Lemmie Quinn, foreman, who testified that he visited the factory and talked to Mr. Frank just after Mary Phagan is supposed to have left with her pay envelope. He was given a searching examination by the coroner Thursday, but stuck to his statement.

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

Atlanta Journal

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

Lemmie Quinn, the Factory Foreman, Was Put Through a Grilling Examination, but He Steadily Maintained That He Visited the Factory Shortly After the Time Mary Phagan is Supposed to Have Left With Her Pay Envelope

FRANK’S TREATMENT OF GIRLS IN FACTORY DESCRIBED AS UNIMPEACHABLE BY ONE YOUNG LADY EMPLOYEE

Mr. Frank’s Manner at the Time He Was Informed of the Tragedy by Officers at His Home on Sunday Morning is Told of by Former Policeman — Both Frank and the Negro Night Watchman Are Expected to Testify During Afternoon, When Inquest Will Be Concluded

The coroner’s inquest into the mysterious murder of Mary Phagan adjourned at 12:55 o’clock Thursday to meet again at 2:30. At the hour of adjournment, six witnesses had testified. They were “Boots” Rogers, former county policeman; Lemmie Quinn, foreman of the pencil factory; Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee of the factory; Miss Hattie Hall, stenographer; J. L. Watkins and Miss Daisy Jones. L. M. Frank and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, were both present at headquarters during the morning session, but neither had been recalled to the stand when recess was ordered. Both are expected to testify during the afternoon, when an effort will be made to conclude the inquest and return a verdict.

Though put through a searching examination by the coroner in an effort to break down his statement that he had visited the factory on the day of the tragedy shortly after noon just after Mary Phagan is supposed to have received her pay envelope and left, Quinn stuck to his story. He declared that he had recalled his visit to Mr. Frank, and that Mr. Frank told him he was going to communicate the fact to his lawyers.

“Boots” Rogers testified that Mr. Frank had changed the tape in the time clock while the officers were in the factory Sunday morning after the body of Mary Phagan had been found, and that he stated at the time that the sheet he took from the clock seemed to be correct. Rogers also described Mr. Frank’s manner when the officers went to his home in an automobile to take him to the factory Sunday morning.

Miss Daisy Jones, who was mistaken for Mary Phagan by J. L. Watkins. She was a witness before the coroner Thursday. G. W. Epps, the boy who came to town with Mary Phagan on the day of the tragedy and left her on her way to the factory [right].

Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee in the factory, testified that Mr. Frank’s treatment of the girls in the factory was unimpeachable. She also testified that she had met Lemmie Quinn at a restaurant near the factory near the noon hour Saturday, her statement being confirmatory of his visit to the factory on the fatal day. J. L. Watkins testified that he had mistaken Miss Daisy Jones for Mary Phagan when he thought he saw Mary on the street near her home on Saturday afternoon about 5 o’clock. Miss Jones testimony was also in this connection.

NEW WITNESSES CALLED.

Following a conference between Solicitor General Dorsey, Assistant Solicitor General Stephens and Chief of Detectives Lanford, just after the inquest recessed for lunch, it was learned that Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee would be recalled at the afternoon session and that there would be the following new witnesses: Miss Alice Wood, of 8 Corput street; Miss Nellie Pitts, of 9 Oliver street, and Mrs. C. D. Dunnegan [sic], of 165 West Fourteenth street.

Rogers Describes Mr. Frank’s Manner When Told of Tragedy

“Boots” Rogers, formerly a county policeman, was the first witness. Mr. Rogers said that he lived at 100 McDonough road. He was at the police station at 3 o’clock on the morning of April 27, he said, when a call came from the factory of the National Pencil company. The officers responded to the call in his automobile, he declared. Those who went with him were Police Sergeants Brown and Dobbs, Call Officer Anderson and Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter.

Mr. Craig was the first person to enter the basement, the witness said. He (Mr. Rogers) entered second; Dobbs and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, bringing up the rear. All saw the body about the same time, Mr. Rogers said.

George W. Epps

The witness said that the girl’s body was lying face down, with the hands folded beneath the body. The body was turned over by Police Sergeant Dobbs, he said.

Rogers continued that they found two notes near the body. The first note, found by Sergeant Dobbs, was on white scratch paper and on a tablet lying face down. The sheet with the note on it was detached and fell off when the tablet was picked up. It was lying about a foot from the body’s right shoulder. Another note was found later, written on a yellow order blank of the factory, lying about a foot from the feet of the body. Rogers wasn’t sure whether he or Sergeant Dobbs noticed that first. He didn’t notice a sharpened pencil nearby. There were a number of stubs, but none sharpened that he saw.

Asked “Who telephoned Mr. Frank that the girl was dead?” he said no one did as nearly as he remembered—that Detective Starnes telephoned Mr. Frank later in the morning to come down to the factory.

About two or three minutes after the first officers arrived with him, said Rogers, they were admitted to the factory. They saw the negro night watchman, Newt Leet, through the glass door, coming down the stairs with his lantern.

“She’s down in the basement—she’s down in the basement,” Rogers aid the negro told them first. He showed them the way down, indicating the trap door and the ladder. Britt Craig, a newspaper man, went first, and was followed by the witness, then by Sergeant Dobbs of the police, and last by the negro.

Everything was in gloom, though a gas jet was burning dimly at the foot of the ladder.

NEGRO WASN’T EXCITED.

“Look out, white folks, you’ll step on her,” the witness said the negro exclaimed when they started toward the rear of the basement. The negro took the lead then, with his lantern, and led them to the body. The negro’s manner was as cool as that of a man would be under the circumstances, said the witness. The negro wasn’t excited. “He was being questioned by all of us,” said the witness. He answered questions promptly.

“How did you happen to find the body?” the witness said was one of the questions put to the negro. He repeated the negro’s answer—of how he was making his rounds, and entered the basement, and by the dim rays of his lantern noticed a suspicious looking object on the ground near the back. “Somebody’s put that there to try to scare me,” the negro said he remarked to himself, going over to see closer. The body was revealed and he hurried back upstairs to telephone the police.

BODY FOUND FACE DOWN.

The witness said that Sergeant Dobbs asked the negro how the body was lying when he found it. The negro’s answer was “on its face.” “Did you turn it over?” the negro was asked; and answered “no sir, I didn’t touch it.”

This point of the evidence was in conflict with previous testimony by the negro himself, who swore at the inquest that when he found the body it was lying on its back face up, with its head toward the back door—exactly the reverse of the position in which the officers found it.

Rogers, the witness, said that the body was lying on its face, hand folded beneath it, when he and the officers first saw it. The negro stuck to the same story while answering all the questions, said the witness. After about ten minutes Sergeant Dobbs ordered that the negro be held under arrest. The negro was taken upstairs by Call Officer Anderson. The rest of them looked around for the girl’s left shoe, which was missing from the body.

Officer Anderson and the negro went upstairs first alone. Twenty or thirty minutes later the witness went up and found the officer and the negro sitting in the office. Anderson was trying to telephone to some of “the factory folks,” said the witness. The negro was sitting nearby in silence. Some one suggested that the officer telephoned to Mr. Frank, the superintendent, at his home. Anderson tried to get Mr. Frank’s number. There was no answer. Anderson talked to the operator, and told her something very serious had happened and that the call was urgent; and Anderson said he heard the persistent ringing that followed.

IDENTIFIED AS MARY PHAGAN.

While he and Sergeant Dobbs had been moving about downstairs, looking for the girl’s shoes, said Rogers, they found the staple on the back door pulled, and pushed the door back and went out into the alley, searching it to Hunter street for some clue. Rogers then went away to find some one to identify the body, said he. The shoe was found by somebody else later. He went to 100 McDonough road, said he, to get Miss Grace Hix, a relative of his own, whom he knew to be employed in the factory. He brought Miss Hix back with him in the automobile, and she identified the body as that of Mary Phagan. Miss Hix sought first to telephone to Mary’s mother, Mrs. J. W. Coleman, but there was no phone in the Coleman home, so she telephoned instead to the home of another girl, Miss Ferguson, and got Mrs. Ferguson, and asked her to go over and break the news to Mrs. Coleman.

MR. FRANK NOTIFIED.

Mr. Rogers said that Detective Starnes, who had been summoned to the factory, called Mr. Frank over the telephone shortly after 6 o’clock. The witness said that he drove Detective Black to Mr. Frank’s home, and that Mrs. Frank, wearing a heavy bathrobe, came to the door. He said that Mr. Frank stood in the hall, fully dressed except his collar and tie.

The witness said that Mr. Frank appeared nervous and excited and asked whether the night watchman had reported to the police that something had happened at the factory. Mr. Rogers said that neither he nor Mr. Black answered.

The witness said that Mr. Frank remarked that a drink of whiskey would do him good and that Mrs. Frank said there was none in the house, but insisted that Mr. Frank get some breakfast before going out. However, they hurried to the undertaking establishment, the witness said.

Mr. Rogers said that on the way to the undertaker’s establishment, Mr. Frank remarked that he had dreamed he had heard his telephone ring about daybreak. Detective Black asked Mr. Frank whether he knew Mary Phagan, the witness said, Mr. Frank replying that he didn’t know whether he did or not.

The witness said that Mr. Frank did not go into the room in which the Phagan child’s body lay.

Mr. Frank remarked, the witness said, that he could refer to his payroll and see whether Mary Phagan worked at the pencil factory.

“Was Mr. Frank steady or trembling at the undertaking establishment?” was asked Mr. Rogers.

“I couldn’t say,” he answered.

Mr. Frank suggested that they go to the factory, the witness said. At the factory, the witness said, they found a number of detectives and policemen and Mr. Darley, an official of the factory, who had been summoned. They went upstairs, the witness aid, to the office and Mr. Frank referred to the payroll, saying that Mary Phagan worked there and that she had been paid $1.20 the day before, shortly after 12 o’clock.

ELEVATOR AT SECOND FLOOR.

The witness said that Mr. Frank then asked if the pay envelope had been found, remarking that it must be around somewhere. They went to the basement in the elevator, which stood at the second floor, the witness said. Mr. Frank switched the current and there was some delay in getting the elevator to work. The fire doors of the elevator were open at this time, Mr. Rogers said, but he didn’t remember whether they were open or closed when he went to the factory the first time.

The elevator was run to the basement, the witness said and Mr. Frank was shown where the body had been found.

CHANGED TAPE IN CLOCK.

When he returned from the basement, said the witness, he sat in Mr. Frank’s inner office with the negro , Lee. Mr. Frank stayed in outer office, but came in twice where he and negro were, and, on the second trip, Mr. Frank looked at the negro and shook his head and said, “Too bad!”

Mr. Frank asked repeatedly if the officers were through with him, saying he wanted to go out and get a cup of coffee, but no opportunity to get the coffee arose. After a while, said the witness, after Mr. Frank had been through the building with Chief of Detectives Lanford, Mr. Frank suggested that they change the tape in the time clock. Mr. Frank took a key to the clock, which he wore on a ring at his belt, and opened the clock with it and removed the time slip and laid it down by the clock. He then went back into his office and got a blank slip. He asked one of the officers standing near to hold back a little lever while he inserted this slip. The lever knocked against a little pencil in the clock. Newt Lee, the negro, was standing near. Mr. Frank turned to the negro and asked, “What is this pencil doing in the hole?” Lee said he had put it there so his number would be sure to register every time he rang. Mr. Frank put the key back at his belt and dated the slip which he had taken from the clock with a pencil which he took from his pocket. The witness though Mr. Frank wrote the date “April 26, 1913,” on it, but he wouldn’t be sure about that, he said.

Mr. Frank, after examining the slip, stated that it was punched correctly, said the witness. He also looked at the slip. The first punch started at 6 p. m., and it was punched every half hour, the witness thought, up to 2:30 o’clock. At 2:30 was the last punch. Mr. Frank took the slip into his own office, said the witness, and the witness said he did not know what became of it after that. A little later they all got into his automobile, said Rogers, Mr. Frank sitting in Mr. Darley’s lap in front beside him (the witness) at the wheel, and some of the officers sitting with Frank in the back.

At this point the coroner asked where Mr. Darley was when the clock slip was being removed. He was standing near by, said the witness.

After delivering his passengers at police headquarters, said Rogers, he went with Miss Hix to take her back to her own home.

On the trip to headquarters, said he, Mr. Frank did not seem to be as nervous as he had been. When he returned to headquarters, said the witness, the detectives were getting Newt Lee, the negro, to write. Lee then seemed very nervous.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 8th 1913, “Phagan Inquest in Session; Six Witnesses are Examined Before Adjournment to 2:30,” 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 5^th, 1913

Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs was the witness who followed Grice. The officer had already testified on the first day of the trial and was brought back for only a few minutes.

“Did you find a handkerchief that Sunday morning in the factory?”

“Yes, sir, in the basement near a trash pile.”

“That’s all,” said the solicitor.

Mr. Rosser then asked the officer several questions in regard to the detail of the basement and said he was through.

Mr. Dorsey then showed the officer a flashlight photograph of the spot in the basement where the girl’s body was found. It was the flashlight taken by Francis E. Price, Constitution staff photographer, on the morning the body was found and used the next day in The Constitution. The solicitor had borrowed it from a member of the staff.

The picture showed Detective John R. Black standing near the spot, and Mr. Rosser interrupted with some very pleasant remarks about “My handsome friend, Black.”

Mr. Dorsey then tendered the bloody handkerchief in evidence and had the officer identify it as the one he had found.

Sergeant Dobbs was then excused. He had been on the stand less than fifteen minutes.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 5th 1913, “Flashlight in The Constitution Introduced in Trial of Frank,” 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 4^th, 1913

Secretary of State Board of Health Will Resume Testimony Interrupted by His Collapse on Last Friday.

STATE TO USE PHOTO OF SPOT WHERE BODY WAS FOUND BY NEGRO

Friends and Relatives Besiege Prisoner in Cell on Sunday. Shows Little Evidence of Strain of Trial, Say Jail Officials.

The state will open this afternoon’s session of the Frank trial with Dr. Roy Harris on the stand, it is stated, if the physician’s health is as much improved as it was on Sunday.

The solicitor had not finished his examination of Dr. Harris on Friday afternoon when he collapsed upon the stand and necessitated the support of Deputy Sheriff Plennie Miner in moving from the courtroom.

A sharp clash is expected between the state and defense over Dr. Harris’ testimony. In an exacting cross examination of Dr. J. W. Hurt Saturday morning, the defense proved that many of the opinions held by the two physicians were conflicting.

State Will Use Photo.

The solicitor has requested a reporter of The Constitution to produce in court this morning a photograph taken by The Constitution staff photographer on the morning of the discovery of the murder of the spot in the pencil factory basement at which Mary Phagan’s body was found. Just what use to which the picture will be put has not been divulged.

Arrangements have been made by Deputy Miner to prevent overcrowding the courtroom, which has been the case in the later sessions of the trial. Instructions will be given doorkeepers to let only a certain number within the building, after which the doors will be closed to all those who are not engaged in the proceedings.

Frank spent a restful Sunday in his cell in the Tower. Throughout the day, friends and relatives besieged his cell. His health, it is stated by jail officials, is good, and he shows but little evidence of the strain caused by the trial. His wife and mother remained at home during the day, recuperating from the effects of the long hours stay in the courtroom. They did not appear at the jail at any time during Sunday.

Will Use Dobbs Again.

Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs, who has already been on the stand for the state in the Frank trial, is expected to be recalled this morning, as his name was called Saturday afternoon and his absence alone prevented him being used again.

What further detail the state expects to bring out by the police officer is not known and it may be that he will be kept on the stand only a few minutes to tell a few additional things about the trip to the factory Sunday morning that the body was found and thus impress certain facts upon the jury.

Jim Conley, the negro sweeper, will be placed on the stand some time during the early part of the week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday, as the state is gradually paving the way and leading up to Conley’s statement.

Will Lanford Take Stand?

Before Conley takes the stand Newport Lanford, chief of the detective department, may be put up. Solicitor Hugh Dorsey refuses to say definitely whether or not he will use Chief Lanford, but it is known that the defense has made preparation to attack him and fight against him the same battle that battered John Black to pieces.

Chief Lanford will be confronted with the various statements he made during the progress of the trial and the belief is that the defense will try to show that he went into the case with the view of fastening the crime upon one man the man against whom suspicion did not seem to point for a few days, but who is now the defendant in the case.

Just what will happen when the experienced detective faces the grilling that Luther Rosser is capable of or the alert and confusing questions that Reuben Arnold can fire at a witness is a matter of much speculation.

Mrs. May Barrett, who was examined by the solicitor and who was expected to appear during the trial has not been called upon and whether or not she will take the stand is yet unknown.

Mrs. Formby in Background.

Mrs. Mina Formby has remained in the background thus far and while the woman recently declared that she would be at the trial to testify she has not so far been mentioned and apparently no effort has been made to pave the way for the story she is said to have.

That the state is yet holding something to be used in the final effort is known and yet what that is no one can say. From the attitude of the state’s lawyers something is yet to come but whether it will be of more importance than what has already been developed remains to be seen.

It is expected that at least two days will be taken up by Conley’s statement and cross examination and should the negro be brought up as early as Tuesday and used as the final witness, the defense would not open its case until Thursday.

Already the state has introduced numbers of its witnesses. Sergeant Dobbs, Detective John Black and Pinkerton Detective Harry Scott. Boots Rogers and others who went to the factory and saw the body of Mary Phagan have told their story.

N. V. Darley, one of the factory heads and various employees of the factory have been used.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 4th 1913, “Dr. H.F. Harris Will Take Stand This Afternoon,” 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
July 30^th, 1913

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

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

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

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

Knew She Was White.

“I couldn’t tell at first whether the girl was white or black, and had to turn her over,” he stated, “and when I saw her white skin on her body where her clothes were torn and when I brushed the dust off her face, I knew she was white.

“There was some blood on the back of her head and it was dry on the outside, and moist near the skull where I placed my hand,” he continued. “A cord was tired so tightly around the neck that it had cut into the flesh and over that a piece of underclothing was tied, but it was not at all tight.

“I accused Lee of doing it or of knowing who did,” the officer went on, “and I looked around and saw a couple of notes after I had poked this stick of mine into the sawdust. They read about like this—“

He had started to repeat the notes when the solicitor stopped him and it was at this point that he testified that the cord and piece of cloth exhibited were very similar to those he had seen that morning.

“There was not much blood about the hair,” he replied in answer to the solicitor.

“Was it moist or dry?”

“Dry on the outside and moist near over to tell whether she was white the roots of the hair where I put my hands.”

“Was it a damp or dry place where you found the body?”

“Well, rather damp.”

Identifies Murder Notes.

Dobbs then identified the murder notes and also the scratchpad which he found near the body, one note at the foot and another near the girl’s head.

“Did you know who this girl was?”

“No; but I learned later she was Mary Phagan.”

He then was made to go into detail about the position of the body and of how he poked around in the sawdust with his cane in search of some evidence.

Then the officer told of sending Lee to jail and declared that Lee was not excited but was cool. Solicitor Dorsey then had the officer go into detail about the drawing, and Mr. Rosser made strenuous objections to this, but Dorsey won his point and Sergeant Dobbs finally declared that the drawing was perfect as far as he knew.

Mr. Rosser then took up the cross-examination and asked a number of questions about the picture, making the officer look away from it while answering. The attorney seemed to be doing his best to discredit the drawing.

“Was Lee excited?” he suddenly queried.

“No.”

“Could you tell if the girl was white or black right at once?”

“No, I could not.”

“Didn’t you have to turn the body or black?”

“Yes.”

Reason for Questions.

Lee had previously testified that when he saw the body and got close enough to convince himself that it was really the body of a person and not a dummy placed there by some boys to frighten him that he could tell by the “frizzy hair and white spots on the face” that she was a white girl, and the attorney seemed to wish to start proof that Lee had either approached much closer to the body than he had said he did, or else knew something more about the affair than he had told.

Mr. Rosser then made Dobbs go over the detail of finding the notes and also of finding the girl’s missing shoe and hat and of the fact that the ribbon upon the hat was gone when he found it.

“Did the body look like it had been dragged and did there show any traces on the ground where it might have been dragged?” asked Mr. Rosser.

“Yes, sir, the body looked somewhat like it had been dragged by the feet and with the face down and I thought I found evidence of where something like a body had been dragged from the elevator shaft to the place where the body lay.”

Did Not Appear Excited.

Mr. Rosser again took up the question of whether or not the officer believed Lee was excited when he came in. Again Dobbs declared Lee did not appear excited.

“From where Lee showed you he first saw the body, could it really have been seen?”

“I think so.”

“Didn’t you swear before the grand jury,” said the attorney, probably meaning the coroner’s jury, “that Lee could not have seen the body from where he told you he did see it?”

Sergeant Dobbs declared that he did not believe that he had said that before the coroner’s jury.

“I thought I saw marks where a body had been dragged from the elevator shaft to where the dead girl lay,” he answered to the next question.

Produces Stenographic Report.

Here Mr. Rosser again produced the stenographic report of the coroner’s hearing and declared that according to it the officer had declared that he did not see the marks of where a body had been dragged began directly in front of the shaft.

As Lee had previously stuck out against what the stenographer had transcribed, so did the officer, and despite the production of the sworn notes of the court stenographer, the officer held to his original statement and declared that he had at first declared that the marks of a body being dragged had begun in front of the shaft and that he had said that all along.

Sergeant Dobbs then told of finding the staple pulled off the back door of the basement and the bar being pulled back. He was again made to go into detail in regard to reading the notes to the night watchman and swore that Lee had interrupted with, “That’s me, boss,” when he reached word “night” in reading the note.

After he had gone into more detail about the girl’s clothes and the torn or cut condition in which they were found, court adjourned until 2 o’clock.

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

Atlanta Constitution
July 30^th, 1913

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

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

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

“Who cleaned the girl’s face?”

“Sergeant Brown, I believe.”

“How?”

“With a piece of paper.”

“How was the body removed?”

“In a corpse basket.”

Here the examination was taken up by the solicitor general.

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

“About 150 feet.”

Found Slipper and Hat.

“Did you discover anything on a trash pile in the basement?”

“I found a slipper and saw a blue hat.”

“Is this the hat?”

(The wide blue straw hat worn by Mary Phagan was held before the witness.)

“Yes—that’s it.”

“Did you many experiments in the basement?”

“About 10 o’clock that night I went to the basement in company with other policemen. We put a bundle in the spot on which the body was found, and, with a lantern similar to the watchman’s, were able to see it from the point at which Lee said he had first seen the body.”

“Were you satisfied that Newt could see the body from the point which he had described?”

(An objection made by the defense to this question was sustained.)

“Could an ordinary man carry a body through the scuttle hole in the first floor?”

“I hardly think so. It is difficult for a man to get through it alone.”

“Were there signs of a body having been dragged in the basement in front of the elevator shaft?”

“Yes.”

“How did the staple in the back door appear to have been extracted?”

“Pulled straight out.”

Body Cold and Rigid.

“Any indication that it had been forced out by pressure from outside the door?”

“No.”

“Was the girl’s body warm or cold?”

“Cold and rigid.”

“Describe it’s condition.”

“The hands were folded across the breast, and it lay stretched out, head toward the scuttle hole.”

“Did you search the first floor for scratch pads or clues?”

“Yes.”

“Find any?”

“No.”

The defense resumed the interrogation.

“Do you know how the staple was extracted?”

“No—I have only an idea.”

“Wouldn’t it be possible for a man to drop a body through the scuttle hole?”

“Yes, if he dropped it through headfirst.”

It was clearly evident from the nature of questions put by Mr. Rosser that the defense would attempt to show that Mary Phagan’s body had been lowered through the scuttle hole and not carried down upon the elevator as argued by the prosecution.

Sergeant Dobbs was then excused.

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

Atlanta Journal
July 29^th, 1913

QUESTIONS DIRECTED AT NEGRO INDICATED AN EFFORT TO THROW SUSPICION UPON WATCHMAN

“We Might as Well Begin to Show the Negro a Criminal Now as Later,” Declared Attorney Rosser, In Arguing for Admissability of His Questions—Negro Was Taken Over His Testimony Many Times in Effort to Break Him Down

INDICATIONS TUESDAY ARE THAT TRIAL WILL LAST MANY DAYS, PROBABLY AS LONG AS TWO WEEKS

Morning Session Enlivened by Clashes Between Attorneys, Every Point Is Bitterly Contested—Frank Keeps Serene and Untroubled Throughout Session—Full Story of Testimony Given by Witnesses During the Morning

After a luncheon recess of an hour and a half Tuesday the trial of Leo M. Frank was resumed at 2 p. m. with Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs still on the witness stand. The morning session was given over to the continued examination of Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, and the direct and cross examination of Sergeant Dobbs.

There were frequent clashes between the attorneys for the defense and the solicitor during the morning. Every point was bitterly contested, and once the jury was sent from the room while the lawyers argued the fine points of the law. It was evident that the case was to be fought at every point.

The most significant feature of the morning session was an intimation by Attorneys Rosser and Arnold, counsel for Frank, that they might seek to connect the negro nigh watchman with the murder. It was during a colloquy between the lawyers for the defense and the state relative to the admissibility of the negro’s testimony as to what was said to him by the police officers about the contents of the notes found beside Mary Phagan’s body.

Solicitor Dorsey made the point that the notes had not yet been introduced as evidence and unless the defense was seeking to impeach the witness or to connect him with the crime it was not proper for him to questioned concerning the contents of the notes.

Then Attorney Rosser declared: “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.”

Attorney Arnold made the point that the negro’s comment on the contents of the note immediately after they were read to him indicated a previous knowledge of them.

No further effort, however, was made to connect Lee with the murder. The negro was on the stand altogether just four hours and forty-five minutes. The tedious and detailed examination of his witness indicated that every point in the case would be hard fought by both sides. He was led back and forth over the same ground, it being the evident intention of the defense to discredit his statements relating to unusual agitation on the part of Frank on the day of the murder.

Sergeant Dobbs’ testimony concerned the finding of the girl’s body, and the two notes which were picked up near it. Also the condition of the body when found.

During Tuesday afternoon other officers will probably be introduced to give similar evidence, and it is believed the undertaker, who prepared the body for burial, will also be put on the stand.

Court officials believe how that the trial will run well into a second week and that James Conley, the negro sweeper, will be on the stand for two or three days. It is not known when the state will call Conley, but he will doubtless be the climax witness and all the energies of the defense will be directed toward breaking him down.

Frank followed the progress of his trial Tuesday with great interest and apparent satisfaction. He listened intently to everything said in the court room and frequently he conferred with his attorneys. He often smiled while conversing with his wife and mother who sat beside him.

About fifty spectators retained their seats in the court room throughout the recess, foregoing lunch and fresh air in order to insure for themselves good seats at the afternoon session. Mrs. Frank and her husband lunched together in an ante-room of the court. The jury returned form [sic] lunch and a short walk at 1:50 o’clock.

Court reconvened three minutes early, at 1:57 Sergeant Dobbs continued to the stand. He was asked a few questions in cross-examination by Attorney Rosser and then Solicitor Dorsey took up the re-direct examination. The solicitor brought out additional points about the finding of the body. He stressed the fact that the trimming of the girl’s had never has been found so far as the sergeant knows. Sergeant Dobbs identified some blue ribbon as the same that was on Mary Phagan’s hair when her body was found.

DOBBS’ TESTIMONY.

The solicitor read a transcript of the testimony given by Sergeant Dobbs before the coroner’s jury relating to the indications that Mary Phagan’s body had been dragged.

The transcript was right, said the sergeant. The dragging seemed to have started at the corner of the elevator shaft. Using Mary Phagan’s umbrella as a pointer, the solicitor had the sergeant trace the line of the dragging marks.

It showed that the body had been taken out of the elevator and pulled around the corner of the elevator shaft under the ladder. By this testimony the solicitor evidently expected to lay his plan for combatting the possible theory that the defense might advance that the body was taken down the ladder itself.

The solicitor asked the sergeant if it would be possible for a man to carry the body down the ladder. It was hard for man to go down by himself, said the sergeant, and no ordinary man could have carried the body down.

The solicitor then asked the sergeant about a photograph of the rear door of the basement. The photograph appeared in the same frame with the diagram. The photograph showed the hasp in place and the bar across the back of the door.

Sergeant Dobbs said that the bar was in that position when he saw the door, but that the hasp was pulled out and the lock was lying on a platform immediately at the right. The bar evidently did not interfere with the opening of the door, for the door slides and does not swing.

Sergeant Dobbs said that the hasp was not bent and evidently had been pulled straight out. He identified the lock and hasp themselves, the solicitor handing them to him.

The sergeant stated that the body was cold when he found it. He identified the low-quarter shoes. One of them, said he, was on one foot of the body and the other was found on the trash pile near the boiler.

The dead girl’s hands were folded across her breast (beneath her body.) The body was rather stiff, bue [sic] he could work the fingers at the joints.

Leo M. Frank, the accused, was reported to have been sleeping soundly when the deputies went up to awake him in the jail Tuesday morning to take him to court for the second day of his trial.

Frank arrived at court, under charge of Sheriff Mangum, very shortly after 7 o’clock, and his breakfast was brought to him there from his home.

A crowd of several hundred people was gathered around the doors of the court house at 8:30 o’clock.

Mrs. Leo M. Frank, the wife of the accused, and his mother, Mrs. Ray Frank, of Brooklyn, appeared together in the court room about fifteen minutes before the trial was due to resume. Judge Roan, presiding, arrived shortly after them and went into the seclusion of his chambers. Lawyers for both sides arrived at five minutes to 9 o’clock.

Frank entered court at 8:50 o’clock and resumed his seat between his mother and his wife.

LEE RESUMES TESTIMONY.

Judge Roan went upon the bench at 9 o’clock and convened court. The jury brought in and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman on the stand at adjournment Monday afternoon, was recalled to the witness chair.

Just before court was convened, the doors were opened for a few moments and the crowd surged in until the 250 seats in the room were filled, leaving a hundred or more disappointed people outside the doors, which then were shut.

Attorney R. R. Arnold examined the diagram of the pencil factory which the state introduced Monday.

Attorney Rosser resumed his cross-questioning of Newt Lee.

For the first half hour of this interrogation Mr. Rosser sought to develop from the negro just how close he got to the dust bin before he saw the body. He wanted the negro to estimate in feet, which the negro was reluctant to do. Referring to measure distances by object or persons in the court room. The negro did estimate distances in feet, however, qualifying his estimates by “about”.

Mr. Rosser evidently was endeavoring to make the negro admit that he could not [1 word illegible] the dust bin from the toilet, [1 world illegible] he would have found it necessary [1 word illegible] closer in order to see into the bin. As a result of the cross-questioning, the witness said that after he left the toilet he raised the lantern above his head and walked four or five feet toward the dust bin. He was then a good way from the body.

WITNESS BECOMES NETTLED.

When he first saw the feet of the body, the negro declared, he did not believe it was a body lying there. He then was scanning the dust bin to see if there was any fire there.

Mr. Rosser asked him a number of questions as to why he did not look into the dust bin on his former trips to the basement that night, and questioned him also at considerable length as to the relative location of the dust bin and the toilet, asking if it was not true that the dust bin was not considerably at his right at the end of a partition. The negro became nettled at Mr. Rosser’s insistent questioning on this point, and rising to his feet and clapping his hands he declared, “I’m going to tell you just like it is.”

He then explained that the dust bin was diagonally opposite where he stood and in plain view.

Mr. Rosser asked him how far it was from the trap door to the dust bin.

“Isn’t it about 125 feet?”

The negro said he didn’t know, but it was a long way.

Mr. Rosser asked the negro why on his preceding trips into the basement that night he did not go farther back than the ladder. He had gone farther back, said the negro—twenty-five feet or so.

“On this particular trip you went back beyond the toilet, didn’t you?”

The negro said yes, that he would have gone father than he did if he hadn’t seen the body. He walked up close to the body with his lantern over his head. He wanted to see, he said, if it was an “natural” body. He didn’t know but what it might have been an “unnatural” body.

He didn’t know how long he looked at it, he said, before he went to call the police. He didn’t stand there ten minutes, or five.

“I LIT ER RAG.”

“Two minutes?” “I don’t know, sir.” “Two seconds?” “I don’t know, sir, but I’ll tell you the truth. I held up my lantern and looked good and just as quick as I found out it was a natural body I lit er rag!” The bailiffs rapped for order in court.

The face of the body was “all dirty,” said the negro. Several white spots showed through the dirt, however, and the body’s hair was “frizzly.” He realigned at once that it was a white person, said he, and hurried away. He led the police to the basement and showed them the body by their electric searchlights, said he.

He didn’t know how long it was until the police decided it was a white girl. They arrested him right away, said he, and sent him upstairs. Before that, however, he heard one of the officers say, “This is just a child. She must have been killed two or three days.”

He didn’t remember whether they carried him back to the basement any more that morning. Some days later the officers took hi[m] from police station to the basement. The negro didn’t notice whether the rear basement door was open when the officers came. He was positive that it was not open earlier in the night.

The negro, describing the position of the body, declared that the girl was lying on her back with her head turned over so that the left side of her face was up. He saw blood, he said, on the left side of her head.

The attorney cross-examined the negro on his statements made at the coroner’s inquest, and examined the negro for half an hour or more with the evident purpose of discrediting Lee’s testimony of Monday afternoon relative to Frank being arrested on the afternoon of April 26.

TILT IN COUNSEL.

This examination led to a lively tilt of the opposing attorneys. Attorney Rosser was reading from the record of the coroner’s inquest on Lee’s testimony regarding Frank’s actions when he first saw J. M. Gantt at the door of the factory that afternoon. According to the record as read by Mr. Rosser, Lee did not say at the coroner’s inquest that Frank jumped back but did say that he looked frightened. At the inquest, according to Mr. Rosser’s reading, Lee did say that he supposed Frank was frightened because he had fired Gantt from the position of bookkeeper.

Mr. Rosser wanted the witness to repeat that remark. Solicitor Dorsey was objecting immediately. It was a matter of opinion, said the solicitor, and when the negro expressed that opinion he did not know what he, Dorsey, now knows, and what the jury will know. After the attorneys had wrangled for some fifteen minutes over the point, Attorney Rosser turning to the counsel for the state said:

“I want to accommodate my young friends whenever I can.”

Attorney Hooper, who was sitting down, remarked, “Well, you’ve got to accommodate me on this.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Mr. Rosser.

“Yes you have,” returned Hooper.

“The man hasn’t been born that I’ve got to accommodate,” retorted Mr. Rosser. After registering a strenuous objection that Mr. Dorsey had tried to lecture him, Mr. Rosser proceeded. Judge Roan ruled that the negro’s opinion was inadmissible. Mr. Rosser read the opinion, however, without getting an answer from the negro upon it.

LEE DENIES RECORD.

Newt Lee, the witness, took vigorous issue with the record.

“Boss, I can’t help what they write there,” said he. “I’m telling all I know about this.”

Mr. Rosser then went back to the finding of the body and read the record on that, wherein it appeared that when Lee realized it was a body he leaped from where he stood and went up the ladder. The negro demurred at that way of putting it, prefer[r]ing to say that he “lit out.”

Mr. Rosser called the negro’s attention to the fact as he stated it that nowhere in the record of the coroner’s inquest did he state that it took Frank twice as long on Saturday to put the tape on the time clock as it had on a previous occasion. Lee contended that he had told the coroner’s jury that it took “longer,” but Mr. Rosser couldn’t find that in the record. The negro said nobody asked him at the inquest to make a comparative statement.

The negro appeared to be holding his own remarkably well under the rigid cross-examination by Mr. Rosser. He argued with the attorney without hesitancy, and took open issue with the inquest record whenever the attorney contended that it conflicted in minor ways with his testimony in court.

THE NOTES.

Mr. Rosser asked Lee if he was in the basement when the police found some notes beside Mary Phagan. Before Lee could reply to the question Solicitor Dorsey objected. The notes themselves would be the best evidence on that point, he said.

Attorney Rosser argued that he wanted to show Lee’s ready interpretation of these notes. What Lee said is not admissible, returned Mr. Dorsey, because Lee himself was not on trial.

Attorney Reuben Arnold for the first time since the trial began spoke up in court. If Lee had made damaging admissions, he argued to the court, they would be relevant and admissible.

Before the court could rule, the solicitor asked that the jury be taken out of court so the question could be argued. If evidence tending to involve Lee had to come before the jury, said he, he wanted it to come in the shape of admissible evidence and not from the argument of opposing attorneys and “in the right way.” The jury was taken out. This was the first time the jury had left court.

Attorney Arnold addressing the court, contended that any substance or fact connected with the witness Newt Lee, which would show that he had something to do with the killing, is admissible. Although the night watchman admits having discovered the body, and late at night at that, he denies all previous knowledge of the crime and says that two notes were found by the body. The meaning of these notes, said Mr. Arnold, is obscure and doubtful.

ARNOLD READS NOTES.

“We expect to show that the witness testified that two notes were found,” said he. “That the officers endeavored to read them to him and that they were obscure in meaning. One of them read this way. ‘He said he would love me. Laid down. Play like the night witch did it, but that long tall black negro did it by his self.’

“The man who wrote that note was trying to lay the crime on a long tall black negro. It was a clumsy effort to exculpate some other man. As soon as the words ‘night witch’ were read to the witness, he spoke and said ‘That means me. I’m the nightwatchman.’ This shows that the negro had knowledge of these notes. On the stand here he has appeared very dense and ignorant. Mr. Rosser has been compelled to question him at great length to bring out the slightest fact. In this instance, however, he interprets this note in a second and half.”

Solicitor Dorsey was asked by the judge to restate his objection to this.

“This conversation, your honor,” said the solicitor, “occurred between this witness and somebody else. Even had it been with Frank, the defendant, it would not be admissible. He is asked if a man did not read a note to him. The defense concedes that it was a note. They have got this note in their hands at this moment. I contend that it is not admissible to go into the contents of any paper, as the paper itself is the highest and best evidence, and no such paper has been introduced at this trial.

“It is not proper for the defense to attempt to go into the contents of this note by this witness. Such a course would not be proper except for the purpose of impeaching the witness and even then it is necessary to have the highest and best evidence—which is the note itself.”

HOOPER SPEAKS.

Attorney Hooper, for the state, cited a case to show that the question would be inadmissible.

“If they undertake as they have indicated here,” said he, “to put the crime on somebody else, that would put a different aspect on the matter. But until they do drain their guns on some third party, no such evidence can be admitted.”

Attorney Rosser replied by saying:

“Your honor, we’ve got to commence somewhere to show him as a criminal. We can commence here as well as anywhere else.”

Solicitor Dorsey insisted that the defense, through the line of questions put to the negro, was seeking to put the notes in evidence. This was denied by Attorney Rosser. The defense simply is using the notes to refresh its memory, said he, and to suggest questions for the witness.

JUDGE ROAN’S RULE.

Judge Roan ruled that anything was admissible which tended to show that this witness expressed anxiety or trepidation. While ruling that the cross-examination could proceed as begun by the defense, he announced that he would not permit the defense to go into the contents of the notes. The judge said further that it is for the jury to interpret the conduct of the witness. The jury was brought back and the cross-examination was resumed.

Mr. Rosser, reading from the note, asked Lee:

“Didn’t one of the police begin to read this from the note: ‘The tall black slim negro did this. He will try to lay it on the night’—and when he got that far didn’t you say, ‘Boss, that’s me?’”

Solicitor Dorsey again objected, but Judge Roan held against him.

Lee asserted emphatically that he did not exclaim, “Boss, that’s me.” He said that he did say, “Somebody must have been trying to put it off on me.”

This concluded the cross-examination of the negro.

On redirect examination, Solicitor General Dorsey asked:

“Did you ever know Jim Conley?”

“I met him the first time in jail the other day.”

“Did anybody try to put this off on you?”

“No, sir.”

“Did Mr. Frank ever try to put it off on you?”

The question was objected to by the defense, and the judge ruled for the defense.

“Whom have you talked to about this crime?” continued Mr. Dorsey.

“I talked to you and to some of the officers.”

“Did you ever talk to Mr. Arnold here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you know that he was an attorney for Mr. Frank?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you ever decline to talk to anybody about this?”

“No.”

“Have you ever tried to conceal anything?”

“No.”

Mr. Dorsey then brought from the negro the statement that Frank had remarked on the length of time it took him to fix the tape on the clock the second time and that was the reason the negro claimed to remember the incident.

About twenty minutes were consumed in the examination of a diagram of the building which the solicitor offered, the negro identifying parts of the picture.

THAT “THIRD DEGREE.”

Resuming the cross examination of Lee, Attorney Rosser brought out from him again the location of the laboratories and machines, etc. In the rear of the second floor of the factory. The attorney questioned him also about the basement and its lighting conditions. Mr. Rosser questioned him about his treatment since arrest—who questioned him, how they dealt with him, etc.

Lee denied vehemently that the police had discharged a pistol close to his head to frighten him. Mr. Rosser asked him if the police hadn’t cursed and abused him, and even prayed for him.

“Well, they never prayed much,” answered the negro. Attorney Rosser then asked him if the detectives didn’t question him continuously, one after another, and drive him almost crazy. “They didn’t get much sleep for a few days after I was arrested,” answered the negro. “As soon as I would lay down, somebody would call me and start in to questioning me.”

Mr. Rosser asked him about interviews with detectives, singly and in pairs or greater numbers; particularly about one said to have taken place in the jail recently when he was present with Jim Conley, Attorney Hooper, Solicitor Dorsey and Detectives Campbell and Starnes. Lee said that for the first two days in jail he was bothered all the time with questions, but after that he was left alone, and after the inquest he was willing to stay in jail because he wasn’t molested much.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the negro if Mr. Frank talked to him in the county jail.

“No, sir.”

THROUGH WITH LEE.

Lee was excused then by both sides. A deputy sheriff started with him back to the county jail. “I never want to get up there again,” said the negro, referring to the witness stand.

SERGEANT DOBBS ON STAND.

Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs followed Newt Lee to the stand. He related how on Sunday morning, April 27, about 3:25 o’clock a call was received at police headquarters about the murder at the pencil factory.

He, in company with Sergeant Brown, Call Officer Anderson, Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter, and W. W. Rogers, rushed to the factory in Rogers’ automobile.

Arriving at the factory, they found the front door locked. About two minutes after they knocked, the negro, Newt Lee, came down and opened it. The negro told them a dead woman was in the basement, and led them down through the scuttle hole and down a ladder into the basement. There was a gas light burning dimly at the ladder.

The negro led the officers about 150 feet back toward the rear of the basement. Just in the rear of a board partition on the left, the negro pointed out a body lying on the ground. The body was that of a girl, lying on its face with the left side on the ground and the right side raised slightly.

The sergeant couldn’t tell at first glance whether the body was that of a negro girl or a white girl. He noticed the dark hair on the head. He turned the body over. The face was covered with dirt and dust. With a clean piece of paper he wiped the dirt from the one side of the face and saw that the body evidently was that of a white girl.

DESCRIBES WOUNDS.

To satisfy himself further as to the color of the body, the sergeant said he raised the skirt just above the left knee and saw that the skin was white. He noticed on the face where he had wiped it several slight wounds such as might have been made by the “picking” of a pocket knife.

A large cord was around the neck. The end of the cord trailed from the right side of the throat. This cord was drawn tight and had sunk deep into the flesh. A ruffle torn evidently from some underclothing was tied also around the neck but not so tightly as the cord.

There was a bruise on the right side of the head. Apparently it had been made by a blow. The hair was matted with blood. Sergeant Dobbs continued that after examining the body he called Lee, the night watchman, and questioned him about the matter, accusing him of having committed the crime or of knowing something about it.

He asked the negro how he happened to find the body in the dark basement. Solicitor Dorsey stopped the witness at this point and directed him not to give any hearsay evidence—to tell only what he saw himself.

“I looked around to see what I could find,” said the witness, “and discovered a couple of notes.”

Picking up some documents from his table, the solicitor started to hand them to him but changed his mind. He picked up a cord and some other articles which had been placed on the witness stand and asked Sergeant Dobbs:

“Have you ever seen this cord before?”

IDENTIFIES CORD.

The witness identified it as the cord which he found around the dead girl’s neck.

The solicitor held out his arm and had the witness loop the cord around his wrist and explain to the jury just how it was tied around the girl’s neck. The witness called attention to the slip knot in the cord. He also identified the strip of ruffle which was found around her neck.

There was not a great deal of blood on the head and hair, said he. The blood on the outside of the hair was dry, but down close to the scalp it was moist. The place where the body was found was damp.

The solicitor handed to him some documents which were identified by Sergeant Dobbs as the two notes and the tablet he had found near the body. The notes were enclosed in celluloid covers, front and back, with tape holding the covers together at the edges.

Sergeant Dobbs said that he did not know who the dead girl was, when first he saw the body. Later, said he, he learned that it was Mary Phagan. He described the position of the body, saying that the head was pointing toward the front of the building and was close to the partition.

The notes, said he, both were found under the sawdust near the head. Scratching around with his stick, he uncovered them. The tablet was just a few inches from the notes. He ordered that Lee be taken to the station house and locked up, said the sergeant.

He said that Newt Lee was cool and calm when he saw him first and that at no time did the negro seem to be excited. His attention was called to the diagram of the factory interior, produced Monday by the solicitor, and he pointed out the position of the body when he found it.

After Sergeant Dobbs had identified the diagram, Attorney Rosser took up the cross-examination. For the defense, Mr. Rosser questioned him closely as to the demeanor of Newt Lee when the police arrived, and Sergeant Dobbs repeated that the negro was calm.

SCRATCHED FOR NOTES

He did not remember saying at the inquest that the negro seemed to be very excited, he said. Mr. Rosser stressed the point that the sergeant had found the notes only after raking his stick through the sawdust.

He also brought out the fact that there was considerable trash, a number of pieces of paper, and several pencils, lying around in the basement. One of the girl’s shoes and her hat had been found, said the sergeant, on a trash pile in front of the boiler.

In reply to questions Sergeant Dobbs declared that it looked to him as if the body had been dragged on its face. There was a trail in the dirt leading from the elevator to the point where the body was found, he said; and in addition the face looked as if someone had dragged the body, holding its feet.

Mr. Rosser asked the witness if he was certain that this trail led from the elevator, and when the witness answered “yes,” he read the record of the coroner’s inquest wherein the sergeant had testified, he said, that the trail led from the corner near the ladder.

Mr. Rosser questioned him regarding the police test of Lee’s ability to see the body from the point at which he claimed to have been standing when he first spied it. Sergeant Dobbs said that it was possible to see the “bulk” of the body, but would have been difficult if the person had not been looking directly for some object.

Attorney Rosser brought out the fact that there was blood on the girl’s underclothing and that this blood was dry; also that the blood on her face was dry, but moist at the roots of the hair on the scalp.

The sergeant admitted that he found the finger joints of the body movable. The staple on the back door looked as if it recently had been pulled out.

COURT TAKES RECESS.

Attorney Rosser developed from the witness the statement that when he reached the word “night” in reading one of the notes, Newt Lee exclaimed, “That means the night watchman.” The witness declared that the strip of underclothing around the girl’s neck was over, not under, the cord. At this point Attorney Rosser completed his cross-examination, and at 12:30 o’clock the court recessed until 2 o’clock.

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

Atlanta Georgian
July 29^th, 1913

STATE TRIES TO SHOW GIRL WAS STRANGLED ON THE SECOND FLOOR

Here are Tuesday’s important developments in the trial of Leo M. Frank on the charge of murdering Mary Phagan in the National Pencil Factory, Saturday, April 26.

Newt Lee, negro night watchman at the pencil factory, leaves the stand after four hours and forty minutes of examination and cross-examination with the essential points of his story unshaken.

Efforts to discredit the negro’s story result only in showing several discrepancies in the story he told before the Coroner’s jury and his testimony on the stand at the trial.

All attempts to confuse Lee by telling him that the stenographer’s report of the inquest has him making slightly different statements met invariably with his declaration that “they didn’t get it right down there.”

L. S. Dobbs, police sergeant, testifies to the finding of the body of the Phagan girl and says that Lee had a ready interpretation of the two notes when they were found by the dead body.

City Detective Starnes testifies to finding bloodstains on second floor and says Frank was nervous the day after the crime. He says he found what he took to be fingerprints of blood on a door in the basement.

Starnes is closely cross-questioned by the defense in an effort to show the spots he thought blood might have been aniline dye. In a lawyers’ clash over certain questions Solicitor Dorsey is told to “sit down” by the judge.

City Detective J. M. Starnes told late Tuesday afternoon at the trial of Leo Frank of the finding of a number of red splotches resembling blood in the northeast corner of the women’s dressing room in the National Pencil Factory, testimony on which the prosecution relies to support its theory that Mary Phagan was murdered on the second floor of the building.

Starnes said that the principal part of the largest splotch was about as big as the palm of his hand.

He also testified that he found blood about 40 or 50 feet from the dressing room toward the front of the building, and that he discovered what he took to be finger-prints of blood on the door of the basement. The fingerprints, he said, he chipped off and now has the chips of wood in his office.

Starnes asserted that there were indications that a white substance had been used with the evident purpose of eradicating what appeared to be bloodstains. The detective described Frank as nervous when he was brought down to the factory the morning after the crime.

Tells of Clock Tests.

He said in reply to Solicitor Dorsey’s questions that he had witnessed the new night watchman make a complete series of punches in the time clock for an entire twelve hours within a space of five minutes, in an effort to support the theory the State is expected to advance that Frank doctored the time tape submitted to the police department which seemed to show that the neight [sic] watchman, Lee, had made three skips.

Attorneys Go After Lee.

Newt Lee, night watchman at the National Pencil Factory, was harassed and assailed by counsel for Frank in a vain effort to win from him admissions a[i]ding the theory that he was otherwise involved in the crime than as the man who found the body. Lee was on the stand from 9 o’clock to 11:40 a. m.

However, through Lee and Sergeant L. S. Dobbs, one of the officers called to the factory the morning of Sunday, April 27, the attorneys for Frank laid the groundwork for the elaboration of their theory that Jim Conley was the murderer of Mary Phagan and that Lee assisted in writing the notes that were found by her body.

From Sergeant Dobbs, Luther Rosser, chief of counsel for Frank, obtained these admissions:

Points in Dobbs’ Story.

That Lee, ignorant and illiterate, was able to decipher and explain in a flash the mysterious notes over which the officers had puzzled for several minutes.

That Lee spoke up and said, referring to the words “night witch” in one of the notes: “That’s me, boss; that means the night watchman.”

That the condition of Mary Phagan’s begrimed and bruised face gave the indication that the girl had been dragged along the dirt floor of the factory basement, although Jim Conley, in his story of his part in the crime, declared that he had carried the body to the trash heap in the rear of the basement.

That Dobbs, with the aid of an electric flashlight, was unable to tell whether the slain girl was white or colored until he had pulled down her stocking, although Lee had testified to being able to tell that the girl was white by the dim rays from his smoky lantern while he was standing at a distance of five or six feet.

Lee’s Story at Variance.

That Dobbs at the Coroner’s inquest testified that he had had a Mr. Williams lie down in the place where Mary Phagan’s body was found and, taking the position Lee said he was in when he first saw the body, discovered that, as a matter of fact, the body could hardly be seen from this point unless one was looking especially for it.

Lee testified, under the cross-examination of Attorney Rosser:

That the time he found the body was the first time he had gone farther than 25 feet from the ladder in the front of the basement that night.

That he knew it was a white woman, although he did not approach nearer the body than five or six feet, and had no light except the dirty lantern.

That he recalled that the officers, with a flashlight, were unable to identify it as white or colored for some time.

That he did not say, “That’s me, boss,” referring to one of the notes, but something to the effect that “They are trying to put this on me.”

After a short battle of words, between Rosser and Solicitor Dorsey, Reuben R. Arnold, associated with Rosser, asked for the first time during the day to be heard, and plainly […]

DEFENSE FAILS TO OBTAIN CRIMINATIONS FROM LEE

[…] indicated that it was the intention to prove that Newt Lee was concerned in the writing of the two mysterious notes found by the mutilated body of Mary Phagan.

Jurors Sent From Room.

The Solicitor objected strongly to arguing before the jury the admissibility of this testimony of Lee’s, and the jurors were excused while Arnold outlined the purpose of the defense.

“We expect to show that two notes were found by the body of Mary Phagan,” said Arnold.

Solicitor Dorsey had just given Mr. Arnold the two notes found in the basement and Judge Roan ordered the jury to retire. Mr. Arnold said:

“The defense expects to show that the two notes found in the basement of the National Pencil Factory were very obscure notes and the police were trying to read them in the presence of Lee.

“They read this one: ‘He said he would love me, laid down, played like the night-witch did it, but that long tall black negro did it by his-self.”

Lee’s Explanation.

[Several words illegible] Lee said, “That night-witch means me,” said Arnold. “It showed familiarity with the notes. This negro who is so dull that Mr. Rosser has to repeat his questions now and again interpreted thi [sic] mysterious note in a second and half.”

Here Dorsey interrupted.

“Since Attorney Arnold has the note itself, there is no reason to ask what somebody else said about it.”

Assistant Prosecutor Hooper here joined in:

“Unless it was intended to try to connect Lee with the crime, what someone else said about the notes to Lee is wholly inadmissible. The charge must be made against him.”

“We don’t have to photograph a criminal. We have got to begin somewhere,” retorted Rosser.

Judge Roan sustained the defense, saying that it might produce evidence to show anxiety on the part of the negro, or a lucid interpretation of the notes.

“Suspicion on Lee,” Says Rosser.

“We expect to show that the notes were obscure and doubtful in meaning. We expect to show that the officers were endeavoring to read them. But [several words illegible] meaning. In one of them we will show that the wording was something like this, so far as I can decipher it: ‘He said he would love me, laid down, played like the night-witch did it but that long, tall, black negro did it by his-self.’

“We want to show,” continued Arnold, “that Lee spoke up and said, ‘That’s me, boss. That means night watchman.’

“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?”

Rosser supplemented Arnold’s argument by remarking that he regarded Lee’s alleged remarks as highly suspicious, and that he considered he had the right to question a witness with a view of showing that a person or persons other than the defendant had a part in the crime.

Judge Roan ruled with the defense, and the jury was returned. The judge declared:

“The attorneys for Frank are privileged to bring out evidence showing anxiety or fear on the part of the negro.”

Lee Makes Denial.

Lee denied when questioned that he had said, “That’s me, Boss; that means night watchman.” He testified that he told the officers that someone was trying to put the crime on him.

Sergeant L. H. Dobbs, one of the officers who visited the factory after Lee called the police station, testified before the Coroner’s jury in regard to Lee’s ready explanation of the notes.

Rosser ended his cross-examination [several words illegible] the negro had been on the grill two hours Monday afternoon and nearly as long Tuesday.

The efforts to discredit Lee’s story began the moment Rosser got him on the stand. He sought first to show that it was a very peculiar circumstance that Lee went clear to the rear of the factory basement, where he found the girl’s body, when all through the earlier part of the night he had gone only a short distance from the foot of the ladder in the front of the basement.

Calls Lee’s Excuse Flimsy.

“Every time you went down into the basement you went only about 25 feet from the ladder to see if there was fire in the dust pan,” said Rosser, repeating Lee’s testimony, “and yet at this time, when you say you found the girl’s body, you assert that it was necessary to go clear to the rear to ascertain the same fact?”

Lee replied that he had gone to the rear of the basement for another purpose and Rosser attempted to show that this was only a flimsy excuse.

By his line of questioning Rosser endeavored to ridicule the idea that Lee could have identified Mary Phagan as a white girl by the dim light of his dirty lantern when, as he testified, he got no nearer than five or six feet to the body, and when the officers with electric searchlights were not able to determine whether the girl was white or a negro because of the grime and cinders on her body, until they had pulled down her stocking.

Session Full of Clashes.

The session was full of spirited [several words illegible] It was a favorable forenoon for the defense, Rosser almost invariably being permitted to continue the line of questioning which he was pursuing.

Rosser, while he succeeded in showing up discrepancies in Lee’s present story with that before the Coroner’s jury, was unable to force the negro to any admissions incriminating in themselves.

Dorsey questioned Lee in redirect examination and Rosser in recross-examination and Rosser in recross-examination. Lee left the stand at 11:40 o’clock, after a total of four hours and forty minutes’ grilling.

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs followed Lee on the stand. He told the story of finding the body and identified the Phagan girl’s clothes and the cord that was used to strangle her.

Frank, his face a mask, was brought into the courtroom just before the court was called to order by Deputy Sheriff Plennie Miner.

After taking a cool survey of the courtroom, the factory superintendent conversed a moment with is counsel and then centered his attention on the night watchman. Frank took no notes of the negro’s testimony, but he evidently was making a mental record of every word of it.

What he thought of the negro’s statements could not be guessed from his features. Whether the negro was giving testimony which might be construed as favorable or as most damaging, there was not the shade of a change in the expression of the young factory superintendent.

He only took his eyes from the witness to speak a word to his wife or to answer an occasional question [several words illegible] sel. He was brought to the courthouse from the Tower at 7:45 by Sheriff Mangum and Deputy Sheriff Miner. He was dressed in a blue mohair suit with a striped effect, and wore a fancy gray tie.

Eats Light Breakfast.

His breakfast was brought to him at the courthouse by a relative, and consisted only of two slices of toast and a bottle of milk.

“I am well pleased with the progress of the trial to this point, he said in his conversation with Essenbach. “Nothing has been developed which has not already been well known to the public and attorneys and which will be explained in the light of the defense’s case.

“I am feeling well and confident. Nothing has taken place to disturb me in the least. I hope that the trial will move as rapidly toward its conclusion as the first day’s session gave promise. I have nothing to conceal and nothing to fear.”

Grilling of Lee Resumed.

The cross-examination of Lee was resumed as soon as court opened.

Q. How far were you from the body when you first saw it?—A. About ten feet.

Q. Could you see to either side?—A. No. I stood up, picked up lantern and went toward the dust pan.

Q. Why didn’t you go to the pan earlier in the night?—A. I just happened to take a notion to go this time.

Q. When you were in closet, which way did you look?—A. Toward the wail.

Q. What do you call the right?—A. This (indicating right hand).

Q. Well, the dust plan was on your right, wasn’t it?—A. Not exactly.

[Several words illegible] had to walk quite a distance to see whether there was any fire in the dust pan, didn’t you?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. How far did you walk?—A. A little piece below the light.

Q. Tell me exactly how far it was?—A. About as far as that man there. (About 25 feet.)

Q. You only went to the dustpan once that night?—A. Mr. Frank told me not to go near it with the lantern.

Shows How He Held Light.

Q. How close did you go to the body?—A. That wall there.

Q. How far is that?—A. About six feet.

Q. How did you hold the lantern to see it?—A. Like this. (Holding hand over head.)

Q. What did you see first?—A. The feet.

Q. How far was the body from the closet?—A. I don’t know.

Q. Was it two feet, ten feet or twenty feet?—A. I don’t know.

Q. Was it fifty feet, forty feet or thirty feet?—A. Somewhere about thirty feet, maybe not that much.

Q. How long did you look at the body?—A. I looked to see whether it was a natural body.

Q. You didn’t linger?

At this question Lee arose and pointed his finger at Rosser. “Just as soon as I saw what it was I want to tell you I lit a rag.”

Saw It Was White Girl.

Q. You saw it was a white woman?—A. There were one or two white spots on the face and her hair was frizzled.

Q. How long did it take the police to find she was a white girl?—A. I don’t know; they arrested me.

Q. What did they say?—A. One of them said this girl has been dead three or four days.

Q. When you came up did you go [several words illegible] remember.

Q. Did you notice whether the door […]

FRANK LAWYERS FAIL TO INCRIMINATE LEE

[…] was open when you went back?—A. No, sir.

Q. Did you tell the police it was a white girl or white woman?—A. I think I told them it was a white woman.

Q. She was lying on her back, with her face up?—A. Yes, sir; she was lying on her side with her face up, with blood on her head.

Q. Which side was the blood on?—A. It was on the right side. It was dry.

Q. Are you sure it was the right side?—A. No, sir; her left side was turned up to me.

Grill Grows More Severe.

Q. You swear she was on her back?—A. Yes, sir; her face was turned up kind of to one side.

Q. When you sent up to the office the first time, did Mr. Frank close his office door?—A. I don’t know. I couldn’t see his office.

Q. I mean the outside door?—A. It was open.

Mr. Rosser then read Lee’s testimony about the time slip before the Coroner’s jury.

Q. You helped him put the page in, didn’t you, Newt? This is right, isn’t it?—A. Read that again.

Mr. Rosser read it.

A. No, sir; you got me wrong. He didn’t come out of his office.

Q. You said yesterday that Mr. Frank jumped back when he met Mr. Gantt?—A. Yes, sir.

Dorsey Objects to Methods.

Mr. Rosser read Lee’s testimony before the Coroner’s jury, which said nothing about Frank jumping back.

Lee—“Well, they got that wrong.”

Q. That was a bad stenographer down there, wasn’t he?

Solicitor Dorsey here objected to this method of questioning the witness. He declared the negro should first be questioned and then an effort to impeach him made.

To this Mr. Rosser replied: “Of course, this gentleman on account of his age is entitled to lecture me!”

“I am addressing his honor,” retorted Dorsey.

“I have stated my objection,” said Dorsey.

“He misunderstood what I am trying to show,” said Rosser.

Court Sustains Dorsey.

“This witness can’t tell what his opinion is,” said Judge Roan, for the first time speaking. “He can tell what he swore to before the Coroner’s jury.”

Following this ruling the cross-examination was resumed.

Rosser read from the stenographic report of the Coroner’s inquest:

“Mr. Frank jumped when he met Mr. Gantt and I taken it this way.”

Here Solicitor Dorsey interrupted:

“I object to what he taken,” the Solicitor said.

Judge Roan ruled that no opinion of a witness was admissible.

Assistant Prosecutor Hooper then asked that Mr. Rosser state what Coroner’s inquest he was referring to.

Attorneys in Clash.

“I am always glad to accommodate these men whenever I can,” said Rosser.

“You have got to accommodate me,” retorted Hooper.

“No I haven’t. The man never was born whom I have got to accommodate.”

Judge Roan ruled that Mr. Rosser must state what Coroner’s jury he was referring to, as there were two, one in April and one in May.

Rosser resumed his questioning.

Q. I asked you if you were before the Coroner’s jury at the police station?—A. Yes, sir.

State’s Objection Overruled.

Q. Did you the first time say anything about Mr. Frank jumping back when he met Mr. Gantt?

Dorsey again objected, and was overruled.

A. Yes, sir; I did.

Rosser read Lee’s testimony before the Coroner’s first hearing, saying he was going to ask him if that was all he said. This testimony was to the effect that Frank looked as though he was frightened. It did not mention, however, that Frank jumped back when he met Gantt.

Q. Is that all you said?—A. No, sir; that wasn’t all I said.

Negro Answers Warily.

Q. Newt, I ask you if you didn’t leap right out of there and run and call the police when you saw that body?—A. Just as soon as I saw what it was.

Q. Didn’t you say this before the Coroner’s jury: “I thought some devilish boys had put something there to fool me. I got close enough to see it was a body and leaped right away?”—A. No, sir; I’ll tell you what I said.

Mr. Rosser interrupted Lee.

Q. Mr. Frank told you if anything serious happened, to call the police, and if anything trivial, to call him?—A. Yes.

Q. When Frank told you to go off and have a good time, you lit right out, didn’t you?—A. No, sir.

Q. Didn’t you say that after two or three minutes you lit out?—A. Not exactly that way.

Says He Doesn’t Recall.

Q. You said yesterday that when Frank put on the lock tape that Saturday it took twice as long as it did on the other times you saw him do it. When they asked you how long it took him to put it in before, did you not tell them you did not pay much attention to it?—A. I don’t recall.

Q. Why didn’t you tell the Coroner it took twice as long the last time as it did before?—A. I did tell them it took longer.

Q. Who asked you?—A. He looked like a blind man.

Q. Then all this record here is wrong?—A. I can’t help about those records.

Q. You never told it until yesterday?—A. Yes; I told the Coroner it took him longer.

Q. If you didn’t pay attention to him the first time, how did you know it took longer the second time?—A. I held the lever for him.

Q. You couldn’t say whether it took him a minute the first time?—A. Yes, it took over a minute.

Questioned About Notes.

Q. You could not say whether it took under a minute or over a minute?—A. No.

Q. Who did you live with?—A. No one.

Q. Who lived with you?—A. A woman. She just stayed there and cooked for me.

Q. You and her lived together?—A. No, she just cooked for me.

Q. Did you pay the rent for the last one?—A. Yes.

Q. How about the first one?—A. I just paid board.

Q. Were you down in the basement when the police found some notes?—A. They said something about a book.

Q. They read you something about the night watch doing it?

Dorsey here objected to anything anybody else said.

Rosser replied that his object was to get to the truth and show what Newt Lee did at the time, indicating a ready interpretation of the notes.

Mr. Arnold then addressed the court.

He began an argument and Solicitor Dorsey insisted that the jury be withdrawn.

“Of course, after he has discussed the case, he wants the jury withdrawn at our statements,” said Mr. Rosser.

“I understood Mr. Rosser to say he would not introduce the contents, and I understand this ruling excludes the contents of one of the notes?” asked Dorsey.

“No, I didn’t say we were not going to present the contents of the notes. I am going to introduce what I please,” answered Rosser.

Judge Roan again sustained the defense and ordered the jury brought back. Attorney Rosser then resumed his cross-examination.

Q. When you were in the basement, didn’t one of the policemen read a note which said something about a long, tall, black negro?

“I object,” said Dorsey. “I understood his honor to rule that the attorneys for the defense could not go into the contents of the notes.”

“Are we going on with this argument before the jury, after we just had them sent out?” asked Rosser.

“Let the question be put,” said Judge Roan.

Lee Denies Saying “That’s Me.”

Q. When he said “the night witch,” didn’t you say “Boss, that’s me?”—A. No, sir; I said, “Boss, it looks like they are trying to lay it on me.”

Q. No, I want yest or no from this—“The tall, black, long negro?”

Here Dorsey interrupted with an objection.

“Now where did Lee swear that.” […]

WATCHMAN STICKS TO HIS TALE OF FINDING OF BODY

[…] he asked, “A section of the Code says that you can’t question a man like that unless you present some certain evidence of the statement having been made or written.”

At this, Attorney Rosser sat down and Dorsey began questioning Lee on the redirect examination.

Q. You said something about somebody trying to put it off on you?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Did you know Jim Conley? A. I never saw him until that time last week.

Q. Have you talked to anybody about this?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you ever talk to this man (indicating Arnold)?—A. Yes, he was over to the jail after you were.

Lee Quizzed on Diagram.

Q. The first time Frank put that tape on the clock, did he say anything?—A. No.

Q. Did he say anything the second time?—A. He made a remark about its taking longer.

Q. What was the reason he changed the tape?—A. It had been used.

Q. Was it as dark in the basement at night as it was in the daytime?—A. Mighty near.

Solicitor Dorsey started over the diagram drawn by Bert Green, Georgian staff artist, of the National Pencil Factory, and proceeded to ask Lee a question and pointed at the diagram.

“I object to that picture,” said Attorney Arnold. “It is nothing but Mr. Dorsey’s theory of the case. He’s got all kinds of marks here.”

“He’s not asking about anything but the physical appearance of the building,” replied Judge Roan.

Solicitor Dorsey then had Newt Lee point out the various parts of the building shown on the diagram; Dorsey used as a pointer Mary Phagan’s parasol.

Q. Newt, say whether the body of Mary Phagan was lying the same way when you saw it with the officers as when you first saw it.—A. I don’t know, officers were all around it, and I couldn’t see very good.

Lawyers Clash Again.

Mr. Rosser took a stand directly behind Mr. Dorsey and objected to Dorsey leading the witness.

“Well, this negro is not as well educated as some of these lawyers,” said Mr. Dorsey. “It takes a little patience to get him to understand.”

“What lawyers are you referring to?” asked Mr. Rosser. “Do you mean yourself?”

“Of course, myself,” answered Mr. Dorsey.

Q. Was the toilet west or east from the boiler in the basement?—A. West.

Q. Was the body west or east?—A. The body was kinder west.

Q. Could you see Frank from that desk up stairs?—A. No, sir.

Q. Mr. Rosser asked you how far it was from the steps leading up to the second floor to Mr. Frank’s office. How far was it?—A. About as far as from here to that wall across the room.

Called Only Police.

Q. Did you call anybody on the phone that night but the police?—A. No, sir.

Q. Did you call Mr. Haas?—A. No, sir.

Q. Were the shutters on the north side of the second floor of that building closed on Saturday, April 26?—A. Yes, sir; they were closed.

Q. Were there apartments back there on the third floor?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Who were they for?—A. White people.

Q. Did white people use the closet in the basement?—A. No, sir.

Q. Who told you to use it?—A. Mr. Frank took me down there and told me to use it.

Q. What did he call it?—A. He called it a toilet.

Q. At night it is darker in the rear of that basement than it is outside?—A. You can’t see inside there at all back where the body was found.

Tries to Discount Diagram.

This ended the redirect examination, and Mr. Rosser began the recross-examination. He took up the questioning in an effort to prove that Lee did not understand the diagram of the pencil factory.

“What is this?” he asked, pointing to some blue coloring representing the blank wall.

“I don’t know, sir,” the negro replied.

Q. It looks like a mill pond, doesn’t it?—A. I don’t know just what it is meant for.

Q. The policemen and detectives talked to you all the time, didn’t they? They fired a pistol beside you; they cussed you and they praised you, didn’t they?—A. No sir; they didn’t praise me none.

Q. My friend, John Black, and those fellows talked to you day and night, didn’t they?—A. Well, just let me tell you, I couldn’t sleep even for two nights after I was put in jail. They just questioned me all the time, policemen and everybody.

Q. Is there any other way to get out of the basement except by the ladder?—A. Only the back door.

Q. Are there not some steps between the boiler and the back door up to the first floor?—A. If there are any there I don’t know it.

Black Talked to Him More.

Solicitor Dorsey at this point took up the examination.

Q. Did Frank talk to you in jail?—Yes, sir.

Q. Who talked longer to you, Frank or John Black, the detective? Rosser objected, saying the Solicitor had gone over the interview between Frank and Lee and no one had referred to it since.

“We want to know if repetition is going to be allowed,” Rosser asked Judge Roan. “It is simply to repeat. If we start a repeating contest we will be here forever.”

Judge Roan overruled the objection.

Lee replied: “Detective Black talked to me the most.

Q. Who talked to you longer, the detectives or Mr. Arnold, when he came to see you the other day?—A. Mr. Arnold.

Newt Lee was then called off the stand, after having been questioned for 4 hours and 15 minutes.

Sergeant Dobbs Testifies.

Dorsey said, “Bring in L. S. Dobbs, sergeant of police.”

Q. Where were you at about 3 o’clock April 27?—A. At the station house.

Q. Did anything unusual happen?—A. At about 3:25 a call came to go to the pencil factory. When we got there the door was locked. Later a negro came and let us in. He said there was a woman murdered in the basement. The negro led the way down, and about fifteen feet back we found the body. She was lying with her face down. We couldn’t tell whether she was white or black except that her hair was light. I told someone to turn her over. A cord was around her neck and sunk in her flesh. There was also a piece of cloth. I began to look around and found a couple of notes. One of them read——”

Mr. Dorsey interrupted. “Never mind about the notes,” he said.

Identifies Cord and Cloth.

Q. I will first get you to identify this cord (taking the death loop from a suitcase).—A. That looks like it.

Q. And this (exhibiting a torn piece of cloth)?—A. It is.

Q. Was there much blood?—A. Very little.

Q. Was the hair bloody?—A. Very little; I had to almost reach the skin to feel blood.

Q. Was it moist?—A. Dry.

Q. Are these the notes you found near the body? (Exhibiting notes.)—A. Yes.

Q. And this pad?—A. Yes.

Q. How were they lying?—A. Near the head.

Q. Were they close together?—A. Yes.

Q. What did you do with Lee?—A. Took him to the station.

Q. What was his bearing?—A. Cool.

Q. Mr. Dobbs, look at this (pointing to diagram of factory); point where the body was found?—A. Right here. (Indicating spot.)

Rosser—“I object to that picture until the witness says it is a fair representation of the building.”

Judge Roan—“I sustain the objection.”

Dorsey—“Is it a fair representation of the building?”

A. It is.

Dorsey: “That’s All.”

Rosser After Details.

Rosser took up the cross-examination.

Q. The negro told you she was a white woman?—A. Yes.

Q. You had to look very closely to find out?—A. Yes.

Q. What kind of light did you have?—A. We lit some gas jets and had lanterns.

Q. You found the notes under the sawdust?—A. Yes.

Q. You were not able to see them until you raked in the sawdust?—A. No, sir.

Q. Was the note attached to the pad?—A. No.

Q. How far from the child’s head was the first note?—A. Not over eight or ten inches.

Q. What note did you find first. A. The white one.

Q. Did you find much trash in the building?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you find other notes?—A. No.

Q. Did you search?—A. Yes, we were looking for the shoe, you know.

Q. Where was the shoe found?—A. Some one else found them.

Q. What was the condition of the child’s face?—A. You mean about dust?

Q. No; was there any indication that she was dragged?—A. I thought there was.

Q. Lee did become excited become he left the factory?—A. Yes.

Q. From the place where Lee stood, could he have seen the body?—A. Yes; part of it.

Q. Didn’t you make any experiment in the day time to see whether Lee could see the body?—A. Yes.

Q. Could you?—A. Yes, sir; the feet and part of the legs.

Q. I asked you if you said the evidences of dragging did not begin immediately in front of the elevator?—A. No, I said it appeared to me to begin immediately in front of the elevator.

Q. As a matter of fact, you didn’t find the hat and the shoes close together?—A. The hat and the shoes were on the garbage pile.

Q. The floor was rough and one being dragged over it would be scarred up?—A. Yes.

Q. Captain, you are mistaken about the wound being on the right side of the head, aren’t you?—A. I won’t be positive. It was near the rear of the head.

Q. Was the blood wet or dry?—A. Dry.

Q. This little trail which you […]

FRANK LISTENS INTENTLY TO GRILLING OF NEWT LEE

[…] thought showed where the body had been dragged extended to the body?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. You took hold of the hands and worked them?—A. Yes, but she was stiff. Her joints worked a little.

Door Staples Pulled.

Q. What was the condition of the back door?—A. The staple had been pulled, but the lock was still locked.

Q. Was the door open or shut?—A. It was a slide door and shut.

Q. Was it a bar door?—A. Yes. The bar was down.

Q. Did it appear to be a recent withdrawal of the staple?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you either read or quote to the negro Lee a statement about who had committed the crime, and when you said “night” Lee interrupted with a statement that he was the one referred to?—A. Yes, before I read the word “witch” he said he was the one referred to.

Attorney Rosser here exhibited a cord and a cotton cloth which Sergeant Dobbs identified as having been found around Mary Phagan’s neck.

Q. Did you examine her underclothes?—A. Not very closely.

Court was then adjourned until 2 o’clock when the redirect examination of Dobbs was taken up by Solicitor Dorsey.

Dobbs Recalled to Stand.

It was 5 minutes to 2 o’clock when Judge Roan walked to the bench and called order. He asked Solicitor Dorsey if he cared to question the last witness, Sergeant L. S. Dobbs, further. Mr. Dorsey replied that he did. Sergeant Dobbs was then returned to the stand, and the redirect examination began.

Solicitor Dorsey directed the questioning for the State:

Q. To what undertaker did you turn Mary Phagan’s body over?—A. Bloomfield, I think.

Q. How far is it from the ladder to the spot where you found the body?—A. 150 feet.

Q. What was lying on the trash pile?—A. A hat and this pump (displaying one of Mary Phagan’s shoe)/

Q. What else?—A. Nothing.

Q. What about the hat trimming?—A. I never saw it.

Q. The hair ribbon?—A. We took it from her head.

Experimented to Solve Crime.

Q. Did you many any experiments at night in the factory in an effort to ascertain just how and who committed the crime?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you become convinced that Newt Lee could have seen the body from where he sat?

A. Attorney Rosser objected to this question and the objection was sustained.

Q. Could more than one person at a time have gone down the ladder to the basement?—A. No.

Q. Would it have been possible for anyone to have taken the body down the ladder with them?—A. No.

Q. Would it have been necessary for anyone taking or dropping a body down the ladder to have gone around the elevator shaft?—A. No.

Q. Could you tell whether the evidence you saw of dragging was caused from the feet of some person carrying a heavy burden or actually dragging it?—A. No, sir.

Q. How did the lock on the basement door? Was it pulled up or out? A. Out.

Q. Look at this lock and hasp. (Dorsey exhibited lock and hasp from back door of pencil factory). Were they the ones you found on the back door?—A. Yes.

Q. Was the body cold or warm? A. Cold.

Dorsey Concludes Queries.

Q. Was there any blood on the ground or sawdust where you found the girl?—A. No, sir.

This concluded Dorsey’s examination.

Rosser then took the witness on the re-cross-examination.

Q. You don’t know how this hasp wos [sic] taken?—A. No sir.

Q. Mr. Dobbs, is it not a fact that you know whether this hasp was taken from the outside of the inside?—A. Yes.

Mr. Dorsey then arose and put a question to the witness.

“Where was the elevator on the morning that you found the body of Mary Phagan?”

At the office floor,” replied Dobbs.

Q. Couldn’t you tell from her hair that she was white?—A. Yes, if you got close enough.

Mr. Rosser questioned the witness again.

“Didn’t you say you had to make a careful examination to tell that she was white?”—Yes.

This concluded Sergeant Dobbs’ testimony.

Starnes Put on Stand.

The next witness to be called to the stand was Detective J. M. Starnes, who has been one of the principal investigators of the case. Solicitor Dorsey questioned him for the prosecution.

Q. What time did you get to the pencil factory after this crime was reported?—A. Between 5 and 6 o’clock Sunday morning.

Q. What did you do?—A. I met Sergeant Dobbs and went into the basement.

Q. Can you identify this staple and lock?—A. I do not know.

Q. This looks like the staple and lock from the pencil factory’s back basement door, doesn’t it?—A. Yes.

Q. How did you find the staple, was it pulled up or out?—A. The staple was pulled out from the back door, the indication being that it was pulled straight out.

Q. Was there anything to show how it was removed?—A. There was an indentation in the wood and a piece of rusty pipe which fitted the indentation.

Q. How did this door open?—A. It slid South.

Frank Didn’t Ask Reason.

Q. If the staple was in and the door was open from the outside, what woul[d] have been the effect on the staple if the door had been opened from the outside?—A. The staple would have been badly bent.

The attorneys for the defense were sustained on an objection to a question by Dorsey to Starnes about a talk with Newt Lee.

Q. What did you do next?—A. I went to the police station and discussed the case with Chief Lanford and John Black.

Q. What next?—A. We asked Lee who the superintendent was and when he told us, we called Frang [sic] over the phone.

Q. How long did it take to get him?—A. Only a few minutes. A man answered the phone, said he was superintendent of the National Pencil Factory. I told him that it was very necessary for him to come to the pencil factory. He replied that he had not eaten his breakfast and that he did not want to come down town until after breakfast. I told him that it would be very necessary for him to come and that an automobile would be sent for him.

Q. Did you tell him what the trouble was?—A. He did not ask me and I did not tell him.

Q. How long was it before Frank reached the factory?—A. Only a few minutes.

Scores “Trial on Looks.”

Objections were made when Dorsey asked Detective Starnes as to Newt Lee’s conduct at the factory when Starnes first arrived there.

“This case should not be tried on looks,” said Attorney Arnold. “Every man looks guilty to an officer. That what he gets paid for.”

“The defense has attacked Lee and the prosecution wants to show his attitude to reveal that the attack is unfounded,” retorted Attorney Hooper for the prosecution.

“Suppose Lee was on trial for his life,” asked Attorney Rosser, “would any attitude be construed in his favor?”

Judge Roan overruled the objection, but said that he had not let down the bars.

“Lee appeared composed,” said Starnes.

Q. How did Frank appear?—A. He pulled off his coat and said to Mr. Darley: “You see I have got another suit.”

Q. Where did that conversation occur?—A. In Mr. Frank’s office.

Q. What else did he say?—A. I don’t remember anything else. I had charge of Lee.

Q. Did you have an opportunity to observe whether Frank was nervous?—A. He appeared nervous.

“Frank Looked Rather Trembling.”

Q. Tell what he did—A. He just appeared nervous. I didn’t know who he was at the time. He appeared rather trembling and uncomposed.

Q. What time was it that he had this appearance?—A. When they brought him in to the factory from home.

Q. Did you see any slips punched in that clock?—A. Yes.

Q. When?—A. About a week afterward.

Q. Tell the jury about it.—A. I went to the factory and the watchman named McKinzie punched the clock all the way around in about five minutes.

Q. Were you present when Frank said anything about Newt Lee’s record?—A. No.

Q. Did you ever see these cords before (displaying some cords)?—A. Yes. We took some from the girl’s body.

Q. Did you ever find any more?—A. Yes, on the second floor of the pencil factory.

Q. Were there knots in them?—A. Yes.

Q. Were the knots similar?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you find any anywhere else?—A. Yes, in the basement.

When Starnes started to identify similar cords, already identified by Sergeant Dobbs as having been found around Mary Phagan’s neck, Attorney Rosser objected on the ground that Starnes had not written the notations on them. The objection was sustained.

Q. Did you see anything in the dressing room Monday morning?—A. Yes, I saw a splotch that looked like blood and several smaller splotches that looked like blood.

Q. What did you find in the dressing room Monday?—A. I found several splotches and I chipped them up.

Q. What was the size of the largest spots?—A. One of them looked to be as large as my hand.

Q. Were they just splotches?—A. No, that was the principal part. It spattered for a foot and a half.

Q. Was there anything on the floor but blood?—A. Yes, it looked like it had been swept over with some white substance.

Q. Do you know what it was?—A. No. Some one told me what it was, but I have forgotten.

Q. Was the stuff on the floor blood?—A. Yes, I think so.

Q. You are sure that it was not aniline dye?—A. Yes, I experimented with the dye and it left a much brighter stain.

Q. Where else did you find blood?—A. About 50 feet up, going from the middle of the department towards the office, I found a nail with blood on it.

Q. What area did this blood spatter cover?—A. I don’t know, but not as much as in other places.

Q. Did you find any other spots that you thought to be blood?—A. I chipped off the back door two spots that I thought to be blood finger prints.

Rosser Calls Dorsey “Son.”

Q. How far is it from the folding door to the place where the blood spots were found?—A. Thirteen feet and about forty feet from where the nail was found.

Q. How long would it take to walk from Marietta street to the National Pencil Factory?—A. About three minutes.

Here Rosser interrupted and asked the witness:

“Did you ever time it?”

“No,” answered Starnes.

Dorsey protested vehemently.

“Will you stand out of the way, Mr. Rosser, in order that I may see the witness?” said Dorsey.

“That’s a good suggestion, son, kindly remind me of it,” retorted Rosser.

The objection was overruled.

Q. Were Frank’s remarks about his clothes made seriously or jokingly?—A. Well, he and Mr. Darley were having the conversation and the only part I heard was Frank’s remark about having another suit.

Q. What are these? asked Solicitor Dorsey, handing him something. A.—They look like the chips I took from the factory floor.

Q. Is there any difference in them now and when you chipped them up?—A. They are a little cleaner.

Q. What did you do with them?—A. Gave them to Chief Lanford.

Cord Presented as Evidence.

Q. Mr. Rosser asked you something about an agreement at the police station with Frank?—A. I don’t know anything more about it than from hearsay.

“Your Honor,” said Dorsey, “I want to tender as evidence a cord identified by Sergeant Dobbs as having been found around the neck of Mary Phagan, her clothes, her hair ribbon, this rag and this hat.

Q. Mr. Starnes, look at these chips.—A. They look like t[h]e ones taken up at the rear door.

At this point Attorney Rosser took up the recross examination.

Q. Couldn’t you swear these chips were the ones taken up at the rear door?—A. I couldn’t swear it, but I am reasonably sure.

Q. Are there any other matters about this case that you know about?

Dorsey objected, but the objection was overruled.

A. So far as I recall, there is nothing else that I remember.

Attorney Rosser then sat down and Solicitor Dorsey then said:

Defense Objects to Diagram.

“I want to present this diagram as evidence,” referring to the Bert Green diagram of the factory.

Attorney Rosser asked to look at it.

“No, it is not admissible,” he declared. “Let the jury retire so that we may discuss it.”

The jury retired.

“Black dotted lines indicate the course taken by the accused,” read Mr. Rosser. “It is a Jim Dandy, but we object to it. I really did not think that my friend Dorsey and Mr. Hooper would try to put this over me.”

“It has been hanging here where you could see it all day,” said Mr. Dorsey. “I understood you to say you accepted it. We are willing to cover up those words.”

“I want to raise a further objection,” said Mr. Arnold. “This is an argument for the theory of the prosecution. These dotted lines are too powerful an argument. I think the picture of the house is admissible, but anything that could be construed as an argument is not admissible.”

“I withdraw the picture for the present,” said Mr. Dorsey.

Court then adjourned until 9 o’clock Wednesday morning.

The crowd gathered early in front of the courthouse Tuesday morning. By 9 o’clock both sides of South Pryor street near its junction with Hunter were filled with people drawn by curiosity and the hope that they might have the good fortune to get admission to the small courtroom.

Taking a lesson from the first day, many of Frank’s relatives avoided the stares of the throng by entering through a side door.

Secrecy was preserved as to the State’s plans concerning Jim Conley, and for a time there were rumors that the negro, whose affidavits have been the most sensational feature of the case, might not be called at all. His name was not on the witness list, but Solicitor Dorsey said the omission was an error.

* * *

Sidebar

One Crowd as Bad as the Other, Says Lee of His Quizzers

Newt Lee, after being grilled by attorneys for more than four hours, said he was not tired, and all he wanted was a chew of tobacco. He was asked who he would rather have question him—the lawyers of [sic] the detectives.

“Mr. Rosser certainly is terrible,” he declared, “but I would just as soon have one crowd as the other.”

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

The Atlanta Constitution

Sunday, July 20, 1913

As Famous Murder Case Nears Trial the Public Mind Again Reverts to the Discovery of the Crime; and Again the Great Question Comes Up:

“What Happened in the Pencil Factory Between Noon Saturday and 3:15 Sunday Morning?”

By Britt Craig.

Automobile in which detectives and newspaper men went to the scene of the murder. In the machine are Detective Starnes, Harry Scott, W. W. (Boots) Rogers and John Black.

There are things that happen right before our eyes that defy the pen of a god to describe. The mind of a master would find itself lamentably incompetent, and the words of a Demosthenes would become panic-stricken in the attempt.

One of these was the night Mary Phagan’s body was found. It was a night as dramatic as the fury of a queen and poignant as her sorrow. It wrote the first thrilling chapter of Atlanta’s greatest criminal case, and it will live forever in the minds of those who knew it.

This story is no effort at description, because description is impossible. It is just a plain, ordinary story of the happenings that night when Newt Lee went down into the basement to wash his hands and emerged, overcome with fear, the discoverer of a crime that put an entire state in mourning.

A week from tomorrow, Leo Frank, manager of the pencil factory, where Mary Phagan’s body was found, will be placed on trial charged with the murder of the young girl, and interest in this mysterious crime again goes back to the night when Newt Lee startled police headquarters with news of his grewsome find.

Finding the Body.

Spot where Mary Phagan’s dead body was found. Detective John Black is shown in the picture.

Newt was nightwatchman in the factory of the National Pencil company on South Forsyth street. He is a typical negro and on the afternoon preceding his discovery, just to show how typical he is, he had spent the whole of two leisure hours allotted to him watching a negro play a banjo and sing cotton field songs at a patent medicine show on Decatur street.

It was between 3 and 3:30 a. m. that night when he arose from the desk in the office where he had been scribbling pictures of cats and dogs and railroad trains to while away the lonesome hours, and picked up his sooty lantern to make a tour of the plant. The world outside was fast asleep, and the only sound was the occasional faraway rap of a policeman’s night stick.

The building was dark and gloomy as a tomb and his footsteps created uncanny sounds. Something in the atmosphere of loneliness inspired him to hum the ancient strain:

“I got a gal in de white folks’ yard,
Brings me butter ‘n brings me lard,
Can’t help but love her, so help me Gawd—
Shout mourners, you shall be free!”

Newt went to the first floor where the big watchman’s clock ticks incessantly on the wall near the bottom of the steps. It was the only lifelike thing in the building, and Newt, like all other nightwatchmen, felt a deep attachment to clocks that tick-tock so humanly through the lonely hours of night.

The hands stood somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:15, showing that his tri-nightly trip into the basement was due. It wasn’t an inviting place, this basement, and Newt, as any other typical negro would do, made it a point not to make any more than the three required trips thereinto.

His “Watching” Perfunctory.

Mary Phagan, the young victim of a most mystifying murder.

It was his custom to go only to the bottom of the ladder that ran from the scuttle hole, from which point he surveyed what little of the cellar that could be perceived by the light of his lantern. Very seldom did he venture further. He preferred the upper floor, with its machinery and the lifelike clock and less possibility of ghosts and spooks.

That night, however, he wanted to wash his hands. Spots of ink had clung to his fingers as he had sketched the cats and dogs at the office desk. The superintendent had forbidden him the use of any but the basement sink, and it was there that he always performed his meager ablutions.

With a courage a negro manages to muster only when he drives from his mind all thought of everything, Newt descended the shaky ladder. A tiny flame flickered from a gas jet directly beneath the scuttle hole, but beyond the interior was as black as the soul of night.

Humming his tune so as to keep his mind vacant of other things, including fear, he walked to the sink. It was midway of the basement, just beyond the furnace. The darkness and solitude seemed so intense that he could almost feel it, and his steps beat upon his ears with a creepy thudding.

He set his lantern down beside the sink and washed his hands. Then he dried them on a newspaper. As he picked up the lantern to return to the scuttle hole it revealed something over in the corner just behind the edge of the partition that ran half the length of the basement.

Negro “Seed Something.”

It was an object that looked human and apparently had on a dress. Newt looked at it closely, his eyes attracted to the spot like a bird’s might be attracted by the charm of an adder. The longer he looked the tighter did something close itself around his stomach, and the more convincingly did the object assume human proportions.

It lay prone in the sawdust, and what appeared to be an arm was stretched lifeless from the shoulder.

He suspected it was a joke, and that someone had put a dummy in the basement to frighten him. He hoped it was! But, dummy or not, it certainly looked human—too human, in fact, for the uncongenial surroundings.

Impelled by a combination of emotions composed mostly of curiosity and fear, Newt strode to the spot. He picked up the lifeless arm. The flesh yielded beneath his grip. It dropped limply to the sawdust.

A panic no man can picture seized him. He wheeled around. The rush of air blew out the flame in his lantern. There was nothing left but darkness, thick, impenetrable darkness that shrouded even the glow of the gas jet at the scuttle hole. That and a quietude overwhelming.

Uttering a shriek that reached only the ears of the dead, he sprang erect and plunged headlong into the inky space ahead.

“Headquarters” Suddenly Awakens.

National Pencil Company building, on Forsyth street, in Atlanta, where Mary Phagan’s body was found.

Police headquarters had been dull and sleepy, an unusual condition for a Saturday night. Sergeant Sells, on the desk, had complained of underwork and the motorcycle men, lounging drowsily in their chairs, agreed that crime wasn’t what it used to be.

The hands of the clock pointed somewhere around 3:30. Boots Rogers, an ex-county policeman, dozed in an easy chair, too contented to go home until breakfast time. His big touring car stood at the burn on the outside.

The reporters on the police run for the Sunday papers had all gone home at 2:30—all except one, a Constitution man, who lived across town and was waiting for Rogers to ride him home in the auto.

Policeman Anderson answered the telephone that rang exactly at 3:30. Headquarters dozed on. Telephone calls, even at 3:30 a. m., are more or less insignificant. There was not even a stir as the policeman entered the booth.

“Is this police station?” came over the wire in an excited tone.

“Yep. What’s the trouble?”

“Somebody’s killed up here ‘t the pencil factory on F’syth street. Hit’s—”

Anderson dropped the receiver and left it swinging on the cord. He jumped from the booth and called to Sells:

“Killing up on Forsyth street!”

“Who is it?” asked Sells, sarcastically, as he swung a record book to the stack above his desk.

“I’m no mind-reader,” retorted Anderson, diving for the door.

The place became alive, Rogers awoke from his doze and jumped to his feet.

“Get in my car,” he called. “I’ll run you up.”

The Constitution reporter had reached for a telephone.

“Wait a second,” he was asking. “Let me call the office—there ought to be a story in this.”

“Wait like a lizard,” blazed Anderson. “Think we’re going to murders on schedule?”

The reporter’s office went unnotified.

Hurry-Up Run to Factory.

At a 40-mile clip Rogers whirled the policemen up Decatur street toward Five Points. At Decatur and Pryor Sergeants Dobbs and Brown were encountered. They jumped into the machine at Anderson’s call. Like a racing demon gone mad, the big car snorted through the uptown district and turned down Forsyth at Marietta street.

The pencil factory building stands almost midway of the block between Alabama and Hunter streets. It is four stories high and looms far above its neighboring structures. There is something in its black and gloomy aspect that is, itself, suggestive of tragedy. A wee light from a gas jet on the second flood [sic] flickered feebly like a beacon of lost hope.

The machine rolled alongside the curb and stopped with a roar. Its occupants clambered out. There were no lights on the first floor, and the interior looked as lifeless as the body Newt Lee had discovered in the cellar. Not knowing what to expect, but in preparation for anything, the policemen drew their pistols.

Anderson knocked at the door. No answer came. A suggestion was made to break through the glass, when there was a commotion in the vicinity of the stairway, down which came a streak of light—the lantern in the negro’s hands as he scampered down the steps from the office to which he had fled in fear.

The newcomers rushed in as he opened the door. Their presence seemed to inspire courage. His teeth chattered and the lantern trembled in his fingers.

Lee Glad to See Officers.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “I’m glad you come. It’s a girl, dead, down there.” He indicated the scuttle hole to the basement with a quivering finger.

The reporter was nearest it. Some news instinct that makes the newspaper man the luckiest of professionals guided him first into the black and yawning opening. Rogers followed. Before the shivering negro could chatter another word, the entire party had scrambled into the cellar. Lee was the last to enter.

Weird shadows danced on the walls from the dim glow of the lone jet. Rogers and the reporter forged their way through the darkness. Swinging his lantern, Newt was coming behind. Suddenly, he warned:

“Look out, white folks—you’ll step on it!”

He took the lead. Someone slipped and fell in the treacherous sawdust that gave way beneath the feet. The crunch, crunch of feet were the only sounds. The odor of pencil wood and lead pervaded the place almost stiflingly. Its smell will forever bring tragic recollection.

When the lantern’s rays fell upon the form that lay rigid and mutilated in the recess, the knot of men were too startled to move. The intense darkness and sight of the spectacle struck them momentarily powerless. It was a scene that a wholesome mind can attribute to only the stage-managership of Satan.

The body lay on its face. The long tangles of brown hair that straggled over the sawdust told that the girl was white and the dress that reached only to the knees, that she was a child. A jagged gash in the skull bespoke murder. Rigor-mortis had set in. Death had resulted hours ago.

Sergeant Dobbs was the first [to] speak:

“And this in a civilized country!”

Oratory will play a dominant part in the Phagan case, and it will be oratory of a masterful kind, but that simple little sentence, spoken by the policeman as he stood over the lifeless form in the basement darkness, will stand, unquestioned, the most eloquent and damning.

The mysterious murder notes, that went unsolved for weeks, were found, side by side, within a foot of the body. Suspicion, as is always the case with the police mind, was promptly directed to the negro. Someone flatly accused him. He was too astonished to reply. At length he stammered:

“Good God, boss! Do you think I’d do a thing like that?”

As he pointed a tremulous finger at the corpse, and all eyes were turned upon it, it was hard to conceive that any human could have done it. But it had been done. No one was dreaming. The body lay before them, ghastly proof of a fiend’s work. There were no baboons or monsters in metropolitan Atlanta. Someone was guilty—someone human.

So they put the handcuffs on Newt, the discoverer.

To fully convince themselves that the negro was guilty, the policemen made him go through a pantomime of his discovery. It would have driven Belasco’s greatest achievement to shame. There, in a solitude of the grave, with the basement for a stage and the policemen’s electric torches for light, the negro enacted a drama over the body of a slaughtered child that would strike terror to the heart of an audience.

“Third Degree” for Negro.

With a composure that comes from the reaction of panic, he clenched the lantern in his manacled hands and went graphically through every detail of his actions. It was, in itself, a third-degree that would have extracted confession from the hardest-hearted of murderers. Newt Lee manifested his innocence in an eloquence far greater than speech when he pantomimed his discovery.

But the police weren’t convinced. They sent him to headquarters to satisfy a public that demands immediate arrests in such cases.

With an arrest made, two substantial clues obtained in the murder notes, and a search being carried on for more, it became necessary to identify the victim. Rogers drove in his car for Miss Grace Hicks, a relative who lives at 100 McDonough road, and who is an employee of the pencil factory.

The body still lay in the position in which it was discovered, when she encountered the basement, sleepy-eyed and drowsy from the sleep from which she had been aroused. With a single glance at the upturned face, scarred and purple and swollen, she uttered a cry that pierced the building, and swooned into the arms of her kinsman.

“It’s Mary Phagan!” she wailed. “My God, who killed her?”

Sobbingly, she told the policemen of her attachment to the girl whose body lay stretched before her. They had worked side by side at the same machine. For years they had been inseparable chums. Mary was the sweetest girl in the factory and the prettiest.

It seemed a crime of Fate that she, of all others, should be called to identify the corpse of her friend.

She resisted being led away, begging to stay beside the body. The undertakers came and wrapped it in a tarpaulin and carried it away. A newspaper photographer came and made a flashlight of the spot. Detectives arrived and took charge of the scene with characteristic officiousness. Then came the inevitable mob of the curious.

Daybreak mounted over the skyscrapers and streaked the sky with purple. The city began to awaken. Less than an hour passed, and the night Mary Phagan’s body was found retreated before the brilliance of a Sabbath sun.

* * *

The Atlanta Constitution, July 20th 1913, “Grim Justice Pursues Mary Phagan’s Slayer,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

The Atlanta Journal

Thursday, July 3, 1913

Beavers Stirred by Details Reported by Physician—Assigns Men to Report

Following the charges of a prominent Atlanta physician regarding vice conditions and alleged police protection in this city, Chief of Police Beavers despatched an officer to confer with this physician Thursday morning.

The officer will endeavor to obtain even more information than has been furnished the chief and will try to substantiate that already given. He will pay especial attention to the statement of the physician that he reported a disorderly house to the police and that the proprietors of it were “tipped off” by some officer.

Chief Beavers is concerned over this phase of the question. He admits that there must be something in the charges, as the source of his information is reputable.

“It is a grave charge,” he declared Thursday morning. “I am satisfied that Atlanta’s police department is as free of anything like giving protection to vice as any in the United States, yet it is entirely possible that there are some men in it who would ‘graft.’ If there are I want to know more than anyone else, for it is not fair for the department’s reputation as a whole to suffer for what can be traced to a few individuals.”

The alleged disorderly houses reported to the chief are being watched closely, but he said that no evidence against them had been obtained yet.

Sergeant L.S. Dobbs, who has been investigating the locker clubs to see if they had any members of the police departmet [sic] enrolled, has finished his work and reported to the chief that he was unable to find any police members. He said that there are a number of local fraternal organizations with police members, and that these orders have locker club attachments, but that so far as he could learn no policemen were in the habit of using them.

Chief Beavers declared that there was nothing wrong with an officer belonging to a fraternal order, provided he did not use his membership for anything other than fraternal purposes.

Chief of Detectives Lanford declared Thursday morning that he had taken steps to investigate the charges made by the physician that several of his men had been seen drinking in two downtown locker clubs.

* * *

The Atlanta Journal, July 3rd 1913, “Police Chief to Probe Vice Protection Charge,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

J. A. White [left and] Harry Denham. The two mechanics who were the last workmen to leave the National Pencil company on Saturday afternoon. Leo M. Frank was in the building when they went out. Photo by Francis B. Price, Staff Photographer.

Atlanta Constitution

Thursday May 1^st, 1913

Was the man who first assaulted and then brutally killed Mary Phagan last Saturday night hiding in the basement of the National Pencil company when the watchman, Newt Lee, came down and discovered the girl’s mutilated body early Sunday morning?

This is the question that rose to everyone’s mind, following the testimony of the negronight watchman, at the coroner’s inquest Wednesday. In direct contradiction to the evidence of every policeman who had been on the scene, the negro declared that he found the body, lying face up, with the head toward the wall. When the police arrived, the body was lying face down, with the head pointing toward the front of the building.

The most severe cross examination could not shake the negro. He stuck to his story, never seeming to waver for an instant. So convincing was his air that it became the general idea that the murderer must have been in the cellar at the time, waiting to burn the body of his victim. Lee’s coming down into the cellar may have frightened him away.

He declared that when he reported for work at 4 o’clock on the afternoon before the tragedy, his employer told him to go home until 6 o’clock. Frank looked nervous and excited at the time, he said. He also said that Frank had called him up later in the night, to find if everything was all right, something that he had never done before.

What was thought earlier in the day to be damaging to the negro—his declaration that he was positive that it was the body of a white girl as soon as he saw it—was brushed aside when he explained that he saw the difference because of the hair, which was straight and brown; totally unlike that of a negress.

The same jury that was used by Coroner Donehoo Monday morning was reimpaneled at 9 o’clock Wednesday morning, when the inquest reconvened.

Inquest at Police Headquarters.

The inquest was held at police headquarters. W. F. Anderson, a call officer on the police force, who took the negro’s message, when he reported the finding of the body, was the first to testify.

He described the body as he found it after the negro had led him and other officers to it. He stated specifically that the head pointed toward the front of the building and that the body was lying face down.

Minutely, he gave all of the grewsome details of the dead girl’s appearance. He told how evident it had been that she had been in a struggle to the death, how her stocking was torn, her shoe missing and her whole face discolored by bruises and grime. So shocking was her state, he declared, that he did not know at first whether she was white or colored.

He said that her neck was knotted around with twine and a piece of cloth, evidently torn from her underskirt.

He declared that the staple that had been used to hold the door from the basement closed had been drawn.

Physician Does Questioning.

Dr. J. W. Hurt took up the questioning at this point.

“Could the negro have seen a body lying 20 or 30 feet away from where he was standing, by the light of the lantern that he carried?” he asked.

“He could not,” replied the policeman. “At the most he could have seen for 12 or 15 feet. His lantern was very old and dirty.”

Sergeant R. J. Brown, who also went to the scene of the crime, was next called before the jury. He corroborated the other policeman’s testimony, in regard to the impossibility for anyone to distinguish the race of the girl without the most minute examination. He also declared that the negro could have seen nothing, standing 25 feet away from the body. “It was very hard to see with our regular police flash lights,” he said, “ and the negro only had a very weak lamp. I am sure that he could not have seen anything at a distance of 25 feet.”

“This is nothing but a child,” he testified that he exclaimed when he first saw the body. He said that he could not tell her color until he rolled down one stocking and looked at the knee.

He went over the revolting details of the girl’s condition. His testimony did not conflict with his brother officers’ in any way, but he told of some matters which the other had failed to bring out.

He said that there was dirt in her mouth even. The negro nightwatchman had told him, he said, that he rarely came down in the cellar, but that he had a special reason for doing so on that night.

When he was questioned about the telephoning of the news to Superintendent Frank that the sergeant’s information became most damaging.

“We called up at once almost,” he testified, “but, although we told central that a girl had been murdered and that it was of the utmost importance that we get the number, we could not get in communication with Mr. Frank until much later in the day.”

Blood-Stained Garments Shown.

It was then that the most dramatic occurrence of the whole day took place. A one-piece purple silk dress, dirty and torn and blood-stained, and a gunmetal slipper, worn by Mary Phagan on the night of the murder, were shown to the jury.

Ben Phagan, the dead girl’s sailor brother, rose from his seat and looked down on the little heap of clothes with eyes that tragically stared. For a moment he stood so, and then walked out, his head bowed, his hands over his eyes.

Upon being recalled, Officer Anderson testified that the body of the girl had still been warm when he came there and that blood was flowing from some of the wounds.

Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs, who was next called, identified the notes that had been found by the girl’s body. He declared that, after a minute examination, he had been able to say with authority that the body was that of a white girl. External appearances, he said, tended to show that the body had been dragged and thrown into the corner.

He said that after examining the body he turned to the negro watchman and accused him of having either committed the crime or of knowing something of it. The negro, he said, denied all knowledge of the affair.

Read Note to Negro.

He said that he then read him the note in which the girl is purported to have written: “Tall, black, thin negro did this. He will try to lay it on night—“ The negro then replied, he declared, “That means me—the night watchman.”

Other evidence simply corroborated the testimony of his brother officers.

Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, was called on the stand at 11:45 o’ clock. He testified that Frank had especially instructed him to come to work two hours earlier than usual that Saturday, because of its being a holiday.

“Go out and have some more fun,” Frank told him when he came to work at 4 o’ clock, he declared. He explained that he made a round of the building every half-hour, only going to the basement when he had an unusual amount of time on his hands.

He said that Frank was still in the building when Gantt, a former bookkeeper, came to the door and asked to be allowed in to get an old pair of shoes that he had left inside. The negro declared that he had told Gantt that it was against the rules, but that he would ask his employer.

Frank Looked Frightened.

Lee declared that Frank looked frightened when he told him that Gantt was downstairs. He thought that this might have been caused by Frank’s fear that the other, whom he had recently quarreled with and discharged, might “do him dirt.”

He said that Gantt got the shoes, wrapped them up and made an engagement with someone over the telephone for 9 o’clock that night. The negro was unable to say who Gantt had talked to, but he said that it was a lady.

“How did you know?” he was asked. “By the name,” he replied. He could not remember the name when further questioned, however.

He said that he saw Gantt leave, passing on down the street. He said that he did not know when Frank left, however. He explained the superintendent might have come back at any time, anyway, as he had a key.

He said that he went down into the basement at about 7 o’clock, after making a round of the building. He declared that the gas jet, which he had left burning when he left before, that morning, was not burning as brightly as before.

Frank Calls Up.

He said that shortly after this Frank called up to find if everything was all right. “It is as far as I know,” he declared he answered.

He said Frank called before at night

When he declared that he had found the body lying with the face up, the coroner directly asked him, “Why did you turn it over?”

“I didn’t,” stoutly averred the negro.

He declared that he had punched the time clock every half-hour; that he himself had put in a fresh slip with Frank.

He said that when he first saw the body in the basement it had looked very vague in its outline, and that he thought that boys had put it there to frighten him. It was only when he saw the bloody face and straight hair, he said, that he recognized it as the body of a white woman. He then became frightened and called up the police.

He said that he had been told by employers on Sunday following his arrest that he had punched the clock regularly Saturday night.

He emphatically declared that his lantern had been cleaned Friday and that it was in good condition. He said that a negro fireman (Knollys) probably had a key to the back door of the building, kept open during the day.

Thinks He Saw Girl.

J. G. Spier, of Cartersville, testified that Saturday afternoon at about 4 o’clock he passed the factory and saw in front of it a 17-year-old girl and a man about 25 years old, both very much excited. He said that he came back nearly an hour later and noticed the same couple standing at the same place.

He said that he visited the body at Bloomfield’s undertaking establishment and was sure that the dead girl was the same one that he saw Saturday afternoon. He said that Frank had the same “outline” as the man he saw, but would not identify him positively. Mr. Spier’s testimony brought the morning session to a close.

Friends of L. M. Frank, superintendent of the National Pencil company, gave out yesterday for the first time their theory of how Mary Phagan came to her tragic death. They visited the scene of the crime, and, claiming that Frank has been unjustly held and questioned by the police, they are pointing out how the girl could have been robbed, assaulted and murdered without anyone connected with the factory knowing anything about it.

They point to the foot of the stairway by which the girl would have left the factory and show how easily a man could have hidden behind the railing, which is closely boarded up.

“The foul criminal,” they state, “knew it was pay-day, and as it was Memorial day, the place would close early in the afternoon. He could have hidden at the foot of the stairway and when the girl came down the steps with her money in her purse, seized her and thrown her into the hole which leads to the basement to the left of the elevator shaft. It could all have been done so swiftly by a strong-armed man that the girl would have had no time to make an outcry before she was insensible in the basement.

“Then the criminal could have quickly followed on the ladder that stood in the hole and led from the first floor to the basement. Down in the basement he had ample opportunity to carry out his hellish purposes. His exit was easy, as has been shown in the newspapers. No one could have heard or seen the crime committed who was passing in the street or who was on the second or third floors.”

“We are not advancing theories in the defense of Mr. Frank,” states S. S. Selig, who was among those who made an inspection of the factory Wednesday, “for he needs no defense. But the theory we advance is so plausible and fits so well into the clues that have been found that it is remarkable the officers have not worked along that line. The girl’s parasol was found at the foot of the ladder, where it could have fallen when she was thrown into the hole. That the purse and money were missing shows that there was robbery as well as assault and murder.”

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Atlanta Constitution, May 1st 1913, “Newt Lee Tells His Story During Morning Session,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)