarter.”

Several of Frank’s friends and family members said they dined or talked with Leo Frank the afternoon and evening the day after the murder, and that Frank hadn’t displayed any unusual nervousness then.

Frank’s lawyers showed audacity by bringing to the stand W.D. McWorth, the (later dismissed) Pinkerton man who had “discovered” what was insinuated to be a fragment of Mary Phagan’s pay envelope (showing the initials “M.P.”) and a “bloody club” on the first floor where Conley said he’d been stationed. The only hitch in this tale was that these “finds” were made almost three weeks after police and other Pinkerton agents had made a thorough search of the entire building.

The defense then brought numerous physicians to the stand who cast doubt on the time element of the case by claiming that Dr. Henry F. Harris’s autopsy analysis of the contents of Mary Phagan’s stomach was flawed, since it was difficult to gauge the degree of digestion of cabbage. Harris had said that Mary Phagan had met her death around 12:05 — about the same time Mary Phagan had come to collect her pay from Leo Frank and that Monteen Stover had found Leo Frank’s office — on the same floor as the Metal Room — utterly empty. But the jurors knew there was more than just cabbage in Mary Phagan’s last meal, and there was no trace of a living Mary anywhere in any witness’s testimony after her visit with Frank.

A number of friends and acquaintances of Frank were brought in to testify to Frank’s general good character. (Many consider this to be a tactical error on the defense’s part, since it opened the door for the prosecution to address Frank’s character — and several prosecution witnesses testified that Frank had made inappropriate sexual advances to girls and young women — an opportunity the prosecution would not otherwise have had. And the defense also chose not to cross-examine any of the young women who so testified, leaving an impression with the jurors that they dared not do so.)

One of the character witnesses for the defense had a surprise in store:

MISS IRENE JACKSON, sworn for the Defendant.

I worked at the pencil factory for three years. So far as I know Mr. Frank’s character was very well. I don’t know anything about him. He never said anything to me. I have never met Mr. Frank at any time for any immoral purpose.

Irene Jackson: a witness for Frank, her testimony under cross-examination was very surprising to the defense.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I am the daughter of County Policeman Jackson. I never heard the girls say anything about him, except that they seemed to be afraid of him. They never would notice him at all. They would go to work when they saw him coming.

Miss Emily Mayfield and I were undressing in the dressing room once when Mr. Frank came to the door. He looked, turned around and walked out. He just came to the door and pushed it open. He smiled or made some kind of face. Miss Mayfield had her top dress off and had her old dress in her hand to put it on.

I told Mr. Darley I would not quit unless my father made me, and he said if the girls would stick to Frank they won’t lose anything.

I heard some remarks two or three times about Mr. Frank going to the dressing room on different occasions, but I don’t remember anything about it. The second time I heard of his going to the dressing room was when my sister was laying down there. She had her feet on a stool. She was dressed. I was in there at the time. He just walked in, and turned and walked out. Mr. Frank walked in the dressing room on Miss Mamie Kitchens, when I was in there. He never said anything the three times he walked in when I was there. The dressing room has a mirror and a few lockers for the foreladies. That’s the only thing that I have ever seen Mr. Frank do, go in the dressing room and stare at the girls. I have heard them speak of other times when I was not there.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

My father made me quit, after the murder. There are two windows in the dressing room opening on Forsyth Street. I think there had been some complaints of the girls flirting through the windows. I have heard of some of the girls flirting through the windows. The orders were against the girls flirting through the windows. Mr. Frank never came into the room at all, he pushed the door open and just looked. My sister and I were both dressed when Mr. Frank looked in the door. The other time he came in I was fixing to put on my street dress. I was not undressed.

RE-CROSS EXAMINATION.

I don’t know if Mr. Frank knew the girls were in there before he opened the door or not. It was the usual hour for them to be in there. He could have seen the girls register from the outer office, but not from the inner office. I have never heard any talk about Mr. Frank going around putting his hands on girls. I have never heard of his going out with any of the girls. My sister quit at the factory before Christmas. I have never flirted with anybody out of the window. I have heard them say that they didn’t want the girls to flirt around the factory. I have heard Mr. Frank say that to Miss McClellan, after she told him that she knew of some of the girls flirting.

 Miss Jackson’s story lent credence, though not full corroboration, to the stories of Frank being very forward with the girls who worked under him. What ordinary male factory manager would fling open the door of a women’s dressing room, well knowing that it was, or might be, occupied?

___

The most long-awaited moment of the entire trial had now arrived. On August 18, 1913 at 2:14 PM, the accused, Leo Max Frank, mounted the stand to speak to the jury in his own defense. And what a strange, amazing speech it was.

Leo Frank, lower right, Vice President in 1906 of the H. Morse Stephens Debate Club (click for high resolution)

Under Georgia law, the defendant has a choice: he may remain silent, he may testify under oath in the customary way and be cross-examined by opposing counsel, or he may make an unsworn statement about which he may not be cross-examined. Amazingly, Leo Frank chose the last of these options. Here was Frank, proclaiming his innocence — Leo Frank, a skilled debater who had been a member of an Ivy League debate team — Leo Frank, with some of the best and toughest legal minds in the state on his side — here was this same Leo Frank quailing before a county prosecutor, refusing to be sworn, and refusing to be cross-examined. It gave the definite appearance of a man who dared not be cross-examined. Despite the near-certainty that such a choice would be a black mark in the eyes of the jury, Frank made that choice — and his platinum-plated legal team either agreed or acquiesced in his decision.

Leo Frank addresses the court

Weeks in preparation, Leo Frank’s unsworn speech was a mind-numbing nearly four hours long — and an astounding three of those four hours were devoted to recounting the minutiae of his office work on the day of the murder, mainly his financial entries and accounting book calculations, in excruciating detail. Frank even presented the original pages of the accounting book to the jury.

All this was Frank’s way of telling the jury that he simply hadn’t any time to spare that Saturday to ravish any 13-year-olds, or kill them, or cover up the crime. But how credible is that? At a little after noon, when Leo Frank was the last known person to have seen Mary Phagan alive, he had had three and a half hours to do his office work.

Leo M. Frank tells his own story, pictures from the Atlanta Georgian: The claim that “the accused man urged his lawyers to let the Solicitor and his aides cross-question him freely” is disingenuous theatre, though — Frank could have accomplished that easily by making a sworn statement. Dorsey was not permitted by law to cross examine him on the unsworn statement he did make. Amazingly, when the Georgian and Constitution published Frank’s statement on August 19, they completely omitted his admission that he may have used the toilet shortly after noon on the day of the murder. (click for high resolution)

Both defense and prosecution agree that — guilty or innocent, whatever he may have done between noon and 1PM — he came back after lunch that day and had another three hours, from roughly 3PM to 6PM, to do whatever work needed to be done. Was his prolonged monologue supposed to convince his listeners that six and a half hours would not suffice for his calculations and that he definitely needed the noon hour too? If that were true, why had he originally planned to leave two entire hours early, at 4PM, to see a holiday baseball game with his brother-in-law? Wouldn’t that have made his accounting work impossible, too? And, if Leo Frank can do his accounting and other work in an average time of seven or eight hours, is it beyond belief that he could, if necessary, work 15% faster and give himself an hour or more to spare? In fact, who would ever know if he had just made up any missed work a day or two later?

Eventually, Frank would address issues more germane to the case in his statement:

Miss Hall left my office on her way home at this time, and to the best of my information there were in the building Arthur White and Harry Denham and Arthur White’s wife on the top floor. To the best of my knowledge, it must have been from ten to fifteen minutes after Miss Hall left my office, when this little girl, whom I afterwards found to be Mary Phagan, entered my office and asked for her pay envelope. I asked for her number and she told me; I went to the cash box and took her envelope out and handed it to her, identifying the envelope by the number.

Again, Frank is here sticking to his story about not knowing Mary Phagan by name. It would have been more believable if he had at long last admitted that fear of being accused of murder and worse had frightened him into a lie. It might have given the jury the impression of a man in difficult circumstances finally coming clean.

Leo Frank, far left, with classmates at Cornell University

The assertion that Frank never knew Mary Phagan’s name approaches the preposterous. Frank controlled the payroll and entered the amounts in his accounting books every week. We know that he wrote, in his own hand, Mary Phagan’s initials “M.P.” next to her employee number and pay amount in these books every week for the full 52 weeks of Mary Phagan’s employment at the National Pencil Company. How would he know her initials if he did not know her name?

Mary Phagan: Is it credible that Leo Frank could enter her initials in the company books some 52 times, and pass within 18 or 20 inches of her nearly a thousand times over the course of a year, and not know her name at all — or even her face with certainty?

We know from the blueprints of the factory that the only bathroom on the second floor, where Frank’s office was located, was the Metal Room bathroom. Mary Phagan worked in the Metal Room. To get to this bathroom, Frank, a regular coffee drinker, had to pass right by Mary Phagan’s work station. The employees worked 11-hour days, five days a week, 52 weeks a year. That’s at least 2,860 hours during the slightly over one year that little Mary had worked for Frank. Even if he only used the bathroom once in every three hours, that’s over 953 times that Leo Frank would have walked right by Mary Phagan. And, considering the testimony of other girls and young women who worked there that he did speak to them on occasion — it seems wildly unlikely that he would know none of them by name. And if he knew any of them by name, it stands to good reason that one that he knew would be Mary Phagan, who worked near his office and not more than three feet — closer than any other employee — from the door to the bathroom that he used multiple times, practically brushing up against her, every day. (One wishes that prosecutor Dorsey had asked every second-floor employee if Leo M. Frank knew him or her by name. Frank, in his statement, does make mention of quite a few female employees by name, and, early in the investigation, he suggested that J.M. Gantt was friendly with Mary — a thing he was hardly likely to know if he didn’t have some acquaintance with her.)

Frank continued his unsworn statement:

She [Mary Phagan — Ed.] left my office and apparently had gotten as far as the door from my office leading to the outer office, when she evidently stopped and asked me if the metal had arrived, and I told her no. She continued on her way out, and I heard the sound of her footsteps as she went away. It was a few moments after she asked me this question that I had an impression of a female voice saying something; I don’t know which way it came from; just passed away and I had that impression.

This was different from what Frank had said shortly after the murder story broke. Then he had said that he heard Mary talking to another girl — a girl who has never turned up, probably because she didn’t exist. Frank had said: “She went out through the outer office and I heard her talking with another girl.” Every person known to be in the vicinity was extensively investigated and interviewed, and no girl  was discovered who spoke to Mary Phagan or met her at that time. Monteen Stover, who thought highly of Frank and had no reason to hurt him, was the only other girl there, and she testified that she saw only an empty office — no Mary Phagan, no Leo Frank.

Frank’s unsworn statement continues:

This little girl had evidently worked in the metal department by her question and had been laid off owing to the fact that some metal that had been ordered had not arrived at the factory; hence, her question. I only recognized this little girl from having seen her around the plant and did not know her name, simply identifying her envelope from her having called her number to me.

Leo Frank actually had the gall to say that Mary Phagan “had evidently worked in the metal department by her question,” implying that not only did he not know the dead girl by name, but did not know her by sight either, at least not enough to know she worked in the metal department, something he only inferred from her question! This is so beyond the bounds of probability that it can hardly be believed, and casts serious doubt on everything Leo Frank said about this case. It’s enough by itself to make one think that Leo Frank is hiding something, something very dark, about his relationship with this girl.

Leo Frank told a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution (published August 20,1913) that he had prepared his statement two weeks ahead of time, with his wife as stenographer, and that his attorneys had not seen it.

In his unsworn statement above, Frank says that when Mary started to leave his office, “she evidently stopped and asked me if the metal had arrived, and I told her no.” [Emphasis mine.]

It was a matter of controversy whether Frank had actually answered “no” or had instead said “I don’t know” — detectives claimed that Frank had admitted to answering “I don’t know” when he was first questioned. If it was indeed “I don’t know,” it might have been an opening for Frank to have invited Mary Phagan to “go and check” and accompany him to the Metal Room to “see if the metal had arrived.” And the Metal Room was precisely where the prosecution, the police — and even the investigators hired by the pencil company — contended the murder had taken place.

And then Leo Frank made the most startling admission of all — possibly, short of a detailed and abject confession, the most startling admission he could possibly make:

Now, gentlemen, to the best of my recollection from the time the whistle blew for twelve o’clock until after a quarter to one when I went up stairs and spoke to Arthur White and Harry Denham, to the best of my recollection, I did not stir out of the inner office; but it is possible that in order to answer a call of nature or to urinate I may have gone to the toilet. Those are things that a man does unconsciously and cannot tell how many times nor when he does it. Now, sitting in my office at my desk, it is impossible for me to see out into the outer hall when the safe door is open, as it was that morning, and not only is it impossible for me to see out, but it is impossible for people to see in and see me there.

Frank was evidently hoping to blunt the effect of Monteen Stover’s testimony, explaining why she may have found his office empty from 12:05 to 12:10 by saying perhaps he’d gone to use the toilet, or been hidden behind the safe door, when she came in. The “safe door” argument was a weak one, as a young lady earnestly seeking her pay was likely to simply glance around its open door — even if Frank had been precisely positioned behind it. So — after months of denying he’d left his office at all between 12 and 12:45 — he stated that he might have have left it to “unconsciously” visit the bathroom.

The accused, Leo M. Frank

And what bathroom would he have used? The only bathroom on the second floor — where Frank’s office was located — was the Metal Room bathroom. Frank was suggesting that he may have been using the bathroom — the Metal Room bathroom! — when Monteen Stover found his office empty, at the precise time when the evidence indicates Mary Phagan was being murdered in that very location. This was also astounding because a few weeks earlier Leo Frank had emphatically told the coroner’s jury that on the day of the murder he had not used the bathroom all day long, a statement so insistent and so ridiculous that it made more than a few eyebrows rise at the time. What is it about that bathroom that seems to unnerve Leo Frank, and make him stumble and contradict himself so much?

And now this new admission: Frank was admitting that he might have gone to the Metal Room, where strands of hair that looked like Mary Phagan’s had been found on a lathe handle — hair that hadn’t been there the Friday before — and where a five-inch fan-sized blood stain had been found the following Monday. The stain was clumsily concealed with a layer of white Haskoline powder which had soaked the blood up and turned pink — a condition that certainly wouldn’t have endured for even a single week of factory work and traffic, ruling out the defense’s argument that the stain was very old.

Frank was admitting that he might have used the Metal Room bathroom, exactly where Conley said he found the battered, strangled, and lifeless body of Mary Phagan — where he said he wrapped her body in a sack and prepared to carry it, with Leo Frank’s help, to the basement, dropping it at one point in the passageway, where another blood stain was subsequently found.

He was telling the jurors who were to decide his fate that he may indeed have been at the precise location at the precise time when Mary Phagan had been murdered according to the prosecution’s witnesses. And this after maintaining for months that he had never made such a visit, or in fact left his office for even an instant from 12 to 12:45!

Frank went on to say in his statement that, after he returned home for lunch:

I sat down to my dinner and before I had taken anything, I turned in my chair to the telephone, which is right behind me and called up my brother-in-law to tell him that on account of some work I had to do at the factory, I would be unable to go with him, he having invited me to go with him out to the ball game. I succeeded in getting his residence and his cook answered the phone and told me that Mr. Ursenbach had not come back home. I told her to give him a message for me, that I would be unable to go with him.

So, supposedly, Frank could not attend the ball game “on account of some work I had to do at the factory.” In previous statements Frank had said he’d changed his mind because of impending rain — why the change? And why would meticulous Leo Frank, so knowledgeable of how long his endless financial calculations took him, have planned leaving hours early, at 4PM, unless he knew for sure he’d be done by then? And if he wasn’t able to be done by then, necessitating the cancellation, what unforeseen event had intervened and taken up his time?

Frank went on with his courtroom statement:

Then that other insinuation, an insinuation that is dastardly that it is beyond the appreciation of a human being, that is, that my wife didn’t visit me; now the truth of the matter is this, that on April 29th, the date I was taken in custody at police headquarters, my wife was there to see me, she was downstairs on the first floor; I was up on the top floor. She was there almost in hysterics, having been brought there by her two brothers-in-law, and her father. Rabbi Marx was with me at the time. I consulted with him as to the advisability of allowing my dear wife to come up to the top floor to see me in those surroundings with city detectives, reporters and snapshotters; I thought I would save her that humiliation and that harsh sight, because I expected any day to be turned loose and be returned once more to her side at home. Gentlemen, we did all we could do to restrain her in the first days when I was down at the jail from coming on alone down to the jail, but she was perfectly willing to even be locked up with me and share my incarceration.

Mrs. Leo Frank: Is it conceivable that her 29-year-old husband, surrounded every working day by over 150 young women and teenage girls over which he had absolute authority, was unfaithful?

Mrs. Frank did not visit her husband for 13 days after his arrest — an act that could possibly be explained by her outrage at her husband’s putative infidelity — and Frank’s claim that she had to be “restrained” from actually moving into his cell is too extreme to be credible, especially since no reports are extant of her having attempted to see him again in those first days, to say nothing of taking up residence in his lockup. Remember, Minola McKnight had stated that Leo Frank confessed to killing a girl to his wife the night of the murder — though she later repudiated her statement. Was the box of candy purchased on the way home by Leo Frank that evening an attempt to reassure her of his love despite what he had done? Was her anger so extreme she shunned him for almost two weeks in his hour of need, or did she really have to be forced to stay away just to “save her that humiliation” of seeing him with detectives, reporters, and photographers?

Lucille Selig Frank did eventually become the dutiful wife by the side of her accused husband, and did well in that role. But that didn’t happen immediately.

Upon her death decades later it was discovered that she left explicit instructions — not that she be buried in Queens, New York by her husband’ side — but that she be cremated and her ashes scattered in a public park.

Leo Frank’s grave: his wife left instructions that she was not to be buried beside him

Frank continued his statement:

Gentlemen, I know nothing whatever of the death of little Mary Phagan. I had no part in causing her death nor do I know how she came to her death after she took her money and left my office. I never even saw Conley in the factory or anywhere else on that date, April 26, 1913. The statement of the witness Dalton is utterly false as far as coming to my office and being introduced to me by the woman Daisy Hopkins is concerned. If Dalton was ever in the factory building with any woman, I didn’t know it. I never saw Dalton in my life to know him until this crime.

Leo Frank, debate coach at Cornell

Leo Frank, debate coach at Cornell

One amazing fact that this reporter has uncovered is that the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Georgian (the Georgian by this time was taking an editorial line favorable to Frank) completely omitted Leo Frank’s “unconscious bathroom visit” admission when they printed Frank’s full statement on August 18, 1913 and August 19, 1913. The Atlanta Journal did include the admission, so it seems unlikely that the words “call of nature” or “urinate” were deemed too shocking for a public reading about a brutal strangulation murder.

* * *

Source: American Mercury

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

At the left top is Detective Black, of the city, and at the right Detective Scott, of the Pinkertons. Below is a scene of the inquest. At the bottom is a sketch by Henderson of the negro, Newt Lee, whose straightforward story at the inquest has tended to lift suspicion from him.

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

Atlanta Constitution

Thursday, May 1^st 1913

Mary Phagan Was Growing Afraid of Advances Made to Her by Superintendent of the Factory, George W. Epps, 15 Years Old, Tells the Coroner’s Jury.

BOY HAD ENGAGEMENT TO MEET HER SATURDAY BUT SHE DID NOT COME

Newt Lee, Night Watchman, on Stand Declared Frank Was Much Excited on Saturday Afternoon—Pearl Robinson Testifies for Arthur Mullinax—Two Mechanics Brought by Detectives to the Inquest.

LEO FRANK REFUSES TO DISCUSS EVIDENCE

When a Constitution reporter saw Leo M. Frank early this morning and told him of the testimony to the effect that he had annoyed Mary Phagan by an attempted flirtation, the prisoner said that he had not heard of this accusation before, but that he did not want to talk. He would neither affirm nor deny the negro’s accusation that never before the night of the tragedy had Frank phoned to inquire if all was well at the factory, as he did on the night of the killing.

Evidence that Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the pencil factory in which the lifeless body of Mary Phagan was found, had tried to flirt with her, and that she was growing afraid of his advances, was submitted to the coroner’s jury at the inquest yesterday afternoon, a short time before adjournment was taken until 4:30 o’clock today by George W. Epps, aged 15, a chum of the murdered victim.

George rode with Mary to the city Saturday morning an hour before she disappeared at noon. He testified late Wednesday afternoon that the girl had told him of attempts Leo Frank had made to flirt with her, and of apparent advances in which he was daily growing bolder.

“She said she was getting afraid,” he told at the inquest. “She wanted me to come to the factory every afternoon in the future and escort her home. She didn’t like the way Frank was acting toward her.”

Waited Two Hours For Girl.

George had an engagement to meet the girl Saturday afternoon at 2 o’clock, he said. They were scheduled to watch the Memorial parade and tour the picture shows. He waited two hours for her. She had disappeared. The next known of her was when the lifeless form was found in the factory basement.

Frank was not present during the investigation but once. Detectives brought him before the jury for identification by E. S. Skipper, the man who saw the mysterious sextette of youths and girls Saturday night at Whitehall and Trinity. He remained but a moment.

Sensational developments were predicted shortly after the inquest was resumed at 2:15 o’clock, when Coroner Donehoo ordered detectives to bring to police headquarters the two mechanics who were in the factory building with Frank during the early part of Saturday afternoon.

They are Harry Denham and Arthur White, two youths who have been connected with the plant for several years. Detective Scott found them at work in the factory and escorted them to the inquest. They left the police station immediately after being examined.

A mystifying phase was added to the progress of the inquest when Edgar L. Sentell, a clerk in Kamper’s grocery, declared positively that he had seen Mary Phagan with Arthur Mullinax at midnight Saturday as they crossed the corner of Hunter and Forsyth streets a few yards distant from the pencil factory.

Sentell had known the dead girl since early childhood. They were intimate friends, he said. Asserting that he had spoken to her, he stoutly maintained that she had answered his greeting.

J. L. Watkins, a neighbor to the home to which Mary lived, also testified that he had seen her Saturday afternoon when she crossed Ashby street at Bellwood. She presumably was on her way home, he stated.

George Epps is a bright, quick-witted chap and proved an eager witness. He was brought before the inquest following the examination of Pearl Robinson, the sweetheart of Arthur Mullinax, who testified in that youth’s behalf.

“How old are you son?” was the first question asked him.

“Fifteen—going on sixteen,” he answered with alacrity.

“Do you work or go to school?”

“I work at a furniture store. In the afternoon I sell papers.”

His answers were clear and brief. He made a pleasing impression.

Lives Near Phagan Girl.

“How far do you live from 136 Lindsay street—the home of Mary Phagan?”

“Just around the block.”

“Did you know Mary?”

“Yes, sir, I certainly did. We were good friends.”

“When did you last see her alive?”

“Saturday morning, just before dinner when we came to town together on a street car.

“Did you arrange to meet her that afternoon?”

“Yes, sir. We were to have met at 2 o’clock in Elkin & Watson’s drug store at Five Points. We were going to see the parade and go to the moving picture shows.”

“How long did you wait for her when she failed to show up?”

“Until 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I stuck around two hours waiting for her. Then I had to go and sell my papers.”

“Did you inquire for her?”

“Yes. I went to her house when I got through with my papers. She hadn’t got back. The folks were looking for her.”

“When you and Mary were riding to town, did you talk any?”

She Wanted Money Mighty Bad.

“We talked a whole lot. She said she was going to the pencil factory to draw the wages due her. She said she didn’t have but $1.60 coming to her, but wanted that mighty bad.”

“How was she dressed?”

“She had on a blue dress and a dark blue hat. I remember that hat mighty well because I asked her why didn’t she buy a stylish lid? ‘Umph,’ she said, ‘I’m no stylish girl. I don’t need one.’”

“Did you both get on the car at the same time?”

“No. She was on first. When I got on she motioned for me to come and sit beside her. While we were coming to town she began talking about Mr. Frank. When she would leave the factory on some afternoons she said Frank would rush out in front of her and try to flirt with her as she passed.

She told me that he had often winked at her and tried to pay her attention. He would look hard and straight at her she said and then would smile. She called him Mr. Frank. It happened often she said.”

“How was the subject of Mr. Frank brought up?”

“She told me she wanted me to come down to the factory when she got off as often as I could to escort her home and kinder protect her.”

“When did you hear she was killed?”

“Sunday.”

Positive that he had seen Mary Phagan at midnight Saturday, Edgar L. Sentell offered to swear that it was the pretty victim whom he encountered with the suspected Mullinax at Forsyth and Hunter streets. He was the first witness during the afternoon session.

“I met Mary Phagan and Mullinax at Hunter and South Forsyth streets either between 11:30 and 12, or a little later. I am not positive which,” he stated.

“Were they standing together?” he was questioned.

“No. They were walking along.”

“Are you confident you knew both Mullinax and Mary?”

“I knew Mullinax at the car barns. I had known Mary all my life. I was born and raised with her.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“One week previous to Saturday night.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“I did. I said, ‘Hello, Mary.’”

“Did she reply?”

“She did. She said, ‘Hello, Edgar.’”

“Were her parents accustomed to letting her go with boys?”

Amazed to See Her Uptown.

“No. They were not. It amazed me when I saw her uptown at such an hour with a man. She looked like she was tired and fagged out.”

“What did she wear?”

“A light purple dress, black shoes and a light blue ribbon tied in her hair. She didn’t have a hat. An umbrella was in her hand.”

“Can you swear that it was Mary Phagan you saw?”

“I can and I will. I am swearing now that it was Mary Phagan I saw.”

“Can you swear it was Mullinax?”

“I am not so positive about him. If it wasn’t, it was his spit-and-image.”

“Did you know Mullinax’s name?”

“No. Not at that time. I had seen him so much around the car barns, though. I learned his name later.”

“When did you first hear of Mary’s murder?”

“Sunday morning on an English avenue trolley car.”

“Who did you first tell?”

“Mrs. Coleman, her mother.”

“Did the paper tell who was killed?”

Went to Mother Of Girl.

“No. I heard men at the car barn say the girl’s name was Phagan. I immediately remembered seeing Mary at midnight. I went straight to Mrs. Coleman and learned that it was her daughter.”

“Where did you work before becoming connected with your present employers?”

“I was in the navy.”

“When did you leave?”

“April 18, 1913.”

“How long had you been there?”

“Three months.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because of eye affliction. I couldn’t read the targets on the rifle range.”

“Is your eye sight ordinarily affected?”

“Not particularly so.”

“Are you sure your eyes didn’t fail you when you saw this girl Saturday at midnight?”

“I am positive they did not.”

“Do you drink?”

“Occasionally. But I never get drunk.”

“Were you drinking Saturday night?”

“Not a drop.”

At this juncture the clothing worn by the murdered girl was held to the questioned man’s gaze.

“Is this the dress she wore when you saw her Saturday night?”

“It is.”

Bloody Hairs Are Found.

The discovery of a dozen strands of bloody hair identified by her sister workers as that of the murdered girls was related by R. P. Barrett, a mechanic in the pencil plant who made the find.

He was placed upon the stand directly after it had been vacated by Policeman Lasseter.

“What is your employment?”

“I am a machinist with the National Pencil company.”

“How long have you been with them?”

“Seven weeks.”

“Did you know Mary Phagan?”

“Yes. She ran a nulling machine at the factory.

“When did you see her last?”

“Tuesday, one week ago. She didn’t work after that because of shortage of metal.”

“How far is her machine from the dressing room she used?”

“About six feet.”

“Was anything unusual found around the machine at which she worked?”

Splotches Of Blood.

“The girls at the factory told me Monday that Mary had been murdered. They were dim, and looked as the floor at the base of her machine. I found several dim, and looked as though whitewash had been spread over them. It looked as though the floor had been swept carefully.”

“Was anything else found on the floor?”

“Yes. Monday morning, I started to work upon a lathing machine nearby the nulling machine of Mary’s. My hands became tangled with long hair. I picked out a dozen strands or more. They were bloody. A number of the girls came and identified them as having come from Mary’s head.”

“Was Mary a quiet girl?”

“Exceptionally quiet, and a very well behaved one.”

“Did anyone pay, or attempt to pay, attention to her?”

“Not of my knowledge. No one did around the factory.”

“How large was the spot of blood you found near the machine at which she worked?”

“About six inches in diameter. There several smaller spots.”

“What floor?”

“Second.”

“How near the elevator?”

“At the extreme end—200 or more feet, I would judge, from the lift.”

Girls Afraid Of Frank.

“Did you ever know of familiarity which Frank tried with Mary?”

“No.”

Declaring that, in his opinion, both of the notes found beside the dead girl’s body were written by the same person, F. M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National bank, and a handwriting expert, said that the script in the mysterious missives resembled only slightly that of the writing of the suspected watchman.

He took the stand at 3:30 p. m.

“What experience have you in distinguishing handwriting?”

“Only the experience that could be gained by my twenty-three years of service with the bank.”

The notes were shown him. He inspected them closely in the light of a window fronting Decatur street.

“Were they written by the same person?” he was asked.

“In my opinion, they were.”

Was Factory Used For Assignation?

Berry, the factory mechanic, was recalled to the stand at 4:10 o’clock. Sensational evidence was gained from him relative to the usage of the factory building as an alleged place of assignation for men and women.

“Did anybody work in the plant during a Saturday?” was the first question.

“No one of my direct knowledge. I heard, however, of two young employees who were at work on the top floor.”

“Do you know them?”

“Not their names.”

“Could you point them out to the detectives?”

“I could.”

“Then,” from Coroner Donehoo, “I will send a man after them. You go with him.”

“What is the usual pay hour of the factory?”

“At 12 noon on Saturdays.”

“Have you ever heard of the building used for immoral purposes?”

“Yes. Frequently. A Mr. Asbury Calloway, connected with the Scaboard offices near the factory building, has told me that he has often seen men and women and girls going in and out of the building at night.”

“Had you heard such rumors from the inside of the concern—by that is meant from attaches to the plant?”

“No.”

“Don’t you suspect that some of the girls of the factory have filled clandestine appointments in the building?”

“I don’t think so. I believe every girl in the place is straight—absolutely.”

Gantt Smiles During Quiz.

J. M. Gantt, the Marietta youth who is held as a suspect in the Phagan case, was put through a grueling examination. He never flinched through the ordeal, answered the questions promptly and concisely and smiled during the entire procedure.

He was put on the rack the moment his sweetheart, Pearl Robinson [Pearl Robinson was actually the sweetheart of Arthur Mullinax, not Gantt — Ed.], had been excused. He remained under examination probably longer than any other witness except the negro, Newt Lee. The time was an hour.

“Did you know Mary Phagan?”

“I did. I had known her since she was a little tot.”

“Were you ever employed with the pencil factory?”

“I was—up until three weeks ago.”

“Why did you leave them?”

“I was discharged.”

“Why were you discharged?”

Alleged Shortage the Trouble.

“Because of personal differences with Mr. Frank, the superintendent.

“What were the differences?”

“Two dollars short in the pay roll.”

“Were you in charge of the pay roll?”

“I was paymaster.”

“Did you ever see Frank with Mary Phagan?”

“No.”

“You always paid off the employees, did you not?”

“I did.”

“How were they paid?”

“With the envelope method.”

“Did you ever pay Mary Phagan?”

“Yes.”

“What did she make?”

“Presumably $4.05 a week, judging by the wage scale of the plant.”

“When did you see her last?”

“The day I quit the pencil company.”

“Had you seen her since?”

“No.”

“Where did you go on Saturday?”

Went to the Factory.

“I went to the pencil factory about 6:30 o’clock that afternoon.”

“Did you see Mr. Frank there?”

“Yes.”

“Did he appear excited, agitated?”

“Yes. He seemed nervous.”

“Did you ever hear Mary Phagan say she couldn’t trust Frank—that she feared him in any manner?”

“No.”

“How long were you in the building Saturday afternoon?”

“No longer than ten minutes.”

“What did you do?”

“I got a pair of shoes I had left in the place when I quit. Also, I telephoned my sister, Mrs. F. C. Terrell what time I intended coming home that night. I used the phone in Mr. Frank’s office.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Went to the poolroom, watched several games of pool and went home.”

“What time did you arrive home?”

“10:30 p. m.”

“Were you there when the police came?”

“No.”

“Did your sister tell of their visit?”

“No.”

Shank Takes Stand.

Other testimony relative to the rumored immoral reputation of the factory building was gained from V. F. Shank, of Shank Bros., whose establishment is on Forsyth street, near the pencil plant.

Shank was called immediately after Barrett had left the stand.

“Do you work at night?”

“I do.”

“Have you ever seen couples going into the pencil factory?”

“I have seen no couples. I have witnessed girls and men going singly into the place after dark.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen this?”

“Last summer some time.”

“Did you make a statement recently of having seen girls enter the building?”

“I said a crowd of such sights I had seen. We were discussing the question of whether or not frolics were secretly held in the place.”

Thought Girl Was Mary.

E. S. Skipper, of 224 1-2 Peters street, testified that he saw a sextet of men and women reeling drunkenly up Trinity avenue from Whitehall street Saturday night shortly before 11 o’clock. One of the girls, he said, answered the description of Mary Phagan.

“What did you see at Trinity and Whitehall?”

“Three men, two women and a girl dressed like and resembling the dead girl whom I saw at Bloomfield’s. The girl was weeping and trying to break away from the party. She was being led up the street.”

“Did either man answer the description of Frank?”

“I haven’t seen Frank.”

At this juncture the examination was stopped. Frank was brought down from the detectives quarters and put face to face with the witness.

“That’s not the man,” Skipper said.

“When you saw these drunken men and women leading a reluctant girl, didn’t you think it your duty to call the police?”

“I see scenes like that on the streets every Saturday night.”

Step-Father Tells of Grief.

J. W. Coleman, step-father of the murdered girl, told graphically of the grief in the little home on Lindsay street over the death when he took the stand at dusk.

“How old was Mary Phagan?”

“She would have been 14 next June.”

“When did you last see her alive?”

“Friday night. She was at home early and was helping her mother with the housework. I left for work too early to see her Saturday morning.”

“When you got home Saturday afternoon, was Mary there?”

“No. My wife came and said ‘Mary has not come home. What do you suppose is the trouble? I am scared to death.’ I couldn’t eat supper. Her absence affected me. Mary was never known to be away from home at night.

I came to town and visited all the picture shows staying until they all had closed. When I returned, my wife and I speculated on what could have become of the child. We never slept any that night. At daybreak Helen Ferguson, a girl chum of Mary’s came over.

The moment she rang the door bell my wife jumped from her seat. ‘Oh Lord, that’s bad news from Mary,’ she said. The Ferguson girl came in. ‘Mary has been murdered,’ she told us. My wife fainted and she has been almost unable to walk since.”

The coroner then adjourned the inquest until 4:30 o’ clock today.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, May 1st 1913, “Frank Tried to Flirt With the Murdered Girl Says Her Boy Chum,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Georgian

Wednesday April 30^th, 1913

R. P. Barrett, 180 Griffin Street, a machinist at the National Pencil Company, was one of the witnesses of the late afternoon.

He was asked:

Q. How long have you worked at the National Pencil Company?—A. Seven weeks the last time. I worked there about two years ago.

Q. Did you know Mary Phagan?—A. Yes.

Q. What did she do?—A. She ran a “tipping” machine.

Q. When did you last see her?—A. A week ago Tuesday.

Q. Did she work last week?—A. No.

Q. You say you worked in the same department with Mary Phagan? Were your machines close together?—A. Yes.

Q. When did you go to work?—A. Monday morning.

Found Spots on Floor.

Q. Did you find anything unusual?—A. When I went in I was told that Mary had been murdered in the plant and I saw spots on the floor that I thought were (?) used by blood. It looked as though someone had tried to sweep them away, and as though whitewash had been poured over them. I called Mr. Quinn, the foreman, and he notified the detectives. The blood spots were chipped up off the floor and taken to the police station.

Q. Did you find anything on any of the machines?—A. Mr. Quinn gave me some work to do and I started to work on one of the hand lathes. I started to lathe and some hair tangled in the machine, got twisted in my fingers. I called Mr. Quinn and all the girls came up and identified the hair as that of Mary Phagan.

Q. Whose hair do you think it was?—A. It looked to me like Mary’s.

Q. How long have you known Mary?—A. Six weeks.

Q. Was she quiet?—A. Mary was a very nice, quiet girl, and I never had seen her in any misconduct.

Q. Have you ever seen any men with Mary?—A. No. I have seen Mr. Gantt come through and speak to all the girls, but I never saw him speak to Mary in particular.

Q. How large was the place that seemed marked over with whitewash?—A. It was a spot four or five inches in diameter.

Girls Feared Frank.

Q. Did you see traces of blood around the elevator?—A. No, sir.

Q. How far was it from the elevator?—A. Fully two hundred feet.

Q. Was Mr. Frank familiar with the girl?—A. Not that I know of.

Q. Did you ever see them together?—A. I never have. I have heard the girls singing at their work, and when Mr. Frank would come they would stop. They were afraid of displeasing him.

Q. In what condition was the hair that you found?—A. Tangled and torn.

Q. How many hairs were there altogether?—A. About a dozen.

At this point Mr. Barrett was dismissed, and F. M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National Bank was called to the stand.

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, April 30th 1913, “Machinist Tells of Hair Found in Factory Lathe,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)