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

Atlanta Journal

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Believes That Newt Lee Bound and Gagged, Then Murdered Mary Phagan

W. J. Coleman, step-father of Mary Phagan, believes that she was murdered by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, but that before the murder she lay bound and gagged in the factory of the National Pen [sic] company, 37 South Forsyth street, from shortly after noon on Saturday until past midnight.

As people passed back and forth along the street, as members of the girl’s family waited anxiously for her return, he thinks that she lay helpless within the factory, while the negro waited for an opportune time to attack and then murder her.

His belief is that as soon as she had been paid the wages that she went to the factory to collect, she passed into the dressing room, perhaps for a drink of water. There, in his opinion, the negro seized the girl and bound and gagged her. He says there is plain evidence in the dressing room that the girl was first attacked there.

He does not believe that either Arthur Mullinax or J. M. Gant [sic] had any hand in the murder of Mary Phagan.

“The negro evidently kept the child in the factory all day,” Mr. Coleman said, “and was afraid to attack her until midnight for fear she would scream or somebody would come. He may or may not have knocked her senseless from the first, or he may have tied her. I do not know but when Gantt entered the shop, it is more than likely that he knew nothing of the girl’s presence there and simply went up and got his shoes, as he said, and went out again.

“All this about Mary having seen on the street at midnight or at any other time after 12 o’clock in the day I do not think can be true. I believe she remained all day in the building. After the negro did the work he was afraid to leave or not to notify the police, which would make appearances worse for him. Therefore he called the officers.”

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Atlanta Journal, April 29th 1913, “Stepfather Thinks Negro is Murderer,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Georgian

Sunday, June 1^st, 1913

Parents Intended to Give Child Happy Surprise—Now They Will Strew Flowers on Her Grave in Marietta Churchyard.

By MIGNON HALL.

This will be the saddest Sunday with Mary Phagan’s family since that fatal Sunday just five weeks ago when the little girl’s body was found hidden away in the basement of the National Pencil factory.

For to-day is Mary’s birthday, and it had been planned by her mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Coleman, that they would give her a party. If she had lived it would have been celebrated last night in her little home on Lindsay Street, where she had spent the past fifteen months of her life.

Instead of that, there is a shadow over the household, and she was spoken of with an ache in the throat and tears. Where last night would have been so happy for Mary, there was silence, and to-day the family expects to go to Marietta to weep above the little mound where she rests and lay flowers on the grave.

Was to Have Been a Surprise.

Mary’s birthday party, Mrs. Coleman said, was to have been a surprise, and as she told of it Saturday morning over the ironing-board—spoke of her other childish birthdays, the things Mary said and did, and all the tender little recollections of her a mother’s heart holds dear—her voice choked with sobs so that she could scarcely speak.

“It would have been the child’s first party,” she said simply. “The poor little thing never had had much in her life—she had to work so hard. It was Mr. Coleman’s idea. He thought it would be nice for her. He was like a father to her, anyway, and the only one she had ever known. Her own father died before she was born.

“We were going to have about twenty-five of the young folks and serve them ice cream and cake and fruit—and now—“

The mother’s lips twitched and her hands trembled as she straightened out the white waist and ran the iron across it.

Mother Broken-Hearted.

“Seems just like I can’t get over it,” she said. “I can hold up pretty well for a while, and then it seems I just have to cry it all out. I know that all the tears in the world won’t help things, but I just don’t seem able to do anything else.

“I just dread supper to-night. Poor little Mary—Mr. Coleman was going to give her a bracelet for her birthday—she had wanted one so lnog [sic]—as far back as I can remember.”

She said that Mary had always been so happy over her birthdays, and she never forgot one of them, even those when she was a little girl.

“I used to cook a little something extra for her,” Mrs. Coleman said, “and she would be satisfied, for she was always easy to please—the least little thing made her happy; and we’d have such a good time together.”

Most of her life Mary had lived in the country, her mother said, and she had always worked, for Mrs. Phagan was a widow and there were four children besides Mary. The family had first lived six miles from Marietta on a farm, and then later in Alabama, till they moved here a few months ago, when Mrs. Phagan married Mr. Coleman.

“I will never forget Mary’s birthday three years ago,” Mrs. Coleman said. “Her sister Ollie gave her a little locket with a little bit of a heart on it. It was pretty, and Mary took a spell over it and wore it all the time till she bought another one day just before she got killed. I think the child paid a dollar or two for it, but, just like she was about everything she had, she thought it was the nicest thing in the world. She never envied other girls.”

Longs for Slain Child.

Mrs. Coleman dropped down in the chair, her hands listless in her lap.

“You don’t know,” she cried to the reporter. “It seems to get lonesomer and lonesomer without Mary.”

It was a few minutes before she could speak again, and then it was to tell of how the days went without the child. It seemed, she said, like she just couldn’t remember that Mary was dead. Sometimes when she would be cooking in the kitchen she would be expecting her, and two or three mornings she had called her when it was time for her to get up.

“It’s so quiet in the house,” she said. “Mary was always laughing and talking, telling what she had done and what she was going to do and all that. Me and the children are just like we’re dead without her. Mary always used to carry my picture in her locket—she was a good child to me.

“I remember so well how she looked the day she was born. It was the first day of June she came. She had right black curly hair, and the same smile she grew up with. I never will forget that smile. I used to see it the last thing every morning when she went to work. I never could to see her going off to the car without I watched her. Especially cold mornings, when I thought she might have to wait. I used to stand out there in the street with my arms hugged up almost freezing till I saw her get on. I couldn’t be satisfied without I did that, seemed like.”

Slain Girl’s Last Week.

And then Mrs. Coleman told of the last week before Mary had been killed. The child had mentioned her birthday several times. She was not at work in the factory and had helped around the house. She had baked her first biscuit one day as a surprise to her mother.

“I was always so proud of the child—maybe I was too proud,” Mrs. Coleman. “I used to look at her when she was a little playful girl before she had to go to work out, and I used to think I was the happiest mother in the world. She wasn’t much more than a playful little girl when she got killed. I’ll show you just what size she was. Wait.”

And she went into the other room and brought back a short blue dress with white embroidered collar and cuffs.

“Mary always looked well, no matter what she had on,” she declared with moist eyes, as she held up the dress and took in its tender curves that would never again hold the little body. “The neighbors used to say if she put on a toe sack she’d look just like a morning glory.”

Mrs. Coleman said she hoped some day to erect a stone over Mary’s grave. They were too poor to do it now, though, and they would have to wait, she said. What they would get she did not know—but something simple and sweet—like Mary was.

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Atlanta Georgian, June 1st 1913, “Today is Mary Phagan’s Birthday; Mother Tells of Party She Planned,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Join The American Mercury as we recount the events of the final week of the trial of Leo Frank (pictured) for the slaying of Mary Phagan.

by Bradford L. Huie

ON THE HEELS of Leo Frank’s astounding unsworn statement to the court, the defense called a number of women who stated that they had never experienced any improper sexual advances on the part of Frank. But the prosecution rebutted that testimony with several rather persuasive female witnesses of its own. These rebuttal witnesses also addressed Frank’s claims that he was so unfamiliar with Mary Phagan that he did not even know her by name. (For background on this case, read our introductory article, our coverage of Week One,  Week Two, and Week Three of the trial, and my exclusive summary of the evidence against Frank.)

Here are the witnesses’ statements, direct from the Brief of Evidence, interspersed with my commentary. The emphasis and paragraphing (for clarity) is mine. The defense recommenced with a large contingent of Frank’s friends, business associates, and employees who would say that Leo Frank was of good character and had not, to their knowledge, made any improper sexual approaches to the girls and women who worked under him:

MISS EMILY MAYFIELD, sworn for the Defendant.

I worked at the pencil factory last year during the summer of 1912. I have never been in the dressing room when Mr. Frank would come in and look at anybody that was undressing.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I work at Jacobs’ Pharmacy. My sister used to work at the pencil factory. I don’t remember any occasion when Mr. Frank came in the dressing room door while Miss Irene Jackson and her sister were there.

MISSES ANNIE OSBORNE, REBECCA CARSON, MAUDE WRIGHT, and MRS. ELLA THOMAS, all sworn for the Defendant, testified that they were employees of the National Pencil Company; that Mr. Frank’s general character was good; that Conley’s general character for truth and veracity was bad and that they would not believe him on oath.

Mrs. B.D. Smith

MISSES MOLLIE BLAIR, ETHEL STEWART, CORA COWAN, B. D. SMITH, LIZZIE WORD, BESSIE WHITE, GRACE ATHERTON, and MRS. BARNES, all sworn for the Defendant, testified that they were employees of the National Pencil Company, and work on the fourth floor of the factory; that the general character of Leo. M. Frank was good; that they have never gone with him at any time or place for any immoral purpose, and that they have never heard of his doing anything wrong.

MISSES CORINTHIA HALL, ANNIE HOWELL, LILLIE M. GOODMAN, VELMA HAYES, JENNIE MAYFIELD, IDA HOLMES, WILLIE HATCHETT, MARY HATCHETT, MINNIE SMITH, MARJORIE McCORD, LENA McMURTY, MRS. W. R. JOHNSON, MRS. S. A. WILSON, MRS. GEORGIA DENHAM, MRS. O. JONES, MISS ZILLA SPIVEY, CHARLES LEE, N. V. DARLEY, F. ZIGANKI, and A. C. HOLLOWAY, MINNIE FOSTER, all sworn for the Defendant, testified that they were employees of the National Pencil Company and knew Leo M. Frank, and that his general character was good.

Numerous current employees of the National Pencil Company testified that Leo Frank had never made any sexual overtures to them.

D. I. MacINTYRE, B. WILDAUER, MRS. DAN KLEIN, ALEX DITTLER, DR. J.E. SOMMERFIELD, F. G. SCHIFF, AL. GUTHMAN, JOSEPH GERSHON, P.D. McCARLEY, MRS. M. W. MEYER, MRS. DAVID MARX, MRS. A. I. HARRIS, M. S. RICE, L. H. MOSS, MRS. L.H. MOSS, MRS. JOSEPH BROWN, E.E. FITZPATRICK, EMIL DITTLER, WM. BAUER, MISS HELEN LOEB, AL. FOX, MRS. MARTIN MAY, JULIAN V. BOEHM, MRS. MOLLIE ROSENBERG, M.H. SILVERMAN, MRS. L. STERNE, CHAS. ADLER, MRS. R.A. SONN, MISS RAY KLEIN, A.J. JONES, L. EINSTEIN, J. BERNARD, J. FOX, MARCUS LOEB, FRED HEILBRON, MILTON KLEIN, NATHAN COPLAN, MRS. J. E. SOMMERFIELD, all sworn for the Defendant, testified that they were residents of the city of Atlanta, and have known Leo M. Frank ever since he has lived in Atlanta; that his general character is good.

MRS. M. W. CARSON, MARY PIRK, MRS. DORA SMALL, MISS JULIA FUSS, R.P. BUTLER, JOE STELKER, all sworn for the Defendant, testified that they were employees of the National Pencil Com- pany; that they knew Leo M. Frank and that his general character is good.

The character issue having been broached by the defense, the door was opened to the prosecution to bring forth witnesses on the same subject:

MISS MYRTIE CATO, MAGGIE GRIFFIN, MRS. C.D. DONEGAN, MRS. H. R. JOHNSON, MISS MARIE CARST, MISS NELLIE PETTIS, MARY DAVIS, MRS. MARY E. WALLACE, ESTELLE WINKLE, CARRIE SMITH, all sworn for the Defendant [sic — This is a typographical error; these witnesses were sworn for the State. — Ed.], testified that they were formerly employed at the National Pencil Company and worked at the factory for a period varying from three days to three and a half years; that Leo M. Frank’s character for lasciviousness was bad.

Misses Myrtice Cato and Maggie Griffin

The defense — ominously — chose not to cross-examine any of these witnesses. This restricted the prosecution to the mere statements that Frank had a “bad character for lasciviousness”: Under the rules of the court, Dorsey could only ask for particulars — could only inquire into why Frank had such a bad character — if the defense opened the door with cross-examination. This the defense refused to do — with any of the ten women who said that Frank was badly lascivious. The jury was thus left with the impression that the defense dared not do so — a point that would be hammered home in the prosecution’s closing statement.

Two of these witnesses had made far more extensive statements at the Coroner’s Inquest, where the rules of evidence permit wider latitude in questioning. As I reported in an earlier article:

Several young women and girls testified at the inquest that Frank had made improper advances toward them, in one instance touching a girl’s breast and in another appearing to offer money for compliance with his desires.

The Atlanta Georgian reported: “Girls and women were called to the stand to testify that they had been employed at the factory or had had occasion to go there, and that Frank had attempted familiarities with them. Nellie Pettis, of 9 Oliver Street, declared that Frank had made improper advances to her.

Miss Nellie Pettis

“She was asked if she had ever been employed at the pencil factory. No, she answered.

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

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

“Q: What did he say to you that might have been improper on any of these visits? A: He didn’t exactly say — he made gestures. I went to get sister’s pay about four weeks ago and when I went into the office of Mr. Frank I asked for her. He told me I couldn’t see her unless ‘I saw him first.’ I told him I didn’t want to ‘see him.’ He pulled a box from his desk. It had a lot of money in it. He looked at it significantly and then looked at me. When he looked at me, he winked. As he winked he said: ‘How about it?’ I instantly told him I was a nice girl.

“Here the witness stopped her statement. Coroner Donehoo asked her sharply: ‘Didn’t you say anything else?’ ‘Yes, I did! I told him to go to h–l! and walked out of his office.’” (Atlanta Georgian, May 9, 1913, “Phagan Case to be Rushed to Grand Jury by Dorsey”)

If true, this was shocking behavior on Frank’s part. Not only was he importuning a young woman for illicit relations in exchange for money, but it was a woman he’d only seen once or twice. If he would act in such a way with an absolute stranger, what wouldn’t he do? In the same article, another young girl testified to Frank’s pattern of improper familiarities:

“Nellie Wood, a young girl, testified as follows:

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

“Q: Did you observe any misconduct on his part?

“A: Well, his actions didn’t suit me. He’d come around and put his hands on me when such conduct was entirely uncalled for.

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

“Q: Where did he put his hands? He barely touched my breast. He was subtle in his approaches, and tried to pretend that he was joking. But I was too wary for such as that.

“Q: Did he try further familiarities? A: Yes.”

The trial testimony continued:

MISS MAMIE KITCHENS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I have worked at the National Pencil Company two years. I am on the fourth floor. I have not been called by the defense. Miss Jones and Miss Howard have also not been called by the defense to testify. I was in the dressing room with Miss Irene Jackson when she was undressed. Mr. Frank opened the door, stuck his head inside. He did not knock. He just stood there and laughed. Miss Jackson said, “Well, we are dressing, blame it,” and then he shut the door.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Yes, he asked us if we didn’t have any work to do. It was during business hours. We didn’t have any work to do. We were going to leave. I have never met Mr. Frank anywhere, or any time for any immoral purposes.

MISS RUTH ROBINSON, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I have seen Leo M. Frank talking to Mary Phagan. He was talking to her about her work, not very often. He would just tell her, while she was at work, about her work. He would stand just close enough to her to tell her about her work. He would show her how to put rubbers in the pencils. He would just take up the pencil and show her how to do it. That’s all I saw him do. I heard him speak to her; he called her Mary. That was last summer.

MISS DEWEY HEWELL, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I stay in the Home of the Good Shepherd in Cincinnati. I worked at the pencil factory four months. I quit in March, 1913. I have seen Mr. Frank talk to Mary Phagan two or three times a day in the metal department. I have seen him hold his hand on her shoulder. He called her Mary. He would stand pretty close to her. He would lean over in her face.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

All the rest of the girls were there when he talked to her. I don’t know what he was talking to her about.

MISS REBECCA CARSON, re-called by the State in rebuttal.

I have never gone into the dressing room on the fourth floor with Leo M. Frank.

MISS MYRTICE CATO, MISS MAGGIE GRIFFIN, both sworn for the State, testified that they had seen Miss Rebecca Carson go into the ladies’ dressing room on the fourth floor with Leo M. Frank two or three times during working hours; that there were other ladies working on the fourth floor at the time this happened.

Myrtice Cato and Marie Carst

J. E. DUFFY, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I worked at the National Pencil Company. I was hurt there in the metal department. I was cut on my forefingers on the left hand. That is the cut right around there (indicating). It never cut off any of my fingers. I went to the office to have it dressed. It was bleeding pretty freely. A few drops of blood dropped on the floor at the machine where I was hurt. The blood did not drop anywhere else except at that machine. None of it dropped near the ladies’ dressing room, or the water cooler. I had a large piece of cotton wrapped around my finger. When I was first cut I just slapped a piece of cotton waste on my hand.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I never saw any blood anywhere except at the machine. I went from the office to the Atlanta Hospital to have my finger attended to.

W. E. TURNER, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I worked at the National Pencil Company during March of this year. I saw Leo Frank talking to Mary Phagan on the second floor, about the middle of March. It was just before dinner. There was nobody else in the room then. She was going to work and he stopped to talk to her. She told him she had to go to work. He told her that he was the superintendent of the factory, and that he wanted to talk to her, and she said she had to go to work. She backed off and he went on towards her talking to her. The last thing I heard him say was he wanted to talk to her. That is all I saw or heard.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

That was just before dinner. The girls were up there getting ready for dinner. Mary was going in the direction where she worked, and Mr. Frank was going the other way. I don’t know whether any of the girls were still at work or not. I didn’t look for them. Some of the girls came in there while this was going on and told me where to put the pencils. Lemmie Quinn’s office is right there. I don’t know whether the girls saw him talking to Mary or not, they were in there. It was just before the whistle blew at noon. Mr. Frank told her he wanted to speak to her and she said she had to go to work, and the girls came in there while this conversation was going on. I can’t describe Mary Phagan. I don’t know any of the other little girls in there. I don’t remember who called her Mary Phagan, a young man on the fourth floor told me her name was Mary Phagan. I don’t know who he was. I didn’t know anybody in the factory. I can’t describe any of the girls. I don’t know a single one in the factory.

The defense had made an impression with their parade of young female pencil factory workers who not only had never been on the receiving end of any importunities by Leo Frank, but who had never seen Frank speaking to Mary Phagan. Almost all of these were still employed by the firm, which was supporting Frank — and had motive to protect their source of income, of course. But, financial motives aside, it still would be quite surprising for even the most lecherous boss imaginable, in charge of dozens and dozens of young women and girls, to have attempted to seduce every single one! So finding a large number who had never been approached sexually by Frank could hardly be seen as definitive proof that he had never done so. Nor would it seem likely, assuming that Leo Frank had talked to Mary Phagan on a number of occasions, that every single employee, or even a majority of them, would have seen such conversations. So finding quite a number who had never witnessed such conversations meant little.

But finding some who had witnessed questionable forays by Frank into the ladies’ dressing room — and who had been sexually approached by Frank or witnessed his approaches to others — and who had seen Frank talk to Mary Phagan, addressing her by name — was enough to almost entirely destroy the character edifice built up by the  defense of a Leo Frank who didn’t know Mary Phagan and whose behavior toward his female employees was above reproach. Most damaging of all was what it did to Leo Frank’s reputation for truthfulness.

After a motorman named Merk testified that defense witness Daisy Hopkins had a reputation as a liar, George Gordon, Minola McKnight’s attorney, testified as to the events of the night that Minola McKnight made her sensational affidavit claiming that Leo Frank had admitted to his wife that he wanted to die because he had killed a girl that day. McKnight, who worked for the Franks as a cook, had since repudiated the affidavit and was claiming it was obtained from her by force.

GEORGE GORDON, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am a practicing lawyer. I was at police station part of the time when Minola McKnight was making her statement. I was outside of the door most of the time. I went down there with habeas corpus proceedings to have her sign the affidavit and when I got there the detectives informed me that she was in the room, and I sat down and waited outside for her two hours, and people went in and out of the door, and after I had waited there I saw the stenographer of the recorder’s court going into the room and I decided I had better make a demand to go into the room, which I did, and I was then allowed to go into the room and I found Mr. Febuary reading over to her some stenographic statement he had taken.

There were two other men from Beck & Gregg Hardware store and Pat Campbell and Mr. Starnes and Albert McKnight. After that was read Mr. Febuary went out to write it off on the typewriter and while he was out Mr. Starnes said, “Now this must be kept very quiet and nobody be told anything about this.” I thought it was agreed that we would say nothing about it. I was surprised when I saw it in the newspapers two or three days afterwards.

I said to Starnes: “There is no reason why you should hold this woman, you should let her go.” He said he would do nothing without consulting Mr. Dorsey and he suggested that I had better go to Mr. Dorsey’s office. I went to his office and he called up Mr. Starnes and then I went back to the police station and told Starnes to call Mr. Dorsey and I presume that Mr. Dorsey told him to let her go. Anyway he said she could go. You (Mr. Dorsey) said you would let her go also. That morning you had said you would not unless I took out a habeas corpus. In the morning after Chief Beavers told me he would not let her go on bond and unless you (Mr. Dorsey) would let her go, I went to your office and told you that she was being held illegally and you admitted it to me and I said we would give bond in any sum that you might ask. You said you would not let her go because you would get in bad with the detectives, and you advised me to take out a habeas corpus, which I did. The detectives said they couldn’t let her got without your consent. You said you didn’t have anything to do with locking her up.

The fragile remains of Albert McKnight’s 1913 affidavit. It ends “‘I can tell Mr. Frank has done something as they act strange. Mrs. Frank tells Magnolia [ = Minola] every day not to forget what to say if they come for her to go to court again. Mrs. Frank had a quarrel with Mr. Frank on the morning of the murder. She asked Mr. Frank to kiss her but then she said he was saving his kisses for ____ and would not kiss her. Magnolia said she heard Mrs. Frank say she would never live with him again, for she knew he had killed that girl, and they had the right man and ought to break his neck.’ Signed: Albert McKnight & witnessed by R.L. Craven & A. Morrison”

As to whether Minola McKnight did not sign this paper freely and voluntarily (State’s Exhibit J), it was signed in my absence while I was at [the] police station. When I came back this paper was lying on the table signed. That paper is substantially the notes that Mr. Febuary read over to her. As they read it over to her, she said it was about that way.

Minola McKnight’s affidavit

Yes, you agreed with me that you had no right to lock her up. I don’t know that you said you didn’t do it. I don’t remember that we discussed that. You told me that you would not direct her to be let loose, because you would get in bad with the detectives. I had told you that the detectives told me they would not release her unless you said so. I took out a habeas corpus immediately afterwards and went down there to get her released, and she was released.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I heard that they had had her in Mr. Dorsey ‘s office and she went away screaming and was locked up. I knew that Mr. Dorsey was letting this be done. She was locked in a cell at the police station when I saw her. They admitted that they did not have any warrant for her arrest. Beavers said he would not let her out on bond unless Mr. Dorsey said so. He said the charge against her was suspicion. They put her in a cell and kept her until four o’clock the next day before they let her go. When I went down to see her in the cell, she was crying and going on and almost hysterical. When I asked Mr. Dorsey to let her go out on bond, he said he wouldn’t do it because he would get in bad with the detectives, but that if I would let her stay down there with Starnes and Campbell for a day, he would let her loose without any bond, and I said I wouldn’t do it. I said that I considered it a very reprehensible thing to lock up somebody because they knew something, and he said, “Well, it is sometimes necessary to get information,” and I said, “Certainly our liberty is more necessary than any information, and I consider it a trampling on our Anglo-Saxon liberties.” They did not tell me that they already had a statement that she had made, and which she declared to be the truth.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

You (Mr. Dorsey) did not tell me that you had no right to lock anybody up. I told you that, and you agreed to it, but you would not let her go. I told you that Chief Beavers said he would do what you said and then I asked you to give me an order. You said you wouldn’t give me an order. When I told Starnes that I thought I ought to be in that room while Minola was making the statement, he knocked on the door, and it was unlocked on the inside and they let me in. They let me into the room at once after I had been sitting there two hours. I was present when she made the statement about the payment of the cook. I don’t remember what questions I asked her at that time. I was her attorney. I didn’t go down there to examine her; I went there to get her out. Starnes and Campbell were in and out of the room during the time. Mr. Starnes stayed on the outside of the door part of the time. I don’t know who was in the room and who was not while I was outside.

Next on the stand was Albert McKnight, Minola’s husband, whose testimony about the lunch hour at the Franks on the day of the murder had been attacked by the defense. Frank’s lawyers had used a diagram of the household to show that he could not have seen what he claimed to have seen. McKnight testified that the diagram was inaccurate and did not show the furniture in its true positions on April 26.

Following Albert McKnight were his employers, who also shed some light on Minola’s statement. They had been present while she was being held, and had even gotten her to make statements to them while detectives were not present. These statements were consistent with her affidavit, and not consistent with her later denial of it:

R. L. CRAVEN, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am connected with the Beck and Gregg Hardware Co. Albert McKnight also works for the same company. He asked me to go down and see if I could get Minola McKnight out when she was arrested. I went there for that purpose. I was present when she signed that affidavit (State’s Exhibit J).

I went out with Mr. Pickett to Minola McKnight ‘s home the latter part of May. Albert McKnight was there. On the 3rd day of June, we were down at the station house and they brought Minola McKnight in and we questioned her first as to the statements Albert had given me; at first she would not talk, she said she didn’t know anything about it.

I told her that Albert made the statement that he was there Saturday when Mr. Frank came home, and he said Mr. Frank came in the dining room and stayed about ten minutes and went to the sideboard and caught a car in about ten minutes after he first arrived there, and I went on and told her that Albert had said that Minola had overheard Mrs. Frank tell Mrs. Selig that Mr. Frank didn’t rest well and he came home drinking and made Mrs. Frank get out of bed and sleep on a rug by the side of the bed and wanted her to give him his pistol to shoot his head off and that he had murdered somebody, or something like that. Minola at first hesitated, but finally she told everything that was in that affidavit. When she did that Mr. Starnes, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Febuary, Albert McKnight, Mr. Pickett, and Mr. Gordon were there. When we were questioning her, I don’t remember whether anybody but Mr. Pickett and myself and Albert McKnight were there.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

We went down there about 11:30 o’clock. I didn’t know that she had been in jail twelve hours then. I suppose she was in jail because they needed her as a witness. I was in Mr. Dorsey’s office only one time about this matter, the same morning I started out to see if I could get her and I went to see Mr. Dorsey about getting her out. Her husband wanted her out of jail and I went to see Mr. Dorsey about getting her out.

At first she denied it. I questioned her for something like two hours. I didn’t know she had already made a statement about the truth of the transaction. Mr. Dorsey didn’t read it to me. He said she was hysterical and wouldn’t talk at all. I went down to get her to make some kind of a statement; I wanted her to tell the truth in the matter. I wanted to see whether her husband was telling the truth or whether she was telling a falsehood.

Yes, she finally made a statement that agreed with her husband, and I left after awhile.

As to why I didn’t stay and get her out, because I didn’t want to. I went after we got her statement. No, I didn’t get her out of jail. I did not look after her any further than that. I don’t think Mr. Dorsey told me to question her. He wanted me to go out to see her. He said Mr. Starnes and Mr. Campbell would be up there and they would let us know about it, and we went up there and Mr. Starnes and Mr. Campbell brought her in. They let us see her all right. I did not ask Campbell or Starnes to turn her out. I didn’t ask anybody to turn her out. I never made any suggestion to anybody about turning her out. Nobody cursed, mistreated or threatened this woman while I was there. I don’t know what took place before I got there.

E. H. PICKETT, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I work at Beck & Gregg Hdw. Co. I was present when that paper was signed (State’s Exhibit J) by Minola McKnight. Albert McKnight, Starnes, Campbell, Mr. Craven, Mr. Gordon was present when she made that statement.

We questioned her about the statement Albert had made and she denied it all at first. She said she had been cautioned not to talk about this affair by Mrs. Frank or Mrs. Selig. She stated that Albert had lied in what he told us. She finally began to weaken on one or two points and admitted that she had been paid a little more money than was ordinarily due her.

There was a good many things in that statement that she did not tell us, though, at first. She didn’t tell us all of that when she went at it. She seemed hysterical at the beginning. We told her that we weren’t there to get her into trouble, but came down there to get her out, and then she agreed to talk to us but would not talk to the detectives. The detectives then retired from the room.

Albert told her that she knew she told him those things. She denied it, but finally acknowledged that she said a few of those things, and among the things I remember is that she was cautioned not to repeat anything that she heard. We asked her a thousand questions perhaps. I don’t know how many. I called the detectives and told them we had gotten all the admissions we could. We didn’t have any stenographer and Mr. Craven began writing it out, and Mr. Craven had written only a small portion when the stenographer came.

She did not make all of that statement in the first talk she had with us. She didn’t say anything with reference to Mrs. Frank having stated anything to her mother on Sunday morning.

The affidavit does not contain anything that she did not state there that day. Before she made that affidavit, she said he did eat dinner that day. She finally said he didn’t eat any. At first she said he remained at home at dinner time about half an hour or more. She finally said he only remained about ten minutes. At first she said Albert McKnight was not there that day. She finally said he was there. She said she was instructed not to talk at first. At first she said her wages hadn’t been changed, finally said her wages had been raised by the Seligs. As to what, if anything, she said about a hat being given her by Mrs. Selig, the only statement she made about the hat at all was when she made the affidavit. We didn’t know anything about the hat before. Nobody threatened her when she was there. When the first questioning was going on Campbell and Starnes were not in there. They came in when we called them and told them we were ready. Her attorney, Mr. Gordon, came in with the detectives.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

As to why we didn’t take her statement when she denied saying all those things, because we didn’t believe them. We were down there about three hours. We went down there to try and get Minola McKnight out, if we could. We asked Mr. Dorsey to get her out. He said he would let us stand her bond, and he referred us to the detectives to make arrangements. As to why we didn’t get her out then, we wanted a statement from her if we could get it. No, I didn’t know that whenever the detectives got the story they wanted, they would let her out. As to my going to get her out and then grilling her for three hours, I didn’t tell her I was going to get her out; I went down there to get her out, but she left there before I did. She went out of the room. The detectives treated her very nice. They let her go after she made the statement. I knew they were holding her because she did not make a statement confirming her husband. It was not my object to make her statement agree with her husband’s statement, but it was my duty as a good citizen to make her tell the truth.

Dr. S.C. Benedict testified that one of the defense medical experts had a grudge against Dr. Harris, the prosecution’s main medical expert. This was followed by several streetcar motormen who stated that the streetcars often arrived ahead of schedule, which tended to minimize the effect of the testimony of the motormen called by the defense, who had claimed that since the streetcar schedule  was rigorously adhered to, Mary Phagan must have arrived later than Leo Frank’s original estimate of five to ten minutes after noon. There was a great deal of testimony later regarding the timing of Mary Phagan’s arrival — and the amount of time which had passed since her late breakfast.

Ultimately, no one really doubted that Mary Phagan had arrived at Leo Frank’s office  just a few minutes after noon on April 26 — and had met her death a very few minutes after that.

J. H. HENDRICKS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am a motorman for the Georgia Railway & Electric Company. On April 26th I was running a street car on the Marietta line to the Stock Yards on Decatur Street. I couldn’t say what time we got to town on April 26th, about noon. I have no cause to remember that day. The English Avenue car, with Matthews and Hollis has gotten to town prior to April 26th, ahead of time. I couldn’t say how much ahead of time. I have seen them come in two or three minutes ahead of time; that day they came about 12:06. Hollis would usually leave Broad and Marietta Streets on my car. I couldn’t swear positively what time I got to Broad and Marietta Streets on April 26th. I couldn’t swear what time Hollis and Matthews got there that day. I don’t know anything about that. Often they get there ahead of time. Sometimes they are punished for it.

J. C. McEWING, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am a street car motorman. I ran on Marietta and Decatur Street April 26th. My car was due in town at ten minutes after the hour on April 26th. Hollis’ and Matthews ‘ car was due there 7 minutes after the hour. Hendricks car was due there 5 minutes after the hour. The English Avenue frequently cut off the White City car due in town at 12:05. The White City car is due there before the English Avenue. It is due 5 minutes after the hour and the Cooper Street is due 7 minutes after. The English Avenue would have to be ahead of time to cut off the Cooper Street car. That happens quite often. I have come in ahead of time very often. I have known the English Avenue car to be 4 or 5 minutes ahead of time.

A portion of Leo Frank’s original statement to the police is shown here. Note that he flatly states that Mary Phagan arrived between 12:05 and 12;10. Ironically, a huge amount of his defense team’s efforts went into challenging Frank’s own statement as to the time Mary Phagan had appeared in his office. They were trying to edge Frank’s meeting with the murdered girl later and later, and therefore further from the time that Monteeen Stover had found Frank’s office empty. Frank himself changed the time of her arrival several times during the course of the investigation.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I don’t know when that happened or who ran the car. I don’t know whether they ran on schedule time on April 26th, or not. When one car is cut off, one might be ahead of time, and one might be behind time. It’s reasonable to suppose that the five minutes after car ought to come in ahead of the one due seven minutes after. If it was behind it would be cut off, just as easy as the other one would be cut off by being ahead.

M. E. McCOY, sworn for the State, in rebuttal.

I knew Mary Phagan. I saw her on April 26th, in front of Cooledge’s place at 12 Forsyth Street. She was going towards pencil company, south on Forsyth Street on right hand side. It was near twelve o’clock. I left the corner of Walton and Forsyth Street exactly twelve o’clock and came straight on down there. It took me three or four minutes to go there.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I know what time it was because I looked at my watch. First time I told it was a week ago last Saturday, when I told an officer. I didn’t tell it because I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I didn’t consider it as a matter of importance until I saw the statement of the motorman of the car she came in on, and I knew that was wrong. She was dressed in blue, a low, chunky girl. Her hair was not very dark. She had on a blue hat.

GEORGE KENDLEY, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am with the Georgia Railway & Power Co. I saw Mary Phagan about noon on April 26th. She was going to the pencil factory from Marietta Street. When I saw her she stepped off of the viaduct.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I was on the front end of the Hapeville car when I saw her. It is due in town at 12 o’clock. I don’t know if it was on time that day. I told several people about seeing her the next day. If Mary Phagan left home at 10 minutes to 12, she ought to have got to town about 10 minutes after 12, somewhere in that neighborhood. She could not have gotten in much earlier. The time that I saw her is simply an estimate. That was the time my car was due in town. I remember seeing her by reading of the tragedy the next day. I didn’t testify at the Coroner’s inquest because nobody came to ask me. No, I have not abused and villified Frank since this tragedy. No, I have not made myself a nuisance on the cars by talking of him. I know Mr. Brent. I didn’t tell him that Mr. Frank’s children said he was guilty. Mr. Brent asked me what I thought about it several times on the car. He has always been the aggressor. As to whether I abused and villified him in the presence of Miss Haas and other passengers, there has been so much talk that I don’t know what has been said. I don’t think I said if he was released I would join a party to lynch him. Somebody said if he got out there might be some trouble. I don’t remem- ber saying that I would join a party to help lynch him if he got out. I talked to Mr. Leach about it. I don’t remember what I told him. I told him I saw her over there about 12 o’clock. That was the time the car was due in town. I know I saw her before 12:05. My car was on schedule time. I couldn’t swear it was exactly on the minute.

HENRY HOFFMAN, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am inspector of the street car company. Matthews is under me a certain part of the day. On April 26th he was under me from 11:30 to 12:07. His car was due at Broad and Marietta at 12:07. There is no such schedule as 12:07 and half. I have been on his car when we cut off the Fair Street car. Fair Street car is due at 12:05. I have compared watches with him. They vary from 20 to 40 seconds. We are supposed to carry the right time. I have called Matthews attention to running ahead of schedule once or twice. They come in ahead of time on relief time for supper and dinner.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I don’t know anything about his coming on April 26th. We found out he was ahead of time way along last March. He was a minute and a half ahead. I have caught him as much as three minutes ahead of time last spring, on the trip due in town 12:07. I didn’t report him, I just talked to him. I have known him to be ahead of time twice in five years while he was under my supervision.

N. KELLY, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am a motorman of the Georgia Railway & Power Co. On April 26th, I was standing at the corner of Forsyth and Marietta Street about three minutes after 12. I was going to catch the College Park car home about 12:10. I saw the English Avenue car of Matthews and Mr. Hollis arrive at Forsyth and Marietta about 12:03. I knew Mary Phagan. She was not on that car. She might have gotten off there, but she didn’t come around. I got on that car at Broad and Marietta and went around Hunter Street. She was not on there.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I didn’t say anything about this because I didn’t want to get mixed up in it. I told Mr. Starnes about it this morning. I have never said anything about it before. That car was due in town at 12:07. The Fair Street car was behind it.

W. B. OWENS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I rode on the White City line of the Georgia Railway & Electric Co. It is due at 12:05. Two minutes ahead of the English Avenue car. We got to town on April 26th, at 12:05. I don’t remember seeing the English Avenue car that day. I have known that car to come in a minute ahead of us, sometimes two minutes ahead. That was after April 26th. I don’t recall whether it occurred before April 26th.

LOUIS INGRAM, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am a conductor on the English Avenue line. I came to town on that car on April 26th. I don’t know what time we came to town. I have seen that car come in ahead of time several times, sometimes as much as four minutes ahead. I know Matthews, the motorman. I have ridden in with him when he was ahead of time several times.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

It is against the rules to come in ahead of time, and also to come in behind time. They punish you for either one.

W. M. MATTHEWS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I have talked with this man Dobbs (W. C.) but I don’t know what I talked about. I have never told him or anybody that I saw Mary Phagan get off the car with George Epps at the corner of Marietta and Broad. It has been two years since I have been tried for an offense in this court.

Defense witness W.M. Matthews at center

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I was acquitted by the jury. I had to kill a man on my car who assaulted me.

W. C. DOBBS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Motorman Matthews told me two or three days after the murder that Mary Phagan and George Epps got on his car together and left at Marietta and Broad Streets.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Sergeant Dobbs is my father.

W. W. ROGERS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

On Sunday morning after the murder, I tried to go up the stairs leading from the basement up to the next floor. The door was fastened down. The staircase was very dusty, like it had been some little time since it had been swept. There was a little mound of shavings right where the chute came down on the basement floor. The bin was about a foot and a half from the chute.

W.W. “Boots” Rogers

SERGEANT L. S. DOBBS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I saw Mr. Rogers on Sunday try to get in that back door leading up from basement in rear of factory. There were cobwebs and dust there. The door was closed.

O. TILLANDER, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Mr. Graham and I went to the pencil factory on April 26th, about 20 minutes to 12. We went in from the street and looked around and I found a negro coming from a dark alley way, and I asked him for the office and he told me to go to the second floor and turn to the right. I saw Conley this morning. I am not positive that he is the man. He looked to be about the same size. When I went to the office the stenographer was in the outer office. Mr. Frank was in the inner office sitting at his desk. I went there to get my step-son’s money.

E. K. GRAHAM, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I was at the pencil factory April 26th, with Mr. Tillander, about 20 minutes to 12. We met a negro on the ground floor. Mr. Tillander asked him where the office was, and he told him to go up the steps. I don’t know whether it was Jim Conley or not. He was about the same size, but he was a little brighter than Conley. If he was drunk I couldn’t notice it, I wouldn’t have noticed it anyway.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Mr. Frank and his stenographer were upstairs. He was at his desk. I didn’t see any lady when I came out.

J. W. COLEMAN, sworn for the State in rebuttal. [Mary Phagan’s stepfather. — Ed.]

I remember a conversation I had with detective McWorth. [McWorth was the Pinkerton man, later dismissed, who claimed to have discovered a “bloody club” and part of Mary Phagan’s pay envelope on the first floor, long after other detectives had thoroughly searched the area. –Ed.] He exhibited an envelope to me with a figure “5” on the right of it.

Mary Phagan’s stepfather, J.W. Coleman

CROSS EXAMINATION.

This does not seem to be the envelope he showed me. (Defendant’s Exhibit 47). The figure “5” was on it. I don’t see it now. I told him at the time that Mary was due $1.20, and that “5” on the right would not suit for that.

J. M. GANTT, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I have seen Leo Frank make up the financial sheet. It would take him an hour and a half after I gave him the data. [This in contrast to the repeated claim by Frank that he needed all afternoon. — Ed.]

J. M. Gantt

IVY JONES (c[olered]), sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I saw Jim Conley at the corner of Hunter and Forsyth Streets on April 26th. He came in the saloon while I was there, between one and two o’clock. He was not drunk when I saw him. The saloon is on the opposite corner from the factory. We went on towards Conley’s home. I left him at the corner of Hunter and Davis Street a little after two o’clock.

HARRY SCOTT, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I picked up cord in the basement when I went through there with Mr. Frank. Lee’s shirt had no color on it, excepting that of blood. I got the information as to Conley’s being able to write from McWorth when I returned to Atlanta. As to the conversation Black and I had, with Mr. Frank about Darley, Mr. Frank said Darley was the soul of honor and that we had the wrong man; that there was no use in inquiring about Darley and he knew Darley could not be responsible for such an act. I told him that we had good information to the effect that Darley had been associating with other girls in the factory; that he was a married man and had a family. Mr. Frank didn’t seem to know anything about that. He said it was a peculiar thing for a man in Mr. Darley’s position to be associating with factory employees, if he was doing it.

Pinkerton Detective Harry Scott

CROSS EXAMINATION.

We left after about two hours interview.

L. T. KENDRICK, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I was night watchman at the pencil factory for something like two years. I punched the clocks for a whole night’s work in two or three minutes. The clock at the factory needed setting about every 24 hours. It varied from three to five minutes. That is the clock slip I punched (State’s Exhibit P). I don’t think you could have heard the elevator on the top floor if the machinery was running or anyone was knocking on any of the floors. The back stairway was very dusty and showed that they had not been used lately after the murder. I have seen Jim Conley at the factory Saturday afternoons when I went there to get my money.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I generally got to the factory about a quarter of two to two-thirty. The clock was usually corrected every morning. The clock would run slow sometimes and sometimes fast.

VERA EPPS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

My brother George was in the house when Mr. Minar was asking us about the last time we saw Mary Phagan. I don’t know if he heard the questions asked. George didn’t tell him that he didn’t see Mary that Saturday. I told him I had seen Mary Phagan Thursday.

C. J. MAYNARD, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I have seen Brutus Dalton go in the factory with a woman in June or July, 1912. She weighed about 125 pounds. It was between 1:30 and 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I was ten feet from the woman. I didn’t notice her very particularly. I did not speak to them.

W. T. HOLLIS, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Mr. Reed rides out with me every morning. I don’t remember talking to J. D. Reed on Monday, April 29th, and telling him that George Epps and Mary Phagan were on my car together. I didn’t tell that to anybody. I say like I have always said, that if he was on the car I did not see him.

J. D. REED, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Mr. Hollis told me on Monday, April 28th, that Epps had gotten on the car and taken his seat next to Mary, and that the two talked to each other all the way as though they were little sweethearts.

J. N. STARNES, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

There were no spots around the scuttle hole where the ladder is immediately after the murder. Campbell and I arrested Minola McKnight, to get a statement from her. We turned her over to the patrol wagon and we never saw her any more until the following day, when we called Mr. Craven and Mr. Pickett to come down and interview her. We stayed on the outside while she was on the inside with Craven and Pickett. They called us back and I said to her, “Minola, the truth is all we want, and if this is not the truth, don’t you state it.” And she started to put the statement down. Mr. Gordon, her attorney, was on the outside, and I told him we could go inside without his making any demand on me, and he went in with me, and Mr. Febuary had already taken down part of the statement and I stopped him and made him read over what he had already taken down, and after she had finished the statement, Attorney Gordon went to Mr. Dorsey’s office and then he came back to the police station. After he returned the affidavit was read over in the presence of Mr. Pickett, Craven, Campbell, Albert McKnight and Attorney Gordon and she signed it in our presence. You (Mr. Dorsey) had nothing to do with holding her. You told me over the phone that you couldn’t say what I could do, but that I could do what I pleased about it.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

No, I did not lock her up because she didn’t give us the right kind of statement; as to the authority I had to lock her up, it was reasonable and right that she should be locked up. I did that for the best interest of the case I was working on. No, I didn’t have any warrant for her arrest. She was brought to Mr. Dorsey’s office by a bailiff by a subpoena. I took her away from Dorsey’s office and put her in a patrol wagon. I expect Mr. Dorsey knew we were going to lock her up, but he did not tell us to do it. No, he didn’t disapprove of it. I didn’t know anything about her having made a previous statement to Mr. Dorsey. I think Mr. Dorsey said she had made such a statement. I saw her the next day in the station house. She didn’t scream after leaving Dorsey’s office until she reached the sidewalk. And then she commenced hollering and carrying on that she was going to jail; that she didn’t know anything about it, or something like that. No, I had no warrant for her arrest. She had committed no crime. I held her to get the truth. Mr. Dorsey told me I could turn her loose as I pleased. That was after she made the statement. I told him as to what had occurred and that her attorney, Gordon, was coming up there to see him. I told Col. Gordon that if it was agreeable with Col. Dorsey, that Minola could go as far as we were concerned. Well, Mr. Dorsey had more or less to do with the case that I was working on and I wanted to act on his advice and consent. He called me on the telephone and told me that if the chief thought it best or if we thought it best after conferring, to just let her go.

DR. CLARENCE JOHNSON, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am a specialist on diseases of the stomach and intestines. I am a physiologist. A physiologist makes his searches on the living body; the pathologist makes his on a dead body.

If you give any one who has drunk a chocolate milk at about eight o’clock in the morning, cabbage at 12 o’clock and 30 or 40 minutes thereafter you take the cabbage out and it is shown to be dark like chocolate and milk, that much contents of any kind vomited up three and a half hours afterwards would show an abnormal stomach. It doesn’t show a normal digestion.

If a little girl who eats a dinner of cabbage and bread at 11:30 is found the next morning dead at 3 a. m., with a rope around her neck, indented and the flesh sticking up, bruised on the eye, blood on the back of her head, the tongue sticking out, blue skin, every indication that she came to her death from strangulation, her head down, rigor mortis had been on her twenty hours, the blood had settled in her where the gravity would naturally take it in the face, she is embalmed, formaldehyde is used and injected in the various cavities of the body, including the stomach, a pathologist takes her stomach a week or ten days after, finds cabbage of that size (State’s Ex- hibit G) in the stomach, finds starch granules undigested, and finds in the stomach that the pyloris is still closed, that there is nothing in the first six feet of the small intestines; that there is every indication that digestion had been progressing favorably, and finds thirty-two degrees hydrochloric acid, and if the pathologist is capable and finds that there was only combined hydrochloric acid and that there was no abnormal condition of the stomach, the six feet of the intestines was empty, I would say that the digestion of bread and cabbage was stopped within an hour after they were eaten. That would not be a wild guess in my opinion.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

The bruises on the head, the evidence of strangulation and other injuries about the head are other possible factors which must be taken into consideration. Anything which disturbs the circulation of the blood, or hinders the action of the nerves controlling the stomach, especially the secretion, prevents the development of the characteristics found in normal digestion one hour after a meal. I mean by mechanical condition of the stomach, no change in the size or thickness, or opening into the intestines, or size or thickness of intestines. The test should be made with absolute accuracy with these acids. The color test is generally accepted. A man’s eye has to be absolutely correct to make the color test.

The degree of acidity in a normal stomach varies from 30 to 45 degrees, according to the stomach and what is in it. The formaldehyde would make no change on the physical property on the pancreatic juice found in the small intestine after death. There would be hardly any change on its chemical property. When it comes in contact with the formaldehyde it is supposed to be preserved. It has some neutralizing effect on the alkali present. That decomposes in time after death, unless hindered by some preservative. The hydrochloric acids in the stomach also disappear if the stomach has disintegrated and the preservative has disappeared. It disappears like the other fluids and tissues of the body unless hindered by some preservative agent. Sometimes digestion is delayed a good deal even in a normal stomach by insufficient mastication, too much diluting of the juices, or anything that hinders the operation of the mechanical effect. Insufficient mastication is one of the commonest causes, also the taking of too much liquid. Fatigue occasioned by extensive walking would hinder it. If the walking was not too extensive to produce fatigue, it would help digestion in a normal stomach. Insufficient mastication is the worst cause of delayed digestion. My estimate was that the cabbage was found an hour after the process of digestion had begun. I did not undertake to say when the digestion began. You can’t tell by looking at food in a bottle how much the failure to masticate it delayed digestion in hours and minutes. It would be just an estimate.

The physical appearance of that cabbage (Defendant’s Exhibit 88) shows indigestion by the layer, character and size, and area of separation between, and the character and arrangement of the layers below. The mere fact that it was vomited up would be proof positive that no scientific opinion could be made about it. To make a scientific test I would have to test the mechanism of the stomach, the time it was in there and the degree and presence of the different acids. The chocolate milk would not naturally stay in a normal stomach five or six hours. The cabbage would stay in a normal empty stomach where there was a tomato also three or four hours. I never made any test of Mary Phagan’s stomach and examined the contents of it.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

160 cubic cc. of liquid in the stomach taken out nine days afterwards would be a little in excess of what I would consider normal under the conditions already named.

DR. GEORGE M. NILES, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I confine my work to diseases of digestion. Every healthy stomach has a certain definite and orderly relation to every other healthy stomach. Assuming a young lady between thirteen and fourteen years of age at 11:30 April 26, 1913, eats a meal of cabbage and bread, that the next morning about three o’clock her dead body is found. That there are indentations in her neck where a cord had been around her throat, indicating that she died of strangulation, her nails blue, her face blue, a slight injury on the back of the head, a contused bruise on one of her eyes, the body is found with the face down, rigor mortis had been on from sixteen to twenty hours, that the blood in the body has settled in the part where gravity would naturally carry it, that the body is embalmed immediately with a fluid consisting chiefly of formaldehyde, which is injected in the veins and cavities of the body; that she is disinterred nine days thereafter; that cabbage of this texture (State’s Exhibit G) is found in her stomach; that the position of the stomach is normal; that no inflammation of the stomach is found by microscopic investigation; that no mucous is found, and that the glands found under this microscope are found to be normal, that there is no obstruction to the flow of the contents of the stomach to the small intestine; that the pyloris is closed; that there is every indication that digestion was progressing favorably; that in the gastric juices there is found starch granules that are shown by the color test to have been undigested, and that in that stomach you also find thirty-two degrees of hydrochloric acid, no maltose, no dextrin, no free hydrochloric acid (there would be more or less free hydrochloric acid in the course of an hour or more in the orderly progress of digestion of a healthy stomach where the contents are carbohydrates), I would say that indicated that digestion had been progressing less than an hour.

The starch digestion should have progressed beyond the state erythrodextrin in course of an hour. There should have been enough free acid to have stimulated the pyloris to relax to a certain extent, and there should have been some contents in the duodenum. I am assuming, of course, that it is a healthy stomach and that the digestion was not disturbed by any psychic cause which would disturb the mind or any severe physical exercise. I am not going so much on the physical appearance of the cabbage. Any severe physical exercise or mental stress has quite an influence on digestion. Death does not change the composition of the gastric juices when combined with hydrochloric acid for quite awhile. The gastric juices combined with the hydrochloric acid are an antiseptic or preservative. There is a wide variation in diseased stomachs as to digestion.

CROSS EXAMINATION

There are idiosyncracies in a normal stomach, but where they are too marked I would not consider that a normal stomach. I wouldn’t say that there is a mechanical rule where you can measure the digestive power of every stomach for every kind of food. There is a set time for every stomach to digest every kind of food within fairly regular limits, that is, a healthy stomach. There is a fairly mixed standard. There is no great amount of variation between healthy stomachs. I can’t answer for how long it takes cabbage to digest. I have taken cabbage out of a cancerous stomach that had been in there twenty-four hours, but there was no obstruction. The longest time that I have taken cabbage out of a fairly normal stomach was between four and five hours. That was where it was in the stomach along with another meal. I found the cabbage among the remains of the meal four or five hours after it had been eaten.

Mastication is a very important function of digestion. Failure to masticate delays the starch digestion. Starch and cabbage are both carbohydrates. I would say that if cabbage went into a healthy stomach not well masticated, the starch digestion would not get on so well, but the stomach would get busy at once. Of course, it would not be prepared as well. The digestion would be delayed, of course. That cabbage is not as well digested as it should have been (State’s exhibit G), but the very fact of your anticipating a good meal, smelling it, starts your saliva going and forms the first stage of digestion, and digestion is begun right there in the mouth, even if you haven’t chewed it a single time. Any deviation from good mastication retards digestion.

I couldn’t presume to say how long that cabbage lay in Mary Phagan’s stomach. I believe if it had been a live, healthy stomach and the process of digestion was going on orderly, it would be pulverized in four or five hours. It would be more broken up and tricturated than it is. I wouldn’t consider that a wild guess. I think it would have been fairly well pulverized in three hours. Chewing amounts to a great deal, but there should be an amount of saliva in her stomach even if she hadn’t masticated it thoroughly. Chewing is a temperamental matter to a great extent. One man chews his meal quicker than another. If it isn’t chewed at all, the stomach gets busy and helps out all it can and digests it after awhile. It takes more effort, of course, but not necessarily more time. What the teeth fail to do the stomach does to a great extent. The stomach has an extra amount of work if it is not masticated. You can’t tell by looking at the cabbage how long it had been undergoing the process of digestion. If that was a healthy stomach with combined acid of 32 degrees, and nothing happened either physical or mental to interfere with digestion, those laboratory findings indicated that digestion had been progressing less than an hour. I never made an autopsy or examination of the contents of Mary Phagan’s stomach.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

The first stage of digestion is starch digestion. This progresses in the stomach until the contents become acid in all its parts. Then the starch digestion stops until the contents get out in the intestines and become alkaline in reaction; then the starch digestion is continued on beyond. The olfactories act as a stimulant to the salivary glands.

DR. JOHN FUNK, sworn for the State in rebuttal.

I am professor of pathology and bacteriologist. I was shown by Dr. Harris sections from the vaginal wall of Mary Phagan, sections taken near the skin surface. I didn’t see sections from the stomach or the contents. These sections showed that the epithelium wall was torn off at points immediately beneath that covering in the tissues below, and there was infiltrated pressure of blood. They were, you might say, engorged, and the white blood cells in those blood vessels were more numerous than you will find in a normal blood vessel. The blood vessels at some distance from the torn point were not so engorged to the same extent as those blood vessels immediately in the vicinity of the hemorrhage. Those blood vessels were larger than they should be under normal circumstances, as compared with the blood vessels in the vicinity of the tear. You couldn’t tell about any discoloration, but there was blood there. It is reasonable to suppose that there was swelling there because of the infiltrated pressure of the blood in the tissues. Those conditions must have been produced prior to death, because the blood could not invade the tissues after death.

If a young lady, between thirteen and fourteen years old eats at eleven thirty a. m. a normal meal of bread and cabbage on a Saturday and at three a. m. Sunday morning she is found with a cord around her neck, the skin indented, the nails and flesh cyanotic, the tongue out and swollen, blue nails, everything indicating that she had been strangled to death, that rigor mortis had set in, and according to the best authorities had probably progressed from sixteen to twenty hours, and she was laying face down when found, and gravity had forced the blood into that part of the body next to the ground, that it had discolored her features, that immediately thereafter, between ten and two o’clock she was embalmed with a fluid containing usual amount of formaldehyde, this being injected into the veins in the large cavities, she is interred thereafter and in about a week or ten days she is disinterred, and you find in her stomach cabbage like that (State’s Exhibit G) and you find granules of starch undigested, and those starch granules are developed by the usual color tests, and you also find in that stomach thirty-two degrees of combined hydrochloric acid, the pyloris closed, and the duodenum, and six feet of the small intestines empty, no free hydrochloric acid being present at all, nor dextrin, or erythrodextrin being found in any degree, and the uterus was somewhat enlarged, and the walls of the vagina show dilation and swelling, I would say that under those conditions that the epithelium was torn off before death, because of the changes in the blood vessels and tissues below the epithelium covering, and because of the presence of blood.

I would not express an opinion as to how long cabbage had been in the stomach, from the appearance of the cabbage itself, taking into consideration the combined hydrochloric acid of thirty-two degrees, the emptiness of the small intestine, the presence of starch granules, and the absence of free hydrochloric acid, one can’t say positively, but it is reasonable to assume that the digestion had pro- gressed probably an hour, maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Dr. Dorsey asked me to examine the sections of the vaginal wall last Saturday. The sections I examined were about a quarter of an inch wide and three-quarters of an inch long. It was about nine twenty-five thousandths of an inch thick, that is, much thinner than tissue paper. I examined thirty or forty little strips. That was after this trial began. I was not present at the autopsy. As soon as a tissue receives an injury, it reacts in a very short time. The reaction shows up in the changes of the blood vessels. You can tell by the appearance of the blood vessels whether the injury was before death or not, and you can give an approximate idea as to the length of time before death. I do not know from what body the sections were taken. I know that it was from a human vagina.

THE STATE CLOSES.

EVIDENCE FOR DEFENDANT IN SUR-REBUTTAL.

T. Y. BRENT, sworn for the Defendant in sur-rebuttal.

I have heard George Kendley on several occasions express himself very bitterly towards Leo Frank. He said he felt in this case just as he did about a couple of negroes hung down in Decatur; that he didn’t know whether they had been guilty or not, but somebody had to be hung for killing those street car men and it was just as good to hang one nigger as another, and that Frank was nothing but an old Jew and they ought to take him out and hang him anyhow.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I have been employed by the defense to assist in subpoenaing witnesses. I took the part of Jim Conley in the experiment conducted by Dr. Win. Owens at the factory on Sunday.

M. E. STAHL, sworn for the Defendant, in sur-rebuttal.

I have heard George Kendley, the conductor, express his feelings toward Leo Frank. I was standing on the rear platform, and he said that Frank was as guilty as a snake, and should be hung, and that if the court didn’t convict him that he would be one of five or seven that would get him.

MISS C. S. HAAS, sworn for the Defendant, in sur-rebuttal.

I heard Kendley two weeks ago talk about the Frank case so loud that the entire street car heard it. He said that circumstantial evidence was the best kind of evidence to convict a man on and if there was any doubt, the State should be given the benefit of it, and that 90 per cent. of the best people in the city, including himself, thought that Frank was guilty and ought to hang.

N. SINKOVITZ, sworn for the Defendant, in sur-rebuttal.

I am a pawnbroker. I know M.E. McCoy. He has pawned his watch to me lately. The last time was January 11, 1913. It was in my place of business on the 26th of April, 1913. He paid up his loan on August 16th, last Saturday, during this trial. This is the same watch I have been handling for him during the last two years.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

My records here show that he took it out Saturday.

S. L. ASHER, sworn for the Defendant in sur-rebuttal.

About two weeks ago I was coming to town between 5 and 10 minutes to 1 on the car and there was a man who was talking very loud about the Frank case, and all of a sudden he said: “They ought to take that damn Jew out and hang him anyway.” I took his number down to report him.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I have not had a chance to report since it happened.

It is most interesting that a single man, expressing his opinion that Leo Frank was a “damn Jew” and ought to hang, was something that a public-spirited citizen in 1913 Atlanta thought he ought to report to the authorities. This hardly corresponds with the atmosphere of “pervasive Southern anti-Semitism” that modern Frank supporters say existed. On the contrary, it speaks of an atmosphere in which such sentiments were strongly deplored, and even considered beyond the pale of socially acceptable behavior and expression.

In this rare photograph from his days at Cornell University, Leo Frank stares wide-eyed at the camera, a characteristic expression for him.

During the final moments of the trial itself, and before closing arguments were made, Leo Max Frank asked to address the court once again. He was permitted to do so. As before, he was unsworn and not under oath and not subject to cross-examination, just as in his initial statement. No matter what Frank told the jury, Dorsey was forbidden to question him about it, or make it the basis for questioning anyone else.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT MADE BY DEFENDANT, LEO M. FRANK.

In reply to the statement of the boy that he saw me talking to Mary Phagan when she backed away from me, that is absolutely false, that never occurred. In reply to the two girls, Robinson and Hewel, that they saw me talking to Mary Phagan and that I called her” Mary,” I wish to say that they are mistaken. It is very possible that I have talked to the little girl in going through the factory and examining the work, but I never knew her name, either to call her “Mary Phagan,” “Miss Phagan,” or “Mary.”

In reference to the statements of the two women who say that they saw me going into the dressing room with Miss Rebecca Carson, I wish to state that that is utterly false. It is a slander on the young lady, and I wish to state that as far as my knowledge of Miss Rebecca Carson goes, she is a lady of unblemished character.

DEFENDANT CLOSES.

So to the very end, Leo Frank maintained that all the witnesses who heard him calling Mary Phagan by name were liars — or mistaken. Interestingly, he did not take even a moment at the end of the trial to repeat his claim that he never made lascivious advances toward the young ladies under his supervision — as several of them had so recently testified. Most likely he was warned off the topic by his counsel.

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Source: American Mercury

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

Atlanta Georgian

Wednesday, May 7^th, 1913

Detectives Figure Strangling Was a Typical Mediterranean Crime—Solicitor Dorsey Grills Watchman Lee in Effort to Get New Points.

A new and sensational interpretation was given the Phagan mystery Wednesday afternoon when it was revealed that Pinkerton detectives are trailing a Greek now missing who was employed in a restaurant near the National Pencil factory before the crime was committed.

The reasons that the city detectives give for the adoption of the new theory are:

The slaying of Mary Phagan was not a negro crime, as the only negro who has been suspected in the case, Newt Lee, would have fled from the scene.

The notes which were left with the evident intention of diverting suspicion from the actual criminal were too subtle for Lee to have framed.

Strangulation, the method by which Mary Phagan was killed, is not a negro method of killing.

But this method is typical of the Mediterranean countries.

Working along these new lines, the detectives are of the opinion that the crime was not committed inside the National Pencil Factory. They believe that the girl was attacked outside the factory and that her body was taken inside with the intention of hiding it ultimately in the furnace, although the body never reached there.

Girls Eat at Near-by Café.

It is not the supposition that it was the intention to burn it, as there were no fires under the boilers. The assailant only wanted to hide the body so that he might have time to make his escape.

Girls employed in the pencil factory are in the habit of getting many of their midday lunches at a little Greek restaurant near the factory building. It was the most natural thing to suppose that Mary Phagan, after getting her money Saturday afternoon, stopped in at the restaurant to get something to eat.

One of the important developments in the search for the slayer of Mary Phagan came Wednesday afternoon in the surprising information that the authorities ordered a second exhumation of the body to confirm the statement of an expert physician that the crime, which was taken for granted by all to have preceded the actual killing of the girl, was not accomplished.

One physician whose opinion has great weight in medical circles and who made a minute examination of the body, declared that he virtually was certain that the girl had not been outraged before she was killed and left in the basement of the National Pencil Factory.

Dr. J. W. Hurt, county physician, is understood to have said that he was not at all satisfied on this point.

The man under suspicion is said to have been employed at the restaurant. It is believed that Mary and the man became involved in a quarrel. The man was in love with Mary, the police argue, and in a rage of jealousy slew the girl, the killing probably taking place in an alleyway near the factory.

Took Body in Rear Door.

The theory holds that the man then gained entrance to the factory by the front door, went into the basement and forced the staple of the back door out. Then he went for the body of the girl, returning with it by the rear way.

Newt Lee’s testimony differed materially with that of the police in regard to the finding of the body. Lee said that he found it lying face up on the basement floor. The police declared that it was lying face downward, with the arms folded underneath.

This discrepancy is believed to be explained by the theory that as late as the hour of discovery the criminal was making efforts to hide the evidence of the crime and that he was interrupted when the alarm was given.

The police believe that the Greek still was in the basement when Lee made his gruesome discovery and that he was the one who disturbed the

NEW AND STARTLING TURN IN PHAGAN SLAYING MYSTERY

Continued From Page 1.

Position of the body before he made his escape out the rear door.

Trailed to Anniston.

The Pinnertons [sic] have trailed the Greek into Alabama and he is believed to be in Anniston, from where news of his arrest is expected hourly.

The detectives say that the new theory explains away all of the discrepancies which hitherto have puzzled those working on the case, except those of the hair found on one of the lathing machines on the second floor, where the struggle was supposed to have taken place. They are of the opinion, however, that too much weight may have been attached to these bits of evidence, and that the hair may have been that of some other girl and that the stains on the floor may not have been bloodstains.

It became evident that the State had taken up the trail of the Greek when Solicitor Dorsey, a Greek interpreter and a man said to be a Burns detective started out in an automobile Wednesday afternoon to gather evidence. The Solicitor would say nothing of the object of his trip, but in view of the most recent developments it immediately was surmised that the Solicitor had interested himself in the new phase of the case and was following down the clews on his own account.

The circumstances of the murder were such as to leave the killing without any understandable motive if this presupposed crime was not accomplished. For this reason the reports of the outrage were accepted by everyone as true, and the authorities themselves have been working on this theory.

Solicitor Would Clear Uncertainty.

If the examination on the second exhumation proves the contention of the expert physician, the detectives will have difficulty in fixing a motive for the murder.

Solicitor General Dorsey ordered that the body be exhumed a second time so that the opinion of the expert physician might be either positively established or disproved beyond a doubt. The conflicting theories which have arisen since the body was exhumed last Monday have cast a shadow of uncertainty over the investigation that the Solicitor was desirous of dispelling at once and for good.

The order for the second exhumation was given by Solicitor Dorsey, but it had not been made up to 2 o’clock on Wednesday.

Coroner Donehoo admitted that Dorsey’s order had been given, but said it had not been carried out. He would make no further statement.

The report published in an early edition of The Georgian that the body had been exhumed was made on statements by officials, and that it was for the purpose of making a microscopic examination of every wound on the body for finger prints and other clews.

It is undoubtedly the intention of the authorities to exhume the body again.

Dorsey Maintains Silence.

Very properly Solicitor Dorsey is not making public every move that the prosecution is engaged in, nor is he giving to the public such evidence as he is enabled to obtain.

It would seem probably that the exhumation will be made, if not on Wednesday, at least some other day soon; for the belief is growing that there still may be some clews that are worthy of further examination.

Parents Object to Exhumation.

Solicitor Dorsey instructed Coroner Donehoo to secure the permission of the girl’s parents before ordering the exhumation of the body, and Coroner Donehoo said Wednesday afternoon that the father of the dead girl, J. W. Coleman, was very much excited over the reports that the body had been exhumed Wednesday morning. The Coroner called on Mr. Coleman and assured him that the body had not been taken from its grave in Marietta.

Though none of the officials would make a statement to that effect, it is probable that the opposition which developed from the girl’s parents has caused the officials to abandon their plans to exhume the body, for the present, at least.

It was reported that the finger prints on the body were to be photographed and compared with the finger prints of persons under suspicion; which may, or may not have any basis in facts and might, or might not be of value. After the remains were discovered in the factory basement they were handled by several p[e]rsons—embalmers and others—and whether there are any finger prints now on the body is problematic.

It is said that a complete chart will be prepared by medical experts to be used at the trial, showing every wound and mark.

Notwithstanding these speculations as to the purpose of the exhumation, Solicitor Dorsey declared Wednesday forenoon that it was not for the purpose of obtaining a record of the fingerprints. One of the principal reasons for the action, he said, was to get a strand of the girl’s hair in order to compare it with the hair found on the lathing machine in the tipping department at the factory. It was at this point that the detectives discovered blood spots on the floor and other evidences of a struggle.

“I cannot talk in regard to the matter,” he said. “The body was exhumed, it is true, at my request. But to reveal further plans would be hurtful.”

Thinks She Didn’t Leave Factory.

The Solicitor is in entire accord with the theory that Mary Phagan never left the factory after she received her pay Saturday noon. He declared that if any search was being made for the man seen with a girl Saturday, April 26, by attaches of the Terminal Station, it was not being conducted under his direction.

The results of the chemical analysis in the laboratory of Dr. Harris in the State Capitol have not yet been made public. Dr. Harris would not admit Wednesday that traces of drugs had been found, bearing out the belief that the girl was drugged and rendered helpless before she was slain in the factory.

All of the remaining evidence in the case will be presented when the Coroner’s inquest resumes Thursday morning at 9:30 o’clock.

It is the purpose of Coroner Donehoo to limit testimony to the points that are regarded as essential, so that the hearing may be concluded by Thursday night.

Have Two Hundred Names.

The Coroner and the Solicitor General have the names of about 200 persons on whom they may call for testimony. These include girls and women employed at the pencil factory. It is unlikely, however, that more than a few of the girls will be placed on the witness stand, but will be held in readiness to testify as was the case last Monday afternoon when the roll-call room was filled with witnesses.

So far as the line of testimony can be anticipated from the information given out by the authorities, the most important will come from the physicians and chemists who have been at work on the mystery under the direction of Coroner Donehoo and Solicitor Dorsey.

Dr. H. F. Harris, director of the State Board of Health, will submit a report on his chemical analysis of the contents of Mary Phagan’s stomach. Dr. Harris also made a careful examination of the wounds and bruises on the body and will report on this to the jury.

Dr. J. W. Hurt, county physician, made the first examination of the girl’s body after it was found in the basement of the factory. He also was present when it was exhumed from its little grave in the Marietta cemetery and another examination made at the order of Solicitor General Dorsey. He will present the results of his observations to the jury some time during the hearing Thursday.

Dr. Smith to Be Quizzed.

Dr. Claude A. Smith, City Bacteriologist, has made a chemical examination of the bloodstains on a shirt found at Newt Lee’s home and of the pieces of wood chipped from the factory floor where the stains of blood were discovered, and will be questioned by Coroner Donehoo.

The recalling of Newt Lee also is regarded as an indication that the authorities expect the night watchman to tell something which he forgot or concealed in his previous examination.

The factory girls will tell of their acquaintance with Mary Phagan, of her companions and habits and of the conditions under which they have to work at the factory, so far as they have any relation to the mystery.

Bowen Released in Houston.

Accompanying mystifying new features of the hunt for the slayer was the news that Paul P. Bowen, held in Houston for the Atlanta authorities, had been released and relieved of all suspicion.

Bowen was employed with the Morrow Transfer Company in Atlanta as stenographer and shipping clerk, and later with the Southern Railway. He had many friends here and with them bore a good reputation.

His father and other relatives live in Newnan, Ga., and are among the best people of that part of the State. Chief of Police Davison, of Houston, was angered that his detective chief should have exceeded his authority in arresting Bowen, and promptly discharged him from authority.

By letters Bowen wrote from Texas and statements of friends it was proved conclusively that he could not have been connected with the Atlanta mystery and he was accordingly freed.

Dr. Claude A. Smith, city bacteriologist, said Wednesday that he was hurrying the examination of the blood stains on Newt Lee’s shirt and probably would submit a report to Coroner Donehoo late in the afternoon.

The shirt was found by detectives in a barrel in Lee’s home when a search was made a few days after the killing of the Phagan girl.

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Atlanta Georgian, May 7th 1913, “Employe of Lunch Stand Near Pencil Factory is Trailed to Alabama,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Georgian

Thursday, May 1^st, 1913

Watchman and Frank Go on Witness Stand This Afternoon—Dorsey, Dissatisfied, May Call Special Session of Grand Jury To-morrow.

Coroner Donohuoo [sic] late to-day issued a commitment against Leo M. Frank, superintendent at the National Pencil Company, and Newt Lee, night watchman, charging them with being suspected in connection with the death of Mary Phagan and remanding them to the custody of the sheriff. They were later taken to the Tower.

Arthur Mullinaux [sic], held since Sunday, was released.

Frank’s commitment read as follows:

To Jailor:

You are hereby required to take into custody the person of Leo M. Frank, suspected of the crime of murdering Mary Phagan, and to retain the said Leo M. Frank in your custody pending the further investigation of the death of the said Mary Phagan, to be held by the Coroner of said county.

Coroner Donohoo [sic] adjourned the inquest into the death of Mary Phagan this afternoon until 2 o’clock Monday, without the taking of any testimony. The Coroner said the adjournment was taken for the purpose of obtaining more clearly defined evidence.

The delay is believed to be the result of a request from the police department and is interpreted to mean that the detectives are on the trail of new and important evidence not previously brought to light.

The State made its first move in the Mary Phagan case to-day when Solicitor General Dorsey called into conference Chief of Detectives Lanford and Chief of Police Beavers.

Mr. Dorsey wanted to know just what the police have done in the case, and it was for this reason he questioned Lanford and Beavers.

A new arrest was made in the Phagan case this afternoon. Detectives arrested James Conolley [sic], a negro employed at the National Pencil Company factory.

Connolly [sic] is a sweeper in the factory. The arrest was made on private information given over the telephone to the police that Connolly [sic] had been seen washing some clothing in the factory. He is about 30 years old.

Connolly [sic], at the police station, told the detectives that he was washing his shirt because he was summoned to the inquest this afternoon. The police were inclined to attach little importance to his arrest.

Newt Lee, the night watchman at the National Pencil Company’s factory, will again go on the witness stand to supplement his testimony. Lee is said to have given important information to the detectives after a two – hours cross-examination this morning.

Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the factory, also will be a witness this afternoon.

Calls Inquiry Hesitating.

“The investigation has been hesitating,” said Mr. Dorsey, before his conference with the police officials. “All leads given the police have not been followed closely and there is much more to this thing that has not been brought out. Unless some decisive action is taken quickly the mystery will remain unsolved.”

At the end of the conference, Solicitor Dorsey and he had not fully made up his mind about taking over the case, but it was probable he would reach a decision in time to present the matter to the Grand Jury to-morrow if necessary. He told Chief Beavers and Chief Lanford that the handwriting evidence, what he considered the best possible clue, had been very badly handled by the police, particularly so in permitting Lee to copy the note instead of dictating it to him. He said the handwriting tests had been far from thorough. He criticized two police officials for laxity in one or two other features of the case.

Chief of Detectives Lanford, following the examination of Lee, declared that the watchman had made no confession, or part of one, implicating himself, but that he had divulged facts which will tend to lift the veil of mystery from the murder.

The police say that Lee’s new testimony will relate directly to a conversation that the watchman and Frank held in Lee’s cell on Monday.

Talk With Frank Is Basis.

According to the detectives, Lee will testify that Frank commanded him to stick to his story or “they would both go to —-.”

A conversation Lee had with a fellow prisoner last night in his cell, Chief Lanford said, resulted in the questioning of Lee to-day.

This conversation was reported to the detectives and, working on the new lead, Lee was brought to the detectives’ room at 9:30 o’clock this morning.

Chief Beavers, Chief Lanford, Harry Scott, of the Pinkertons, and Detective John Black questioned him for an hour, with the result that it was agreed to again put him on the witness stand.

Lee, accompanied by John Black and Scott, was brought out of the conference shortly after 11 o’clock and removed to a cell.

Police Spurred to Action.

“Now, Lee,” said Black and Scott, as they locked him up, “don’t you talk about this case to anybody but us hereafter, do you hear?”

Orders were given to allow no one but the two detectives to see or talk with the watchman, and visitors, lawyers and persons of all description were barred from the corridors leading to his cell.

The announcement that the State, through Solicitor Dorsey, might intervene and take charge of the investigation unless the mystery was cleared at once spurred the police to further effort late to-day.

“Weed Out” False Clews.

Detective Starnes and Campbell continued throughout the day breaking down the stories of the persons who have testified that they saw Mary Phagan on the street Saturday after she had drawn her pay at the pencil factory at noon.

Chief Lanford said positively that the hunt was near its conclusion and with the completion of the inquest the truth would be established.

Mr. Dorsey was vehement in his denunciation of the manner in which the case had been handled.

Dorsey Voices His Protest.

“The burden of convicting the perpetrator of this horrible crime whoever he may be, will fall directly upon my shoulders,” said Dorsey, “and I don’t propose, for that reason, if not for the many others, to let it drift along.

“No effort has been made to establish if the shirt said to have been found in the ash barrel back of Lee’s home was Lee’s.

“The handwriting tests on the notes have not been exhausted by the police—in fact, hardly touched upon.

“The marks on the [3 words, illegible]

Frank to Testify To-day at Phagan Case Inquest

[Continued from Page One]

lead to an extensive investigation that has never been made.

“People have been let go and come at will in various places who should have been locked up and guarded until the investigation was completed.

“The matter must be sifted to the bottom, and if it isn’t not done soon the State will assume charge and the Grand Jury will be put to work on it.”

Features of Testimony.

The principal features of the testimony that have been brought out so far are as follows:

J. G. SPIER, of Cartersville, Ga., testified—

That he saw a girl and a man standing in front of the pencil factory at 4:10 Saturday afternoon; that the girl was the one whose body he had viewed Monday morning at Bloomfield’s undertaking establishment.

F. M. BERRY, assistant cashier of the Fourth National Bank, testified—

That the handwriting of the notes found by Mary Phagan’s body and that of test written by Lee indicated that they were written by the same person.

J. M. GANTT, in the factory about twenty minutes on Saturday night, testified—

That Frank appeared nervous and apprehensive when he saw him at the factory at about 6 o’clock.

NEWT LEE,  the night watchman, testified—

That Frank showed signs of nervousness by rubbing his hands, something he had never seen him do before. That Frank called him on the phone about 7 o’clock in the evening to see if everything was “all right,” something he never had done before.

HARRY DENHAM, one of the two men in the office Saturday afternoon, testified—

That Frank did NOT seem nervous when he saw him at 3 o’clock; that Frank had a habit of rubbing his hands.

GEORGE W. EPPS, JR., 246 Fox Street, boy friend of Mary Phagan, testified—

That Mary Phagan had told him once that Leo M. Frank had stood at the factory door when she left and had winked at her and tried to flirt. That he rode uptown with Mary last Saturday; that she left him to get her money at the factory, with an engagement to meet him at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but never appeared.

E. S. SKIPPER, 224 1-2 Peters Street, testified—

That Frank was NOT one of the three men he saw with a girl resembling Mary Phagan about midnight Saturday; that the girl he saw Saturday night he was almost certain was the same one whose dead body he saw in the morgue Monday morning.

EDGAR L. SENTELL, an employee of Kamper’s grocery firm, testified—

That he saw, without a possibility of a mistake, none other than Mary Phagan walking on Forsyth Street, near Hunter, between 11:30 and 12:30 Saturday night, with a man. The man was Mullinax, he was almost positive. That he said, “Hello, Mary,” and that she responded, “Hello, Ed.”

R. M. LASSITER, policeman, testified—

That he had inspected the basement and had found plain signs of a body being dragged from the elevator to the place where the body of Mary was found. That a parasol was at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

SERGEANT R. J. BROWN, of the police department, testified—

That it would have been almost impossible to see the body from the point the negro told him he first saw it.

SERGEANT L. S. DOBBS, of the police department, testified—

That Lee, without anyone else making any comment, said that the words “night witch” meant “night watchman,” in the notes that were found by the side of the dead girl.

CALL OFFICER ANDERSON testified—

That he attempted to get Frank at his residence by phone right after the body was found, but was unable to get him.

Gantt Says Frank Was Nervous.

Gantt’s testimony was in the main corroboration of what he told The Georgian when he was arrested. His most striking testimony came when he declared that Frank was nervous when he called at the factory for his shoes. He said when Coroner Donehoo asked him to tell of his movements Saturday night:

“I went to the factory to get my shoes and met Mr. Frank at the door and got permission to come in. When he saw me he appeared very nervous and started back into his office; then he came out again. He told the night watchman to go with me to get the shoes and to stay with me.”

Gantt testified that while in the factory he telephone his sister, Mrs. F. C. Terrell, of 284 East Linden Street, that he would be home about 9 o’clock, and then he left the factory, the negro accompanying him to the door. He said he, together with Arthur White and C. G. Bagley, went to the Globe pool room, where they remained until 10:30 o’clock. Then, he said, he went home and stayed there till 2 o’clock Sunday afternoon, when he left and came downtown. He called on a girl friend Sunday night, he testified, and stayed at her home till 11 o’clock. He said he didn’t know the officers came to his home Sunday night; that he was not told of their visit by his sister. He said he left his sister’s home at 8 o’clock Monday morning and started to Marietta to visit his mother, who lives on a farm six miles east of the town.

Was Discharged by Frank.

Gantt testified that he had known Mary Phagan since she was 3 years old, and that he knew her when he was timekeeper at the pencil factory. He said Frank discharged him from the factory because of a personal difference. Asked as to the nature of this difference, he said that there was a shortage of $2 in his payroll and that Frank told him he must either make the amount good or be discharged.

Gantt testified that he had never heard Mary Phagan complain of her treatment at the factory and that he had never heard her say she could not trust Frank.

While he was on the stand Gantt also threw new light on the wages paid the girls who work at the pencil factory. He said he paid off the girls, and had paid Mary Phagan every Saturday, while he handled the payroll. He said her weekly salary was $4.05. Asked how this was computed, he declared she received 7 1-11 cents an hour for 55 hours’ work. Coroner Donehoo called attention to the fact that this did not figure up $4.05, but nothing more was said about the matter by either the witness or the jurymen.

E. G. Skipper 224 1-2 Peters Street, declared positively that Leo Frank was not one of the men he had seen on Trinity Avenue, near Forsyth Street, pushing a reeling girl along Saturday night about 11 o’clock. Skipper described the dress worn by the girl he had seen and declared it looked very much like the one that Mary Phagan wore when she was murdered. He was then asked to give a description of the three men who were with the girl. Frank was then brought in and Skipper was asked if Frank was one of the men. He said that Frank did not resemble any of them.

Tells of Mother’s Worry.

Skipper testified that he had seen the body of Mary Phagan at Bloomfield’s morgue, and said she looked like the girl he had seen on Trinity Avenue. He said he recognized her by her dress, parasol and the hair hanging down her back. He said he didn’t follow the girl and the three men Saturday night because it is a common occurrence to see things like that in Atlanta on Saturday night.

J. W. Coleman, the stepfather of the dead child, told a pathetic story of her mother’s worry over her continued absence from home Saturday night. He said he left home Saturday morning before Mary awoke, and that he had not seen her alive since last Friday night.

“I got home Saturday afternoon at 4 o’clock,” testified Mr. Coleman, “and Mary had not come home; but we paid little attention to her absence then, as she often went to a moving picture show after work. I went downtown and came back about 7:20 o’clock and Mrs. Coleman met me at the door. She said Mary had not come home yet, and we were shocked and began to worry. My wife said for me to eat supper and then we’d see if we could not find her. I went downtown and tried to find Mary. I went to all the picture shows, and everywhere I could think of, but could not find her.

“I went back home about 10 o’clock, and Mrs. Coleman was nearly crazy with worry and anxiety. I thought maybe Mary had gone to Marietta with her aunt, Mattie Phagan, and that she had telephone to a neighbor that she would not be home. I went to all the neighbors who had telephones, but none of them had heard from her. We sat up nearly all night trying to figure out what had become of the girl, and decided to get up early and try to find her.

Child Brings News of Crime.

“As we were getting up the next morning little Ellen Ferguson came running up the steps. My wife was excited and exclaimed that something had happened to Mary. The Ferguson girl ran into the house and cried that Mary had been murdered. Then she began screaming and my wife fainted. I caught a car and went downtown. I was with a friend. We passed detectives leading a handcuffed negro, and we followed them to the pencil factory. The man there was not going to let me in until I told him who I was. Then I went in and did all I could to help in the investigation which the detectives had started.”

Mr. Coleman testified that he had several times heard Mary speak of her employers, but had paid little attention to her statements. He didn’t remember whether she had ever said anything about Frank. He said she had often said that things went on at the factory that were not nice, and that some of the people there tried to get fresh. “She told most of those stories to her mother,” said Mr. Coleman.

The examination of J. A. White, 58 Bonnie Brae Avenue, one of the two men who worked at the pencil factory Saturday afternoon, brought out for the first time the fact that in Frank’s private office there is a wardrobe or closet large enough for a person to hide in. He testified that the closet was about 9 feet high and 4 feet wide, and was directly behind the door in Frank’s office. He said he went into Frank’s office when he left the factory Saturday to borrow $2, but didn’t notice the closet. The office door, he testified, was opened and resting against it. He said he didn’t notice whether Mr. Frank was excited.

Didn’t Know of Basement Room.

White testified that he had no knowledge of the small room which was found in the basement. He said the employees of the plant sometimes drank cans of beer in the basement, but said he had never heard of any women being brought in there.

Other witnesses called during the afternoon session of the jury included Detective J. R. Black, who is in charge of the police who are working on the case, and Guy Kennedy, 203 Bellwood Avenue. Black testified that Skipper had made a statement to him about seeing three men and a girl on Trinity Avenue late Saturday night. He said Skipper told him the girl he saw wore white shoes and stockings.

Kennedy, who is a street car conductor on the English Avenue line, had previously told detectives and reporters that he had seen Mary Phagan Saturday afternoon. He told the Coroner’s jury that he was mistaken; that the girl he saw was not Mary Phagan. He said he thought she was until he had seen the body of the murdered girl at the morgue.

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, May 1st 1913, “State Enters Phagan Case; Frank and Lee are Taken to Tower,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

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

Atlanta Constitution

Thursday, May 1^st 1913

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

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

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

LEO FRANK REFUSES TO DISCUSS EVIDENCE

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

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

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

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

Waited Two Hours For Girl.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you work or go to school?”

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

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

Lives Near Phagan Girl.

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

“Just around the block.”

“Did you know Mary?”

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

“When did you last see her alive?”

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

“Did you arrange to meet her that afternoon?”

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

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

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

“Did you inquire for her?”

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

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

She Wanted Money Mighty Bad.

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

“How was she dressed?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When did you hear she was killed?”

“Sunday.”

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

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

“Were they standing together?” he was questioned.

“No. They were walking along.”

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

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

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“One week previous to Saturday night.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“I did. I said, ‘Hello, Mary.’”

“Did she reply?”

“She did. She said, ‘Hello, Edgar.’”

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

Amazed to See Her Uptown.

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

“What did she wear?”

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

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

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

“Can you swear it was Mullinax?”

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

“Did you know Mullinax’s name?”

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

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

“Sunday morning on an English avenue trolley car.”

“Who did you first tell?”

“Mrs. Coleman, her mother.”

“Did the paper tell who was killed?”

Went to Mother Of Girl.

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

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

“I was in the navy.”

“When did you leave?”

“April 18, 1913.”

“How long had you been there?”

“Three months.”

“Why did you leave?”

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

“Is your eye sight ordinarily affected?”

“Not particularly so.”

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

“I am positive they did not.”

“Do you drink?”

“Occasionally. But I never get drunk.”

“Were you drinking Saturday night?”

“Not a drop.”

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

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

“It is.”

Bloody Hairs Are Found.

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

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

“What is your employment?”

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

“How long have you been with them?”

“Seven weeks.”

“Did you know Mary Phagan?”

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

“When did you see her last?”

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

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

“About six feet.”

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

Splotches Of Blood.

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

“Was anything else found on the floor?”

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

“Was Mary a quiet girl?”

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

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

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

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

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

“What floor?”

“Second.”

“How near the elevator?”

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

Girls Afraid Of Frank.

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

“No.”

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

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

“What experience have you in distinguishing handwriting?”

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

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

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

“In my opinion, they were.”

Was Factory Used For Assignation?

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

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

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

“Do you know them?”

“Not their names.”

“Could you point them out to the detectives?”

“I could.”

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

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

“At 12 noon on Saturdays.”

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

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

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

“No.”

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

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

Gantt Smiles During Quiz.

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

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

“Did you know Mary Phagan?”

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

“Were you ever employed with the pencil factory?”

“I was—up until three weeks ago.”

“Why did you leave them?”

“I was discharged.”

“Why were you discharged?”

Alleged Shortage the Trouble.

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

“What were the differences?”

“Two dollars short in the pay roll.”

“Were you in charge of the pay roll?”

“I was paymaster.”

“Did you ever see Frank with Mary Phagan?”

“No.”

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

“I did.”

“How were they paid?”

“With the envelope method.”

“Did you ever pay Mary Phagan?”

“Yes.”

“What did she make?”

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

“When did you see her last?”

“The day I quit the pencil company.”

“Had you seen her since?”

“No.”

“Where did you go on Saturday?”

Went to the Factory.

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

“Did you see Mr. Frank there?”

“Yes.”

“Did he appear excited, agitated?”

“Yes. He seemed nervous.”

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

“No.”

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

“No longer than ten minutes.”

“What did you do?”

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

“Then what did you do?”

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

“What time did you arrive home?”

“10:30 p. m.”

“Were you there when the police came?”

“No.”

“Did your sister tell of their visit?”

“No.”

Shank Takes Stand.

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

Shank was called immediately after Barrett had left the stand.

“Do you work at night?”

“I do.”

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

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

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

“Last summer some time.”

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

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

Thought Girl Was Mary.

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

“What did you see at Trinity and Whitehall?”

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

“Did either man answer the description of Frank?”

“I haven’t seen Frank.”

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

“That’s not the man,” Skipper said.

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

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

Step-Father Tells of Grief.

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

“How old was Mary Phagan?”

“She would have been 14 next June.”

“When did you last see her alive?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Who Would Be the Most Interested in Saying That the Night Watchman Did Not Do It?

While the tendency of the police straight through has seemed to be to doubt that Mary Phagan, the murdered girl, really wrote the small notes found beside her body purporting to give a clew to her murderer, the girl’s stepfather, W.J. Coleman, thinks it possible that she may have written one of the scrawls.

That one is the note written on the little yellow factory slip—so faintly traced it is almost impossible to read it. It is the one that says:

mama that negro hired down

here did this I went to get water

and he pushed me down this hole

a long tall negro black that has it

woke long lean tall negro I write

while play with me.

“Somehow, it looks like her handwriting to me,” said Mr. Coleman. “But, of course I can not be sure. Now, about the other note I am doubtful. It seems to be written too well for the child to have done it in the almost insensible condition she must have been in at the time. Whether she wrote either of the notes of her own accord, though, or whether she was forced to do it by her murderer to turn suspicion from himself, of course is mere speculation. Only time can tell, if anything.”

Doubts Other Note’s Authorship.

The other note whose authority Mr. Coleman doubts is the one scrawled on a notepad. It reads as it was at first translated:

He said he wood love me, laid

down like the night witch did it

but that long tall black negro did

it by his self.

This note, however, brings up an argument advanced by several people who have studied it carefully. They have found that in some way, one word, “play,” was omitted in the first translation, and they think that instead of “night witch” the words were meant to mean “night watch,” which is relative to the subject. With these changes the note would read:

“He said he wood love me laid down play like the night watch did it, but that long tall black negro did it by his self.”

They ask: If the murderer told the child he was going to “play like the night watch did it,” and then the child goes on to explain that it wasn’t the night watchman at all that did it, but another negro, wouldn’t that appear that the child was endeavoring to shield the night watchman?

Argue Against Watchman.

They also ask: Would a child in the predicament Mary Phagan was supposed to be in, insensible and her mind wandering, be thinking of trying to shield a night watchman in her note, even before she described the man who had treated her so cruelly?

Again they ask: Who would be the most interested person in the world in saving the hide of the night watchman?

Did the child write the notes herself, was she forced to write them, or did somebody else write them? The notes are written to throw suspicion off of the night watchman.

Translated in that way, the argument would go to bear out the expressed belief of the girl’s stepfather that the negro committed the crime.

Ollie Phagan, the 18-year-old sister of Mary, said that, while she did not know, of course, she did not believe that Mary wrote either of the notes. She knew her handwriting well, and the rough letters did not look like hers, although they might possibly be.

Real Scene of Struggle Found.

Excitement prevailed to-day among those interested when it was found that the scene in which the fearful struggle between the dead girl and her assailant took place was not on the second floor of the pencil factory, as it was thought, where a few strands of her hair were found in the cogs of a steel lathe, but in the dressing room of the place. This was made certain by drops of blood all over the floor of the room, and a rag of her dress that was picked up and which showed that it had been used to gag her. The strip was of silk, and had been cut with a knife from the front of her lavender dress, which was new, and which the child was wearing for the first time.

It was said that the discovery was made by some of the girls employed at the factory, who slipped upon the blood which, in one place, had formed a small pool. They ran out excited by the appearance of the place. The dead girl’s hair had only caught in the steel lathe when her murdered had dragged her by it.

This would go to corroborate the belief of several persons acquainted with the tragedy’s various angles that Mary Phagan never left the building, or at least only for a short while from the time she entered it to get her money Saturday until her lifeless form was picked up and carried from the basement by the authorities. They say she might have either been accidentally locked in, or purposely taken back in the building by her murdered, who obtained entrance either by a key or went in by prying off a staple from an alley door.

Logic Involves Negro.

In either instance, the assailant had been keeping close tab on her actions, and either procured a key for himself to go in, or bribed the watchman to pass him. This would also bear out their insistence that the negro Newt Lee, in jail, knows more than he pretends to about the tragedy. Certain it is that it seems strange, it is argued, that if a livery stable man next door to the factory could hear the girl screaming at midnight, any one in the building could have heard cries very clearly, unless he was asleep or away from his post, which the watchman does not claim he was. The livery stable man had paid no attention to the cries, as he thought it was negroes carousing.

The dead girl’s sister said that the child’s mesh handbag, which was of silver and which has not yet been found, did not contain any valuables and she had very little money in it. When she had started off to town Mary had told her mother she needed only a dime—that she was going to get her pay and wouldn’t want any more. Her hair ribbon and other little belongings, along with her parasol, the child’s sister had also seen and recognized.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 29th 1913, “Seek Clew in Queer Words in Odd Notes,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

That Mary Phagan never left the factory after she entered it at 12:15 o’clock Saturday, the day of her murder, and that she was killed and her body dragged into the basement by the negro night watchman, Newt Lee, now in jail, is the firm belief of the child’s stepfather, W. J. Coleman, and other members of her family.

As for Arthur Mullinax, former street car conductor, held on suspicion, Mr. Coleman told a Georgian reporter he thought him innocent of the crime. He was also very doubtful if J. M. Gant [sic], ex-bookkeeper for the pencil factory, where the girl worked, had anything to do with her murder or knew anything about it.

“If the negro watchman did not kill the child, how would it have been impossible for him to hear her screams going on in the building?” he asked.  “A livery stable man next door heard them, and it would have been much easier for the watchman to. If the black did not do it himself, then he must have known something about it, and who the person was who did it.”

Outlines Theory of Murder.

Scene at Phagan funeral. In front are Benjamin Phagan, brother of Mary Phagan, who came from New York, where he is stationed on a United States battleship; and Miss Ollie Phagan, sister of the dead girl. In the rear are friends of Mary. The photograph was snapped at Bloomfield’s morgue as the body was leaving for Marietta to-day.

Then, in broken tones, for he had just returned from making all arrangements for taking the girl’s body to Marietta, Ga., to be buried, he outlined his idea of how she met her death.

“When Mary turned from the window after receiving her money,” he said, “I think that, instead of going directly out, she went to the dressing room, perhaps for a drink of water, as one of the notes found said. Superintendent Frank, missing her when he came out and supposing she had left the building, locked her in. The negro watchman must have seen her go into the dressing room, and a little later seized her and gagged her.”

Later developments in the story go to show that the spot where the child’s hair was found caught on a steel lathe was not the scene of her struggle with her assailant. In the dressing room, it was said by a member of her family, there were plain evidences that the attack was made.  She was also gagged in the room, for a strip of her new lavender dress was cut off from the front and bound around her mouth to keep her from screaming.

Ribbon Found Near Boiler.

Another bit of evidence, it was said, that went to throw added suspicion on the black was a bow of the child’s blue ribbon and a handkerchief found down near the boiler, where he constantly stayed.

“The negro evidently kept the child in the factory all day,” Mr. Coleman said, “and was afraid to attack her until midnight for fear she would scream or somebody would come. He may or may not have knocked her senseless from the first, or he may have tied her. I do not know, but when Gant entered the shop it is more than likely that he knew nothing of the girl’s presence there and simply went up and got his shoes, as he said, and went out again.

“All this about Mary having been seen on the street at midnight or at any other time after 12 o’clock in the day I do not think can be true. I believe she remained all day in the building. After the negro did the work, he was afraid to leave or not to notify the police, which would make appearances worse for him. Therefore, he called the officers.”

Now Clears Mullinax.

Mr. Coleman said he had at first given credence to a report that Mary had come home at 6 o’clock Saturday afternoon, and that Mullinax meeting her as she got off of the car, had taken her back to town with him. This report, Mr. Coleman said, turned out to be untrue. The conductor had made a mistake, and the girl Mullinax was with was Miss Pearl Robinson, of Bellwood, as he swore in jail.

This was corroborated by the conductor himself, J. C. Horne, 11 Coral Place, on whose car the reporter rode out to the Coleman home on Lindsay Street. The conductor said that Mullinax and Miss Robinson had taken his car out and, knowing Mullinax, he had talked with him and the girl, who at that time he thought was Mary Phagan. When Mullinax and Miss Robinson reached their corner Mullinax remarked that it was a bit chilly and he was going home to build a fire. It was later that they returned to the theater, the conductor said, but on whose car he did not know.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 29th 1913, “Negro Watchman is Accused by Slain Girl’s Stepfather,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)