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

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

Atlanta Journal

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEW WITNESSES CALLED.

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

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

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

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

George W. Epps

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEGRO WASN’T EXCITED.

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

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

BODY FOUND FACE DOWN.

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

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

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

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

IDENTIFIED AS MARY PHAGAN.

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

MR. FRANK NOTIFIED.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I couldn’t say,” he answered.

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

ELEVATOR AT SECOND FLOOR.

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

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

CHANGED TAPE IN CLOCK.

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 8th 1913, “Phagan Inquest in Session; Six Witnesses are Examined Before Adjournment to 2:30,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

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

Atlanta Constitution
August 9^th, 1913

When court convened Friday morning Harry Scott, Pinkerton detective, engaged by the defense in the Phagan case, was recalled to the stand by the state and asked how long it took Jim Conley, the negro sweeper, to write a copy of one of the murder notes when it was read off to him and [1 word illegible], dictated word for word.

The detective declared that the negro had taken about three or four minutes for this.

“Boots” Rogers was next called and asked one question about the condition of the basement. Rogers is the ex-county policeman in whose car the police answered Newt Lee’s call the morning of the murder. His testimony Friday was in regard to the unsanitary condition of the basement.

After a call for George Epps, the little newsie who swore to riding to town on April 26 with Mary Phagan, had gone unanswered, the defense called its first witness of the day, Daisy Hopkins.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 9th 1913, “Harry Scott and ‘Boots’ Rogers Recalled to Stand by the State,” 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
August 4^th, 1913

Deputy Sheriff W. W. (“Boots”) Rogers, witness for the State in the Frank trial, is taking the Pasteur treatment at the State Capitol Monday after being bitten half a dozen times on the right ankle by a rabid dog that pulled him from his motorcycle at Henderson’s crossing, on Capitol avenue, Sunday night about 11 o’clock.

After a battle of more than fifteen minutes Rogers finally drove the dog away, and though his right leg was badly torn and lacerated, rode the two miles from the crossing to Grady Hospital. When he arrived at the hospital his leg had begun to turn black and was very painful.

Treated at Grady Hospital.

The Grady Hospital surgeons cauterized the wounds and gave him temporary relief. This morning the leg which the dog had gnawed was still swollen and painful, and Rogers decided to take the Pasteur treatment.

The dog was a big shepherd and attacked Rogers just as the officer was crossing the railroad tracks.

“I noticed the dog running along the side of the road several minutes before he bit me,” said Rogers Monday morning, “but I had not idea he was mad. As I passed under the arc light at the crossing I heard a growl right behind me, and before I could turn I felt the fangs of the dog sinking into my right ankle.

Pulled From Motorcycle.

“I tried to kick him off and tried to get my revolver from its holster. My coat was buttoned and before I could reach my gun the dog had pulled me from my motorcycle. As I fell to the ground the dog let go of my leg and leaped at my throat, and I struck him in the muzzle with my fist just in time to save myself.

“Before I could get up the dog had grabbed my leg again, and we rolled in the dirt for several moments, the dog trying to get at my throat. At length I regained my feet, with the dog hanging on to my leg and biting and gnawing. The froth streamed from his mouth and ran down my leg. I grabbed the brute by the throat with my hands, but could not shake him loose.

Too Weak to Kill Animal.

“Then I began kicking at him with my other foot, all the time trying to get my gun. The revolver had caught on my coat and I could not draw it. After about fifteen minutes of the hardest work I ever did in my life I managed to kick the dog loose from my leg, and he ran. I was so weak after the fight that I couldn’t draw my gun and failed to get a shot at the brute.”

Rogers was forced to lie in the road several minutes before he had strength enough to drag himself to his motorcycle. He finally reached his machine and started the motor, and then with blood streaming from his wounds rode to Grady Hospital. He was barely able to drag himself into the office when he got there.

* * *

The Atlanta Georgian, August 4th 1913, “Frank Witness Nearly Killed by a Mad Dog,” 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
August 1^st, 1913

By JAMES B. NEVIN.

Has the State succeeded in thoroughly establishing the fact that little Mary Phagan’s tragic death was effected on the second floor of the National Pencil Factory, in Forsyth street?

It has not, of course—but it has set up by competent evidence a number of suspicious circumstances, which, if properly sustained later along, will prove damaging in the extreme to Leo Frank.

Unless these circumstances, trivial in some aspects, are braced up and backed up, however, by other much stronger circumstances, they will give the jury, in all probability, little concern in arriving at a verdict.

Thursday was not a sensationally good day for the State, although it was much better than the day before.

Twice Thursday the Solicitor General claimed that he had been “entrapped” by witnesses—and this, with the lamentable fall down of John Black the day before—served to give rise in the minds of some spectators to a faint suspicion that the State didn’t have its case very well in hand.

No Help to Defense.

There is something terribly significant and actually sinister in that little word “entrapped,” however, when hurled at a witness in the presence of a jury, and it would be a mistake to believe that a witness, actually convicted, even in the mere opinion of the jury, of having deliberately misled the prosecution thereby helps the defense.

The witness who entraps, or who is thrown under suspicion of having entrapped, frequently does the party he seems primarily to have hurt a wonderful amount of good.

I believe, for instance, that Witness E. F. Holloway was speaking the truth when, on oath, he reversed his former affidavit to the Solicitor, and said that he left the elevator unlocked on Saturday, whereas he before had sworn that he locked it Friday and did not unlock it Saturday—the last inferentially, at least.

This point will mean a good deal later, when it is reached in developing the defense’s case, and if Holloway’s last story, apparently satisfactorily explained, holds together, well and good—but how can tell what the jury thinks about that contradiction upon the part of Holloway, particularly when he has been so deliberately accused by the Solicitor of entrapping him?

Holloway is an employee of the pencil factory—was before and has been since the murder. If the jury gathers the impression that he has been tampered with since his first statement, and by friends of Frank, to clear up seemingly damaging circumstances against Frank, it likely will be an aggravating thing, when the jury comes to make up its findings.

Will Hurt Frank’s Case.

Just as I thought, and still think, that Dorsey made a tactical mistake—for which he paid the full price, moreover—when on Wednesday he exclaimed “plant,” thereby accusing the defense of unfair and grossly indecent methods of bolstering up its cause, so I think the constant suggestion of witnesses changed in opinion and testimony, and in favor of Frank, will hurt Frank’s case, rather than help it, if sustained.

Mr. Dorsey failed utterly to bolster up his charge of “planted” evidence, but he didn’t fail, in anything like the same degree, to say the least of it, in attacking Holloway.

Or, anyway, there is a grave probability that he didn’t fail in the minds of the jury.

In short, my idea is this, as it has been all along: The public, and presumably even more the jury, will resent anything that savors of unfair methods employed either by the State of the defense.

Steadily, though slowly, the defense seems to be pulling away from the prosecution in the Frank trial, and the impression apparently is gaining ground gradually that the State likely is fighting a losing battle.

All of this may be changed in a moment—one witness on behalf of the State may serve to win back all the ground it may have lost.

Nothing More Uncertain Than Verdict

And, of all things, there is nothing to speculate upon quite so uncertain as the verdict a jury will hand in.

The jury is sitting there, its attention confined to the development of the evidence. It reads no newspapers; it converses with no outsiders.

It can not get up, run across the street and swap ideas with somebody in the corner drug store.

It took charge of the case, under its deliberately assumed oath that it was “perfectly impartial between the State and the accused,” and it is seeing things in its own way—and that way may not be the way outsiders are seeing it.

So far, however, the State’s witnesses alone have been introduced. Whatever advantage the defense has obtained of them has come in two ways – either in their failure to testify directly to the State’s benefit or through circumstances and admissions brought out in favor of the defense, under the merciless cross-examination of Luther Rosser.

It is a good deal to say, nevertheless, that at this stage of the trial the defense apparently has scored heaviest, for such points as it has won necessarily have been wrung from the State’s own witnesses, and not the witnesses of the defense. In other words, wherever the State fails to score, the defense scores.

How Points Have Been Scored.

If the defense made little, if anything, of Lee, it lost little, if anything, because of him.

It almost, if not quite, broke even on Rogers—and it most certainly scored tremendously on Black.

Scott, if damaging in a way, was also helpful in a way, in that he practically admitted suspicion of the negro Conley quite as as strong as suspicion of Frank.

Monteen Stover swore that Frank was not in his office for, at least, a period of some five minutes, immediately after 12 o’clock on the day of the murder; at least, if he was, he was where she could not or did not see him. Grace Hix undoubtedly helped Frank. Dr. Smith helped the State.

R. P. Barrett swore he found a piece of a pay envelope under Mary Phagan’s machine three or four days after the murder, and that he found blood spots near the dressing room door three or four days after the murder.

Mell Stanford swore that the spots near the dressing room were not there Friday, and were there Monday, but he could not swear the spots were blood. Holloway helped the defense, probably.

There is nothing new in most of this testimony, however, save that of Barrett conceding the piece of envelope, and the defense presumably is ready, therefore, to meet it.

State Faces Hard Task.

The mere finding of a piece of pay envelope somewhere near Mary Phagan’s machine, is not, of itself, highly important; but it might serve as a link in an otherwise strong chain forged to connect Frank directly with the killing.

But if the state has succeeded in setting forth the fact that Frank may possibly have committed the crime, it yet has a long road to travel before it proves “beyond a reasonable doubt” that he DID do it.

Indeed, Frank’s attorneys have never combated the idea that he was in the factory at a moment when the killing of Mary Phagan MIGHT have been effected—and beyond that fact the State has been unable to proceed very far to date.

It must be remembered, too, that while the State now is engaged in weaving a web, real or imaginary, about Frank, the defense expects to weave a much more terrible and substantial web about Conley.

But even at that, mere suspicion alone will serve to convict neither.

Much Depends on Conley.

After all is said and done, and it generally gets back to this, the preliminary chain of circumstances against Frank likely will hold together tightly or fall apart hopelessly, according to the fate of James Conley on the witness stand.

If Conley stands the test of exhaustive cross-examination, then the circumstances leading up to and away from Conley’s connection with the case will stand or fall.

He is, and has been, at all times both the hope and the despair of the State, no less than the hope and despair of the defense.

He is the star witness about whom the entire Frank case revolves, about whom it has revolved for weeks, and about whom it must revolve to its end.

Of course, there ever is the chance that the State has something sensational, new and significant up its sleeve—and there is the remoter chance that the defense has some big surprises in store.

As the fifth day of the trial drags on, however, the impression has deepened almost into a conviction in the mind of the public that neither the State nor the defense has much to let out that already hasn’t been let out, in whole or in substantial parts.

Spirit of Fairness Everywhere.

And the public is waiting for Conley’s evidence before making up its mind.

More and more I notice in the casual comment of people about town a spirit of fairness and an inclination to await the full developments of both the State and the defense.

The public largely still is open-minded. It is “from Missouri”—and, after all, that is the way the public mind should be in this matter, for it is a very grave matter, and its final effect will be far-reaching and full of significance, no matter which way the verdict comes finally.

There is one point that Undertaker Gheesling cleared up, on oath, and the public should take careful note of it. He swore that Mary Phagan’s body was NOT mutilated in the way street rumor and gossip had it mutilated, just after the crime was committed.

That ugly story undoubtedly was accountable for some of the primary prejudice against Frank—but it was an untrue rumor, and in all fairness, now that it has been exploded it should be borne in mind.

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

Atlanta Constitution
July 31^st, 1913

When court convened and before the jury had been brought in Attorney Luther Rosser entered an objection to the drawing of the pencil factory which Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey had rehung upon the wall after removing the descriptive lines. Objection had previously been made to the lines and the solicitor had caused these to be erased.

Attorney Rosser and his colleague Reuben Arnold declared that the dotted lines which shows the state’s theory of how the girl’s body was carried from the second floor to the basement were not part of the building and hence were not admissible.

Mr. Dorsey cited rulings of the supreme court to show that he had a right to leave this line in the picture and Judge L. S. Roan allowed it to remain in later explaining to the jury that the drawing was admitted with the dotted lines under the express agreement that the dotted lines represented merely the state’s theory and were not conclusive unless backed by argument to carry out that theory.

W. W. (“Boots”) Rogers ex-county policeman in whose automobile the police officers were taken to the factory the morning the crime was discovered and who later carried Leo Frank from his home at 69 East Georgia avenue to the undertaking establishment to see Mary Phagan’s body and later to the factory was the first witness called.

After the usual questions as to his connection with the case, Solicitor Dorsey took up the formal examination.

“Where were you on or about April 26, 1913?”

“In the daytime I was riding in my car and at night I was at police station.”

Tells of Going to Factory.

Rogers then told of going to the factory and carrying the officers in his machine and Mr. Dorsey took up the detail of what had happened when they got there.

“Did you hear Detective J. N. Starnes talking over the telephone in the factory?” was the first of these queries.

“Yes, he was talking to someone over the phone. I did not catch the name but he turned and asked me if I would take my car and go to 68 East Georgia avenue and bring Mr. Frank to the factory.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes, and I asked Detective Black to go with me.”

“What happened there?”

Mr. Black went up to the door and I followed. Mrs. Frank, dressed in a heavy bath robe, opened the door. Mr. Black and I stepped in and asked for Mr. Frank. Mrs. Frank called him and he came out from behind a curtain and started toward us.”

“Describe his appearance.”

“He was ready for the street with the exception of his hat, collar and tie and coat. He had on his trousers, shoes and shirt.”

The solicitor was pressing for detail and here the witness through his literalness drew a smile from even the most blasé spectator.

“I don’t know now whether he had on any socks under his shoes, I reckon he did.”

“How long did it take Frank to get out there after his wife called him?”

“He came instantly.”

“Go on,” said the questioner.

Frank Asks Questions.

“Well, Mr. Frank went directly to Mr. Black and asked if anything had happened at the factory. Mr. Black did not reply and he asked me the same question. As Mr. Black had kept silent, I did so. Then Frank asked, ‘Did the night watchman call up and report anything wrong?’” continued Rogers.

The solicitor then made his witness go back and describe again the talking over the telephone he had heard in the office previous to leaving the factory to go to Frank’s home and Rogers declared that Starnes had merely asked Frank if he would come to the factory and told him he would send an automobile after him.

“Had you heard anyone else talk or try to talk over the telephone from the factory?” asked the solicitor.

“Officer Anderson was in the factory office with Newt Lee about 3:45 o’clock that morning and he tried to call someone over the phone. I don’t know who he tried to get.”

The questioning then returned to incidents at Frank’s home and the solicitor asked what else Frank had said and done.

“Frank asked his wife for his collar and tie and he said something to Mr. Black about hearing his phone ringing and not knowing whether it was real or a dream,” continued Rogers, after much pressing for detail. “When Mr. Black asked Mr. Frank to go with us to the factory, Mrs. Frank wanted to know if he couldn’t have breakfast first and Frank asked for a cup of coffee.”

All Whisky Was Gone.

“Mr. Black then told him a drink of whisky would do him more good and Mrs. Frank interrupted with the statement that Mr. Selig had had an attack of indigestion and that they had used up what whisky they had in the house,” the witness stated.

“Did you ever see the kitchen?” asked the solicitor.

“Yes, I went in there to get some water for my car, the radiator was leaking.”

“Were there any evidences or not of breakfast being cooked?”

“Not that I saw – they had a gas range, I believe, and it was not lighted.”

“How about Frank?”

Frank Exceedingly Nervous.

“Mr. Frank seemed exceedingly nervous, he talked in the refined tone of a lady and was rubbing his hands and during his questions he showed excitement and asked them in rapid succession.”

Detective John R. Black, who later took the stand declared that Frank was nervous and in describing his voice stated that he appeared hoarse, but he agreed with Rogers that the word were quick spoken.

“Would there have been time for a man in bed to have dressed himself as much as Frank was dressed when you arrived at his house from the factory?” asked the solicitor.

On Mr. Rosser’s objections this was ruled out and the solicitor put his query in another form.

“How long were you in making the trip?”

“About five or six minutes. I noticed by the speedometer that we were running 42 miles an hour on the way there.”

“Was Frank’s hair combed?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead,” said Mr. Dorsey.

“Well, either Mr. Black or I asked Mr. Frank if he knew a girl named Mary Phagan and Mr. Frank asked, ‘Does she work at the factory?’ I told him I thought she did and he replied, ‘I can’t tell whether I do or not.’ Then we started for the factory and either Mr. Black or I suggested going by Bloomfield’s undertaking establishment to see if Mr. Frank could recognize the body.”

Frank’s Actions at Undertakers.

“When we got there,” Rogers continued, “Mr. Gheesling, one of the men there, went ahead of us to the room where her body lay and made a light for us. I followed Mr. Gheesling, Mr. Frank followed me and Mr. Black brought up the rear. Mr. Gheesling, after making a light, turned the girl’s face toward us. Frank turned and went into another room and I did not see him look at the body. We then went back to the office of the undertaker. I don’t remember Frank’s coming into the room where the body was – he stopped at the hall door.”

“Could Frank have seen the body?” queried the solicitor.

“Yes.”

“Could he have seen the face?”

“No, sir, he could have seen the body for just a moment but not the fact. When we asked Mr. Frank if he knew who Mary Phagan was, he said that he could tell by looking at the payroll if she worked at the factory.”

Then Rogers was asked to return to the incidents at the Frank home before they left and he declared that Frank had requested his wife to call up Darley.

“How did Frank appear at the undertakers?” questioned the solicitor.

“He was still apparently nervous.”

“When was he told of the murder?”

“He was not told of the murder until after we had left his house.”

What Frank Said at Factory.

Rogers then told of the trip from the undertaker’s place on South Pryor street to the pencil factory on South Forsyth and said that as they got to the door that Darley and another man were there and that Frank called to Darley who went into the building with them.

“When Mr. Frank went into his office, which he did as soon as he got to the building, he opened the safe and took out the payroll and then said that Mary Phagan worked there and had been paid off Saturday.”

“’My stenographer left here exactly at noon and the office boy then left and Mary Phagan came in right after that and got her money,’” Rogers quoted Frank as saying.

“We then asked how much she received and he said that he had paid her $1.20 and asked if anyone had found the pay envelope.”

Frank Still Nervous.

“What was Frank’s appearance and deportment then?” asked the solictor.

“He was nervous.”

“How did he show it?”

“By his manner of stepping around and by his speech. He stepped quickly about and his words were sharp and quick. After he had finished telling us about the girl’s money, someone suggested going to the basement,” Rogers continued “and Frank put in the elevator switch and when we commented on the switch box not being locked, Mr. Frank explained that the [word illegible] people made him keep it unlocked.

Mr. Frank then [rest of section illegible]

Took Slip Out of Time Clock.

“Did you see anybody take any slips out of the clock?”

“Yes, later. After we had come back from the basement I heard Mr. Frank ask Mr. Darley if he, Mr. Frank, hadn’t better put a new tape in the lock. Mr. Frank then unlocked the right hand side of the clock and took out the slip and said it was punched correctly.”

“Was Frank looking at it when he said that?”

“Yes.”

“Where was Newt Lee?”

“He was handcuffed nearby.”

“What did Mr. Frank then do?”

“He laid the slip down in front of the lock and went into his office and I looked at it. Then he came out and put in a new slip and locked the clock. Then he took and wrote the words April 26, 1913 on the slip he had taken out of the clock and carried it into his office.”

“What kind of a pencil did he use?”

“I don’t know, just an ordinary looking one.”

Then on being questioned as to the appearance of the slip, Rogers declared it looked to him as though it had been correctly punched.”

“What did Frank then do?”

“He asked again for some coffee.”

“Did he ask for breakfast then?”

“No, not there.”

“What did Frank say about the murder and did he talk of it much?”

“The whole trend of the talk was about the murder.”

“Did you notice Frank’s eyes?”

“No, sir.”

“How long did you and Frank remain in the factory?”

“About an hour.”

“Wha [sic] was under arrest then?”

“Newt Lee.”

“Was Frank under arrest?”

“I never considered him under arrest.”

Frank at Police Station.

“Tell what, if anything, occurred at police station.”

“Well, when we got there they took Mr. Frank up to Chief Lanford’s office and I took my sister-in-law home.”

“Did you see Frank do anything in the station house?”

“No.”

“Did you see Frank with a pencil at the station house?”

“I don’t remember seeing him with one.”

“Was Frank nervous at the station house?”

“Yes, I remember how he jumped quickly out of the auto.”

Rosser Conducts Cross-Examination.

Attorney Rosser then took up the cross-examination of the state’s witness.

“Did Newt Lee meet you at the factory door?” Rosser asked referring to the first trip to the factory.

“No, we had to rattle the door.”

“How long before he came?”

“A minute or two.”

“Did you know when you first got there whether it was a white girl or black who was dead?”

“No.”

“How did you find out?”

“Dobbs or Anderson pulled down her stocking.”

“No blood on her neck?”

“No.”

“Did the cord cut into her neck?”

“It left an impression.”

“What time was Frank at the undertakers?”

“About 7 o’clock.”

“After Starnes telephoned you went out to Georgia avenue?”

“Yes, but had to wait a while for Mr. Frank at his house.”

“How long were you on the trip to Frank’s house?”

“About 2 minutes.”

“I’m undertaking to test your memory, that’s all,” said Mr. Rosser.

Could Not Recall Exact Words.

“You won’t undertake to give your exact words at the inquest?”

“It would be foolish to undertake it.”

“Didn’t Black say, “A drink would do us all good?” asked Mr. Rosser.

“He said so after Mrs. Frank had made some remark about it,” replied Rogers. “She called upstairs and was told that Mr. Selig had had an attack of acute indigestion and had drunk up all the liquor in the house.”

“Did you say that on the way to town Frank asserted that he didn’t know Mary Phagan?”

“Yes.”

“When you looked at the body could you look at Frank too?”

“I turned around.”

“Do you know that Frank wasn’t looking at the body at the time you were looking at it? Do you know where Frank went?”

“He stepped out of my view.”

“From the time you saw Frank, what did he say?”

“He asked if her name was Mary Phagan and said that if she worked at the factory he could tell by the pay roll, he took some books from the safe and said he had paid her off Saturday.”

“Frank started the elevator and it hummed and he called Darley and when Darley started it Frank took it,” queried Rosser.

“Yes.”

“Was there blood on the sawdust?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“Anywhere else?”

Blood on Clothes.

“There was a spot on her under clothes.”

“Did anybody touch the body?”

Sergeant Dobbs and Officer Brown worked her arms and fingers.”

“When you started to the station house, why did Frank go?”

“I don’t know whether he was asked to go or not.”

“He went alertly?”

“Yes, rapidly.”

“Seemed glad to go?”

“Yes.”

Dorsey Questions Witness.

Mr. Rosser ended his questions then, and Mr. Dorsey took up the examination and asked Rogers if he could tell whether the girl’s hair was that of a white girl or a negro and he declared that he could tell it to be a white girl’s.”

“Could Frank see the girl’s face or not when the undertaker uncovered it?” Mr. Dorsey asked.

Frank’s attorneys protested against this question and Judge Roan ruled that the state’s attorney could only ask what opportunity Frank could have had to see the face.

“What, if anything, prevented Frank from seeing the girl’s face?” the solicitor then queried.

“The body was lying in a position so he could not see it,” was Rogers’ reply.

“Didn’t you tell me that—“ Mr. Rosser interrupted but he was broken into by the solicitor who continued his questioning.

“What position was the body in?” asked Mr. Dorsey.

“The face was turned to the wall.”

“Where was Frank?” his attorney then asked.

“He had stepped beyond my vision,” replied the witness.

Rogers was then allowed to leave the stand.

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

Atlanta Constitution
July 31^st, 1913

SLEUTH CONFUSED UNDER MERCILESS CROSS-QUESTIONS OF LUTHER ROSSER

Just Before He Left the Stand He Confessed That He Was “Mixed Up” and That He Could Not Recall What He Had Testified a Moment Before—Tangled on Finding Bloody Shirt.

FRIENDS OF PRISONER HAVE HIGH HOPES NOW OF FAVORABLE VERDICT

“Boots” Rogers, Grace Hicks, Mrs. J. W. Coleman and J. M. Gantt on Stand During Day—Mobs of Curiosity Seekers Besieging Doors to Gain Admission to Frank Trial.

When Wednesday’s session of the Leo M. Frank trial had come to a close, the friends of the accused were filled with high hopes for his acquittal. They were nothing short of jubilant, and on all sides expressions of satisfaction were heard.

This feeling was based on the fact that the testimony of John Black, member of the Atlanta detective department, who worked up a large share of the evidence against Frank, fell to the ground, in a large measure, under the merciless cross-questioning of Luther Rosser.

Time and again Black contradicted himself as to time; time and again he confessed that he did not remember. Just before he left the stand he confessed to Mr. Rosser that he was “mixed up,” and that he could not recall what he had testified a moment before.

Black Very Nervous.

Black’s memory proved treacherous on many points, but it was in regard to the finding of the bloody shirt at Newt Lee’s house that he got mixed up and confessed his inability to recall dates.

Solicitor Dorsey had stated that he expected to show that Black had gone to Lee’s house only after Frank had informed him that several punches were missing from the time slip taken from the register clock, and that Lee would have had time to go home; that after Frank’s house had been searched for incriminating evidence at the suggestion of Herbert Haas, that Frank sought to have Lee’s house searched and that the bloody shirt was really a “plant.”

Black’s answers failed to bear out the contention of the solicitor. He could not say with any degree of certainty what day it was Frank had told him of the “misses” on the time slip.

He was also hazy as to the time Frank was actually detained at police headquarters. He could not tell by some hours what time he and Detective Haslett took Frank to the police station on Monday morning following the murder.

Black impressed a majority of the spectators as honestly trying to recall facts, but his inability to do so was manifest.

He seemed nervous. During the cross-examination by Luther Rosser he folded and refolded a large white handkerchief, frequently mopping his face.

Rogers on the Stand.

Other witnesses who testified for the state Wednesday were W. W. (Boots) Rogers, Grace Hicks, a sister-in-law of Rogers, who worked at the pencil factory and who first identified the body of Mary Phagan; Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of the dead girl, who was questioned for a short time, and J. M. Gantt, the discharged shipping clerk, who, for a time, was held in jail on suspicion.

Mr. Rogers made a good witness. He was accurate as to time, and the cross-questioning of Luther Rosser failed to confuse him. Rogers testified that to his best knowledge and belief Frank never saw the face of the dead girl in the undertaking establishment and that he could not have known who she was. At the coroner’s inquest Frank testified that he had seen the girl at the undertaking establishment.

Grace Hicks told of identifying Mary Phagan by her hair and she did not know whether Frank was personally acquainted with the dead girl or not. She said that she had worked at the pencil factory for five years and that during that time she had spoken to Leo Frank just three times. Grace Hicks is a decidedly pretty girl of 17, and she told her story in a perfectly frank and straightforward manner.

J. M. Gantt testified that he had been discharged from the National Pencil factory for alleged shortage in the pay roll. He explained that one of the pay envelopes was short and that when he declined to make it good Frank discharged him.

He said he had known Mary Phagan for years; that the families lived close together in Cobb county at one time.

He told of Leo Frank remarking.

“You know Mary pretty well, don’t you?”

He said Frank was decidedly nervous on the day he went to the factory to get his shoes.

Crowd Still Large.

Instead of diminishing, interest in the Frank trial grows daily. Mobs of curiosity seekers besiege the doors for admission. Many of them resort to all sorts of subterfuges to gain admission. The “I am a reporter” is the favorite dodge. At times bona fide newspaper men find difficulty in gaining admission on account of the suspicion entertained of all persons claiming to be reporters.

“BOOTS” ROGERS GOES ON STAND

The first witness put on the stand when court convened Wednesday was “Boots” Rogers, in whose machine police officers responded to Newt Lee’s call to the factory where Mary Phagan’s body was found.

Rogers told of the trip there and of the finding of the body and of the arrest of the negro. He then said that Detective J. N. Starnes called up a person, whom he afterwards heard was Frank, and told him to come to the factory.

Rogers took Detective John R. Black in his auto and went to Frank’s house. At the door he said the ring was answered by Mrs. Frank, who was dressed in a heavy bath robe, and while they were talking to her Frank himself appeared from behind a portiere curtain in the hall and began to ask them what was the matter at the factory.

Says Frank Was Nervous.

Testimony as to the defendants’s nervousness and his frequent asking for coffee before he left home and later at the factory made up the greater part of Rogers’ statement on the stand.

Rogers also went into some detail about the actual finding of the body and later about the way in which Frank acted at the undertaker’s shop.

Frank was nervous there, Rogers said, and did not enter the room to see the girl, but went into another room before the undertaker had turned the face toward them.

Rogers also told of the time clock at the factory and declared that Frank had taken out and put away the slip in the clock and put another one in its place.

Rogers declared that Frank had declared that the clock was correctly punched and that he also looked at the slip and that as far as he could tell the punches were regular and there was nothing out of the way in the appearance of the slip.

MISS GRACE HICKS GIVES TESTIMONY.

Miss Grace Hicks, a sister-in-law of Rogers and the girl whom he carried to the factory to identify the dead girl’s body, was next placed upon the stand. She said that she had worked there five years and that she had known Mary Phagan for about a year.

That Leo Frank came into the metal department where the Phagan girl and she worked, but that she had never seen Frank speak to Mary Phagan, was a part of her testimony.

The girl was asked a number of questions about the details of the factory building and of the routine of the employees in her department. She said that Lemmie Quinn was her foreman and that in the five years she had worked there she had only spoken to Frank three times.

The girl was also asked about paint spots on the floor and also if a white substance was not kept in the building similar to that which covered some of the alleged spots on the floor. She said she had never seen any red spots on the floor around her room, but that she had seen paint spots of other colors.

BLACK TELLS OF VISIT TO FRANK.

John Black, third witness on the stand, testified that he was called to the pencil factory at 4 o’clock on the morning of the 26^th. He told of having gone with “Boots” Rogers to the home of Leo Frank to bring him to the plant building in Rogers’ car and of Frank’s apparent nervousness.

Black told, also, of searching the home of Newt Lee and discovering the bloody shirt, which Solicitor Dorsey charges is a plant. He also told of hearing Attorney Herbert Haas, associate counsel for the defense, demand of Chief Lanford that detectives search Frank’s home on a day before the accused man was put under arrest.

Black told of Frank’s visit to the undertaking establishment shortly after daybreak on the day of the discovery, and of hearing the conversation over the telephone when Detective Starnes summoned Frank to the pencil plant.

He remained on the stand for several hours.

Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan, was recalled to the stand for a short time to identify the mesh bag of her daughter.

J. M. Gantt, once a Phagan murder suspect, then testified about his visit to the factory to get his shoes. He was the last witness. Court adjourned at 4:50 o’clock.

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

Atlanta Journal
July 30^th, 1913

GRACE HIX TESTIFIES THAT GIRLS FREQUENTLY COMBED THEIR HAIR OVER MACHINES

Miss Hix Also Testifies That Magnolia Kennedy, Who Worked Near Mary Phagan, Had Hair of the Same Color and Shade—Important Admissions Lay Foundation for Defense’s Claim That Murder Was Not Committed in Metal Room

STATE ENDEAVORS TO SHOW THAT FRANK VERY NERVOUS AND DID NOT LOOK ON FACE OF MURDERED GIRL

Attorney Rosser Directs His Questions to Combat Claim of Nervousness—Witness Declares She Never Saw Any Red Paint in the Metal Room—State Claims New Evidence Will Soon Be Given—Trial Will Run Into Second Week

Four distinct features marked the trial of Leo M. Frank Wednesday. One was an admission from Miss Grace Hix that the girls frequently combed their hair over the machines in the metal room of the factory; another was a strenuous effort on the part of the state to prove that Frank was very nervous on the morning of the discovery of little Mary Phagan’s body; still another feature was the attempt of the state to show that Frank was reluctant to look upon the dead girl’s face in the undertaking parlors, and the fourth was the state’s effort to prove that red paint never had been seen on the floor of the metal room where the state alleges bloody spots were found.

Around each of these points stiff legal tilts occurred. In developing from Miss Hix’s testimony the fact that the girl’s combed their hair in the metal room, Attorney Rosser laid the foundation for a refutation of the theory that Mary Phagan was murdered there.

The state is expected to introduce as evidence several strands of hair found on the handle of a turning lathe in the metal room, presumed to be those of Mary Phagan. Attorney Rosser drew from the Hix girl the admission that Miss Magnolia Kenneday, one of the metal room employees who worked very close to Mary Phagan’s machine, had hair almost the same shade as that of the murdered girl.

Evidently as to the nervousness of Frank on the morning of the murder was given by City Detective John Black and W. W. Rogers, who, after the body had been found called at Frank’s home in an automobile to bring him to the pencil factory. Upon cross-examination by Attorney Rosser these witnesses were unable to furnish any specific instances of Frank’s conduct indicating nervousness, beyond the fact that he walked rapidly, talked fast, found some difficulty in adjusting his collar and tie, and several times referred to his desire for a cup of coffee or something to eat.

Both of these witnesses swore that when they took Frank to the undertaking establishment they did not see him look at the dead girl’s face. However, neither of them would swear positively that Frank did not do so.

Apparently Solicitor Dorsey regarded as important the testimony of Grace Hix that the factory paints were kept in the polishing room, which a some distance from the metal room. The girl declared that she had seen a few drops of paint on the floor of the metal room leading from the polishing room to the water cooler, but that she had never observed any red paint on the floor. Attorney Rosser compelled the witness to admit that the floors of the factory were very dirty and badly stained and that on account of the dust and dirt only two or three days would be necessary to elapse to make it impossible to determine the color of a stain of pa[i]nt which had been dropped upon the floor.

Attorneys in the case are fighting strenuously over every point however insignificant it may seem to the spectators.

Despite the battle of three days, however, no testimony not already in the hands of the public has been presented. The prosecution, nevertheless, promises to produce new and startling evidence before much more progress in the case is made.

The report that J. M. Gantt, who was arrested shortly after the murder and later released, would give sensational evidence to the effect that he saw Frank and Conley together about 1:25 on the day of the tragedy was denied by Gantt. Gantt declared he met a friend of his, Rosser Shields, about 1:50 in the afternoon and went to the restaurant opposite the pencil factory, but that he did not see anyone come in or got out of the factory, as he was not noticing.

An effort of the prosecution to develop through the testimony of “Boots” Rogers that Leo M. Frank did not look upon the face of Mary Phagan as she lay is the morgue on the Sunday morning when Frank, accompanied by officers, visited the undertaker’s, and an equally determined effort of the defense to show that Rogers did not know whether Frank saw the little girl’s face or not, was one of the interesting features of the Wednesday morning session. Solicitor Dorsey, presumably, was endeavoring to show that Frank had lost his nerve and that he could not bear the sight of the child’s face, and Attorney Rosser combatted his efforts very energetically. The witness was stopped several times by each side as he was dismissed by the other and made to go over his testimony.

Another interesting feature was the line of questions directed at Miss Grace Hix, the friend of Mary Phagan, who was first to identify her body. Solicitor Dorsey asked her in considerable detail about a door on the second floor, leading to the third story. This door was near the point where the defense claims the girl was killed. It has never figured in the case however, until shown on the solicitor’s diagram. The purpose of the solicitor is not yet apparent. Mr. Dorsey also had Miss Dix tell what the natural route would have been from Frank’s office to the metal room. The lines on the solicitor’s diagram indicate a route which Mr. Frank is supposed to have taken and which apparently was somewhat out of the way.

Before Rogers took the stand the diagram of the pencil factory was again submitted by Solicitor Dorsey, but with all writing removed. After an argument by the attorneys with the jury out of the room Judge Roan admitted the diagram as representing the state’s theory.

While lawyers and principals in the Frank trial refuse to estimate the probable length of the big legal battle, those who have been following the case closely now believe that it will run far into next week. Judging from the progress made since the jury was chosen the state will do well if it closes its case next Saturday.

Everybody is wondering whether or not Conley, if he is called, will stand up under the battery of the defense when he takes the stand against the accused factory superintendent. Conley is expected to be the state’s main witness.

Conley is almost certain to take the stand twice during the trial. He will, of course, be a witness in the direct presentation of evidence by the state. And it is more than probable that he will be called in rebuttal to refute the statement that W. H. Mincey, defense witness, is expected to make. Mincey claims that Conley, while intoxicated, confessed to murdering a girl on the day Mary Phagan was killed.

So far the prosecution has presented nothing that has not been told the public weeks ago through the newspapers. Attorney Frank A. Hooper, for the prosecution, promises that evidence heretofore unknown will be brought before the jury this week, however. In conversation with newspapermen Thursday morning he said that the state would present important new evidence before it closes its case.

PUBLIC ADMITTED.

At 8:40 o’clock the public was admitted to the court room until the seats were taken. About fifty people were left outside when the doors were shut again. Frank already had arrived from the jail, in charge of the sheriff. Judge L. S. Roan was in his own chambers.

The jury was waiting in the room designated for its use. No woman appeared among the crowd first admitted to the court. Frank, the accused man, appeared cheerful, and chatted unconcernedly with friends close to him.

Court reconvened at 9 o’clock. The judge, lawyers and other principals appeared in mohair or linen suits.

Newt Garner, special deputy attached to the solicitor’s office, produced the diagram which the solicitor had sought […]

Did Frank Look at Mary Phagan’s Face at Morgue on Sunday?

[…] to introduce as evidence Tuesday afternoon and hung it again upon the wall. The key writing and most of the lines had been erased.

The solicitor again sought to introduce the diagram in evidence. The defense objected. The defense objected even to it being hung where the jury might see it. Attorney Arnold pointed out a heavy dotted line and two crosses and two red dots, assuming that they illustrated the story which the negro, Conley, he supposed would tell.

Solicitor Dorsey cited a decision by the state supreme court.

Judge Roan asked Mr. Arnold if all the writing which might indicate the meaning of the lines and crosses and dots had been removed. Mr. Arnold admitted that the writing was erased. “But, your honor, writing is not necessary in order to explain a picture of a horse,” he argued.

STATE WINS A POINT.

Judge Roan asked Mr. Dorsey. “The lines simply indicate the state’s theory, do they not?”

Mr. Dorsey answered affirmatively.

Judge Roan admitted the diagram as evidence, and the jury was brought in and the trial began.

W. W. Rogers, formerly a county police officer, in whose automobile the officers went to the scene of the murder and in which they brought Frank there, went upon the witness stand.

Rogers now is a bailiff in Justice Girardeau’s court. He is known as “Boots” Rogers.

Along about April 26, he said, he was operating an automobile for hire between Buckhead and Roswell.

ROGERS TELLS OF TRIP.

On April 26 he was riding around town in his car. That night he was at police headquarters with his car. About 3 o’clock Sunday morning, April 27, a call came to police headquarters from the pencil factory, and he drove some officers up to the factory on Forsyth street.

The officers were let in through the front door by the negro night watchman, Newt Lee. The negro led them to the basement where they discovered the body of Mary Phagan.

Rogers was present when Detective Starnes used the telephone in the pencil factory office. This was just after daylight, between 5 and 5:30 o’clock. He couldn’t recollect exactly what he heard Starnes say nor did he know what replies came over the wire.

Starnes was asking some one to come to the pencil factory. He did not know to whom Starnes was talking. He heard him say, “I’ll send an automobile for you.” The detective hung up the receiver and asked him, the witness: “Will you drive to Mr. Frank’s home, 68 East Georgia avenue, and bring him to the factory?” He consented, and went there with Detective Black, the drive requiring five or six minutes.

Detective Black preceded the witness to the door of the home. Black knocked on the door or rang the bell. In “a few minutes” the door was opened by Mrs. Frank. To the best of his recollection Mrs. Frank wore a heavy bathrobe. She opened the door wide and Detective Black and he stepped into the house entrance.

FRANK WAS DRESSED.

Black asked for Mr. Frank. Mrs. Frank called to her husband, and almost instantly he walked through the portieres in the hall toward the door. He was dressed for the street, with the exception of collar, tie, coat and hat.

Solicitor Dorsey inquired whether Mrs. Frank also was dressed for the street. Attorney Rosser objected. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

Frank wore a pleated bosom shirt. The witness said he noticed that particularly because it appeared to be ironed so nicely. Solicitor Dorsey requested the witness to go ahead and tell the jury what Frank had on.

Witness replied that he could tell only what he saw. Frank had on shoes, blue hose (he thought), blue trousers, white shirt and suspenders (he thought).

Describing Frank’s actions after he entered the reception hall, Rogers testified that Frank walked directly to Detective Black and inquired, “Has anything happened at the factory?” Black did not answer, but hung his head.

FRANK ASKED QUESTIONS.

“Frank then came to me,” the witness said, “and asked me the same question, and I did not answer.” Turning to Black again, Frank asked, “Did the night watchman call up and report anything to you?”

To this question Black replied, “You’d better get on your coat and go with us to the factory.”

Rogers testified that he did not hear Starnes tell over the telephone to whomever he was addressing, that a murder had been committed at the factory.

About 3:30 o’clock, he said, he heard Call Officers Anderson, who had Newt Lee in his custody, trying to call some one over the telephone from Frank’s office in the pencil factory.

The witness returned to the scene at Frank’s house. Frank asked his wife for his collar and tie.

Solicitor Dorsey asked Rogers if anything was said about dreams while he and Black were at Frank’s home. The defenses objected. Solicitor Dorsey said he was refreshing the mind of the witness from the transcript of evidence taken at the coroner’s inquest. Rogers replied.

FRANK’S DREAM.

“Mr. Frank said something about the phone ringing early that morning. He didn’t know whether it actually had rung or whether it was a dream.”

Rogers testified that Mrs. Frank asked her husband to drink some coffee before he went to the factory. Frank said, “Yes, I’d like to have time to drink a cup of coffee.” Detective Black said, “I think a drink of whisky would do him good.”

Mrs. Frank explained there was no whisky in the house because her father, Emil Selig, had suffered an attack of acute indigestion and had consumed it. Rogers asked Mrs. Frank for some water to put in the radiator of his automobile, and on her permission went back into the kitchen and got a bucket full of it.

There was no preparation being made for breakfast in the kitchen and there was no fire that he saw. There was a gas range there, said the witness. Rogers said that Frank was “extremely nervous,” that his voice was refined or strained and “kind of lady-like.”

FRANK APPEARED NERVOUS.

Frank was rubbing his hands and put questions abruptly and moved above briskly in the hall. Frank had his hair combed when they arrived at the house five or six minutes after they left the factory.

“On the trip to town, about how long did it take you?”

“About five or seven minutes. I remember looking down at the speedometer and seeing that it registered forty-one miles an hour.”

“What was said about Mary Phagan?”

“One of us. I think it was Black, asked Frank if he knew a girl by the name of Mary Phagan. Frank asked if she worked in the factory. Black said, “I think so.” Frank said he would look on the pay roll and see. One suggested taking Mr. Frank by the undertaker’s, and we went there.”

“Did you see a corpse?”

“Yes.”

“Describe the place and all about it.”

“There is a little hall leading through the place. On the left is a chapel and on the right is a large room. In that room the corpse was laying on a cooling board. The room was dark, but Will Gheesling, who worked there, lit a light behind the corpses. Then he took the sheet down and turned her head toward me. I looked back then, to see who was following, and saw Frank step into a little side room which I afterward learned was the place where Gheesling slept.”

FRANK AT UNDERTAKER’S.

“Did you see him look at the corpse?”

“I didn’t. I remember looking back to see who was following me, just as the head was turned toward me, and then he stepped into this little room. He could have looked at it, but couldn’t have seen the face until Gheesling turned it around.”

“Did you have any conversation there?”

“Someone asked Frank if he knew her. He replied that he was not certain, but if it was Mary Phagan and she worked at the factory he could tell there.”

At this point the witness said that in the conversation at Frank’s residence he had heard Frank tell his wife to call up Darley and have him come to the factory.

“Did Frank ask Black any questions at the undertaker’s?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What was Frank’s manner?”

“He still was apparently nervous.”

“What did he do or say?”

“It was just his general manner that made me think he was nervous—his quick actions and his quick steps.”

“When was Frank first told the girl’s name?”

“So far as I know it was in the car coming down when he first heard the name and heard that there had been a murder.”

“Did he ask anything about her name at the undertaker’s?”

“I don’t remember.”

“How long were you at the undertaker’s?”

ASKED ABOUT ENVELOPE.

“Ten or fifteen minutes. We went from there to the factory. As we stopped the car, Mr. Darley and some other man were going into the factory and Mr. Frank called to them. We all went up the steps together. We went directly to Mr. Frank’s office, and he immediately opened the safe and took out the time book. Running his finger down a page, he came to the name Mary Phagan. ‘Yes, she was here yesterday to get her pay,’ he said. ‘Wait and I’ll tell you what time. If I make no mistake, stenographer left at 12 o’clock, the office boy went a few minutes later, and then she came in and got her pay. It was 1:20.”

“What else was said?”

“Mr. Frank asked if the envelope had been found lying around the factory.”

“What day did he say Mary Phagan got her pay?”

“He said ‘yesterday,’ referring to Saturday, April 26.”

“Did he give the time any more accurately than at a little after 12 o’clock?”

The witness repeated his testimony regarding Frank’s statement.

“What were his appearance and deportment then?”

“He was still nervous.”

“Describe his manner.”

“He still stepped around quickly, and his speech was quick and sharp.”

“Describe his countenance.”

“I didn’t notice it especially.”

“What about the elevator?”

“After he had opened the safe, and so forth, something came up about where the body was found, and I think he said he wanted to see the place. Frank then went by the time clock and up to a switch box by the elevator. He turned this on and the machinery started running.”

THE ELEVATOR.

“Was the switch box locked?”

“No, the lock and key were there by it, but it was open.”

“What was said about this by Frank?”

“He said that he had been accustomed to keeping it locked until he was told by the insurance company that it was against the law to keep an electric switch box locked. The crowd got into the elevator, and Frank reached for the rope. It was hung (caught), and Mr. Darley helped him to get it loose.”

“Describe Frank’s manner.”

“He still was nervous.”

“Go into detail.”

The witness repeated his detailed description of Frank’s quick actions.

“Did you head Frank ask any questions on the way to the basement?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Did he then advance any theory about the crime?”

“Frank stated that Newt Lee had worked for a long time with Darley and had been at the factory only a short time. If the negro knew anything about it, said Frank, Darley would come nearer than anybody else to getting it out of him.”

THE TIME CLOCK.

“Did you see anybody take any punch slip out of the time clock?”

“That was later on after we had left the basement and come back to the office floor. Frank suggested to Darley that they’d better nail up the back door and they went back down. The officers left Lee with me, and after they came back upstairs they took Frank through the factory. When they returned to the office, one of them officers suggested that they’d all better go down to the station house, and Frank, turning to Darley, said, ‘I guess I’d better put a new slip on the clock.’ Darley said, ‘Yes.’ Frank took his keys out of his pocket, unlocked the door of the lock on the right, and took out the time slip. He examined the slip and then said it was punched all right.

“Lee was handcuffed and was standing near. Darley also was there. After seeing that the time slip was punched all right, Frank laid it down on the table and went into his office, coming out with a blank slip. While he was in the office getting the new slip, several of us examined the one taken from the clock. When Frank put in the new slip, he asked some of us to help him, and I held a lever. Frank found a pencil in one of the punch holes and asked Lee why it was there. The negro said he put the pencil there so he would punch the right hole and make no mistake.

“Frank locked the clock and on the margin of the slip he wrote in pencil ‘April 26, 1913.’ Then he folded the slip and carried it back into the inner office. When I examined the slip I noticed just the first two punches especially. One was punched at 6:01 o’clock and the second at 6:32 or 6:33.”

“He didn’t notice any skips on the slip,” said Rogers.

“He thought if there had been any omissions, he would have seen them.”

While they were in the factory, he heard Frank say several times that he wanted to go out and get a cup of coffee. Solicitor Dorsey wanted to know if anybody else said anything about coffee. Attorney Rosser objected. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

LITTLE TO SAY OF CRIME.

“Did you hear Frank say anything about wanting to get breakfast?” asked the solicitor.

“I don’t remember that I did, but while we were at his home Mrs. Frank asked if Mr. Frank couldn’t get his breakfast before he left.”

“While you were in the factory,” the solicitor asked, “did Frank talk much about the murder?”

Frank had very little to say about the murder, replied Rogers. When the others pointed out where the girl’s body had been found in the basement, Frank said, “That’s too bad.”

Rogers said he did not notice Frank’s eyes. Frank was in the factory about an hour that morning. From the factory they went to the station in his, Rogers’, automobile. Darley sat on the front seat beside the witness, and Frank sat on Darley’s knee.

Newt Lee, the negro nightwatchman, was in the rear seat with Detective Black. As far back as the witness knew, nothing had been said to indicate that Frank was under arrest. At police headquarters the officers took Frank to the detective chief’s office on the third floor. Rogers did not go upstairs with them. He stayed behind to take his sister-in-law home.

Replying to questions by the solicitor the witness did not remember to have seen Frank do any writing at the station house. He did see Newt Lee write. Some of the officers were writing. The solicitor sought to refresh the witness’ memory about his testimony on this point before the coroner’s jury. Attorney Rosser objected. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

Solicitor Dorsey asked Rogers if he had seen the officers do anything with Frank and Lee at the station house. Attorney Rosser objected. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

The solicitor asked if Rogers saw Frank with a pencil in hand.

ANOTHER OBJECTION SUSTAINED.

Taking up the stenographic record of the testimony at the coroner’s inquest, the solicitor stated that he desired to ask the witness what he swore at the inquest. Attorney Rosser objected. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

The solicitor then asked Rogers about Frank’s appearance while at the station house. Frank was nervous, said Rogers. Just like he was when the witness first saw him at his home and like he was at the factory. Asked to describe his actions, Rogers and Frank jumped from the car immediately it was stopped in front of the station; that he walked rapidly and nervously into the station; and that what few words he spoke were uttered in a nervous and excited manner. Darley followed Frank to Chief Lanford’s office. Rogers did not observe Frank’s hands at the station.

CROSS-EXAMINATION.

Rogers was cross-examined by Attorney Rosser.

Rogers testified that he had not seen Frank before that Sunday morning when he went to his home and got him. He did not know Frank’s usual actions and mode of expression. He couldn’t say whether Frank was perturbed or excited more than usual.

When the officers arrived at the factory, very early that morning, they waited at the door a minute or two for Newt Lee to come down and open the door.

Rogers admitted that they could not tell, at first, whether the body was that of a white or negro girl. They had to pull down one stocking and wipe her face off before they could tell. Rogers said that the cord cut into the flesh of the body’s neck, but the skin wasn’t broken.

The piece of her underskirt around her neck was over the cord. Attorney Rosser questioned Rogers closely about the time when they returned to town and took Frank to the undertaking parlor. Attorney Rosser asked Rogers if Detective Black didn’t say a drink drink would do them all good.

“Not in those words” answered Rogers. He reported what Mrs. Frank had said about her father having consumed all the whisky in the house. Frank and Mrs. Frank and the lawyers laughed.

Attorney Rosser asked Rogers what he said about Mary Phagan’s pay envelope before the coroner’s jury. Rogers said that he told the coroner’s jury about it, but couldn’t recall his exact words.

When they visited the undertaking establishment, said Rogers, he did not know whether Frank and Black were inside when the light over Mary Phagan’s body was flashed on.

Mr. Rosser asked him if he didn’t know Black was leaning against one side of the door and Frank against the other side. He didn’t know whether they were or not. He wouldn’t attempt to say that Frank didn’t see the corpse then. “Didn’t you know that Gheesling was looking at Frank when he turned the light on?” asked Mr. Rosser. Rogers said no.

Mr. Rosser developed from the witness that the elevator appeared to be a rather clumsy and frail affair, but the witness declined to say that it stopped with a bump. Mr. Rosser also brought out the fact that when Darley came to Frank’s assistance when they started the elevator, it started toward the top, but Darley stopped it, and then Frank took hold of the rope and ran the elevator to the basement.

Rogers testified that when they found the body it lay with its head toward the front and its feet diagonally across toward the right rear corner.

BRUISES ON BODY.

The body was lying on its front, with arms folded beneath it. The face looked toward the right wall.

Attorney Rosser brought out a repetition of testimony about bruises and slight cuts on the face, and about the examination of the body by the police. One of the stocking supporters was broken, testified the witness. Her undergarments were torn.

Rogers stayed about twenty minutes in the basement, and then left to get the undertaker and to go after his sister-in-law, who identified the body. Attorney Rosser brought out the fact that Frank went to police headquarters from the factory willingly and readily.

Solicitor Dorsey took the witness on re-direct examination.

“When you first saw the body in the basement, could you tell by the hair whether it was that of a white person?”

Rogers answered that at first glance it looked like the hair of a white girl, but he couldn’t tell from the face. Both Rosser and Dorsey interrupted the witness. The solicitor said that what he wanted the witness to do was to say whether he could tell by the hair that the body was that of a white person. Rogers answered that the hair impres[s]ed him that way.

DID FRANK SEE FACE?

Solicitor Dorsey asked the witness if the body that he saw in the basement was the same that he saw in the undertaking establishment. Rogers said that it was.

The solicitor asked if Frank saw the face of the body at the undertaking establishment. Rogers said he didn’t think so.

Attorney Rosser demanded to know if the witness had not stated that when he first went into the room where the body lay, he did not notice where Frank was and that Frank might have seen the fact at that time.

Rogers admitted that he said he did not know what Frank’s position was when he, Rogers, entered the undertaker’s room, but that unless Frank was close to where he, the witness, stood, he could not have seen the face.

Attorney Rosser interrupted again, striving to draw from the witness an admission that it was possible for Frank to have seen the face of the body without Rogers knowing about it. The witness repeated that he did not think Frank saw the girl’s face.

Solicitor Dorsey sought to go over with the witness the testimony he gave on direct examination about this point. Attorney Rosser objected, Judge Roan sustained the objection.

ANOTHER TILT.

Addressing the court, the solicitor said: “All I want to know, your honor, is whether it was possible for Frank to see the girl’s face. If not, why not?”

The solicitor put this question to the witness:

“What, if anything, prevented Frank from seeing the girl’s face when he turned off into the little room?”

Although Mr. Rosser was endeavoring to interrupt, the witness replied: “The body was lying so that he couldn’t have seen it.”

“What was it you testified about the envelope?” asked the solicitor.

Mr. Rosser objected. Judge Roan sustained the objection.

Addressing the witness, Attorney Rosser inquired:

“Didn’t you tell me that when the girl’s face was turned toward you, you were intent upon looking at it and didn’t know where Frank was?”

“I told you he had to be close to me in order to see the face. If he was outside, he could have seen the body but not the face.”

“Didn’t you tell me,” demanded Mr. Rosser, “that Gheesling, the undertaker, was in better position to know all about this matter, then yourself?”

“Yes,” answered the witness.

“Come down,” said Mr. Rosser.

Solicitor Dorsey interposed another question.

“When Frank went into the room, the girl’s face was turned toward the wall, was it not?”

“Yes,” replied the witness.

“Come down,” said the solicitor.

“Look out! Wait a minute,” snapped Mr. Rosser. “You were so busy looking at the girl’s body that he could have seen the face and you wouldn’t have known it?”

ROGERS LEAVES STAND.

“He could have seen the body but not the face. To see the face, he would have had to be somewhere close to where I was standing.”

“You just said, did you not, that you didn’t know where he was?”

“Yes.”

“Come down,” commanded Mr. Rosser.

“Hold on!” ordered the solicitor. “Didn’t you testify that Frank didn’t enter the room where the body lay?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the witness.

“And that he stepped off into a side room?”

“Yes.”

“Come down,” said Mr. Dorsey.

And this time the witness left the stand.

Miss Grace Hix, sister-in-law of “Boots” Rogers, who preceded her on the stand, was called as the next witness.

Miss Hix said that she had known Mary Phagan ever since Mary had worked at the pencil factory, nearly a year. Miss Hix worked with her in the metal room at the rear of the second floor. Mary was a pretty girl about thirteen years old and was well developed for her age. Mary and the other girls working there registered four times a day at the time clock, said the witness, checking in at the beginning of the day’s work, out and in again at noon, and out at inght [sic].

Mary’s machine was next to the dressing room, near where the blood stains were found on the floor. Frank made visits through the metal room at least once a day, and that sometimes the girls would see elsewhere in the factory.

MARY LAID OFF.

The last day that Mary had worked prior to the murder was on the preceding Monday, Mary had been laid off then on account of the metal giving out.

Solicitor Dorsey questioned her closely about the metal and where it was kept. His questions indicated that this will become an important point in the state’s case.

Miss Hix testified that the metal was kept in a closet under the steps leading from the metal room to the third floor.

Using Mary Phagan’s parasol, handed to her by Solicitor Dorsey, Miss Hix pointed out the metal room on the chart. She pointed out also a little room alongside it, occupied by Lemmie Quinn, the foreman, as an office; and the men’s and women’s toilets.

Solicitor Dorsey asked her if any of the metal had come between Monday and Saturday of that week. She replied that none had come. Mr. Dorsey asked her then if she knew whether or not Frank was aware that the metal supply had given out. She didn’t know.

She said that although Saturday was the usual payday, the majority were paid off on Friday night of this particular week, between 6 and 7 o’clock. On the Wednesday preceding the murder, Lemmie Quinn, the foreman, had called her up and told her the girls would be paid off Friday.

With Mary Phagan’s parasol again, Miss Hix pointed out Frank’s office on the chart, and the register clocks, and the probable course anyone would take in going from Frank’s office to the metal room in the rear on that floor.

She pointed out Mary Phagan’s machine in the metal room.

GOOD DEFENSE WITNESS.

Miss Grace Hix was cross-examined by Attorney Rosser. She made about as good a witness for the defense as she had for the prosecution, Mr. Rosser bringing out several material points. Miss Hix said that a person standing by the time clock could not see into Mr. Frank’s private office.

While Frank often passed through the metal room to see how things were going on, he seldom spoke to any of the girls. She remembered only three times in a about a year that he had spoken to her, and one of those times was when she went to him to bor[r]ow a quarter.

Miss Hix said that she did not know whether Frank knew her name. The floor of the factory was quite dirty, and there were several buckets of a white lubricant sitting around; also different colored paints were used around the factory.

She knew that they used blue and white paints, but was not sure about red paint. Only four girls worked in the department—herself, Magnolia Kennedy, Helen Ferguson and Mary Phagan. She and Helen and Magnolia got their pay on Friday afternoon. They went to the factory together some time after 6 o’clock.

In the metal room she and the other girls were accustomed to comb their hair only a few feet from Mary Phagan’s machine. Magnolia Kennedy, she said, had hair of almost exactly the same color as Mary Phagan’s. She described that hair as about two shades darker than her own.

Asked to point out somebody in the court room whose hair was about the same color, she pointed to Attorney Arnold. The girls usually combed their hair when they were getting ready to leave the factory.

She described Mary Phagan as being stockily built, quite a strong girl, who would weigh about 115 pounds. Miss Hix said that Darley, as general foreman, employed the help and Frank had very little to do with it. She described the distance between the time clock and the office as about ten feet.

She never saw Frank manipulate or have anything to do with the time clock, she said. She identified a pencil handed to her as one similar to the pencils which she helped make.

On re-direct examination, Solicitor Dorsey developed from the witness that she had not seen posted notices that Saturday, April 26, would be a holiday and that employes of the factory would be paid off Friday afternoon.

DIDN’T SEE NOTICE.

She admitted that probably she would have seen it had one been posted. These notice cards, said the witness, usually were tacked about at different places in the factory, and usually about a week in advance of the holiday which they related to. She saw no such cards on the Monday before the murder. Mary Phagan worked on that day. Foreman Quinn never had phoned her before. On this particular occasion he telephoned to her Friday after dinner.

Miss Hix stated that she still works at the pencil factory. She did not know where the uncalled for pay envelopes were kept, but thought they were kept in the office. Solicitor Dorsey endeavored to have the witness state whether a person punching the clock could be seen from Frank’s desk in the inner office. Witness did not know which desk Frank occupied. Neither did she know whether the door of the outer office, when opened, obstructed the view of the clock from Frank’s office. She does not enter the private office, she said.

Solicitor Dorsey questioned the witness in much detail as to where the paint was kept and how it was sued. She said that the paint was kept in the polishing room, a different department from the metal room in which Mary Phagan worked.

The door or entrance to the polishing room is about four or five feet from the door of the dressing room in front of which the red spots were found. She never had seen any paint in the metal room. However, she had seen drops of paint on the floor outside the polishing room, close to the dressing room and cooler.

Solicitor Dorsey wanted to know whether she could tell whether or not what she saw was paint. She answered in the affirmative. She added, however, that she had never seen any red paint outside of the polishing room.

Attorney Rosser interposed a question. He wanted to know if the floors throughout the factory are not stained and dirty, and if the stains on the floors are not so mixed as to make it hard to distinguish among them. Miss Hix answered that the floors are very dirty and that if paint remains on them for two or three days the dirt would cover it so it would be hard to tell whether it was paint or not.

Miss Hix was excused.

BLACK TAKES STAND.

City Detective John Black was called to the stand.

Detective Black said he had been on the detective force for six years. Before that he was a cooper.

Black testified that he was awakened about 4:30 o’clock on the morning of April 27 by Police Sergeant Bullard, who called him over the telephone and told him of the murder. He went from home to the police station, arriving there about 5 o’clock. He talked to Newt Lee at police headquarters from about 5 to 5:30 o’clock, he said. Then he went to the pencil factory, arriving there shortly before 6 o’clock.

About 6 o’clock Detective Starnes called Frank over the telephone and told him they wanted him at the pencil factory and offered to send an automobile out to get him. He went with Boots Rogers in the automobile to Frank’s home, and in answer to a ring Mrs. Frank opened the door. She wore a bath robe. He told her he wanted to see Mr. Frank. A moment later Frank stepped from behind some curtains in the hall.

Solicitor Dorsey asked Black if he had seen Frank before that moment. Black replied that on two previous occasions he had encountered Frank at the pencil factory on cases which took him to the factory. On one of these occasions, said Black, he had a conversation with Frank. On that occasion, said he, there was nothing unusual in Frank’s demeanor.

FRANK’S MANNER.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the detective as to Frank’s manner on the morning of April 27. Frank was very nervous that morning, said the detective. The solicitor asked him to explain, and Attorney Rosser objected.

Argument followed. Attorney Rosser said: “If my brother (Dorsey) would sit down and quit smiling at me, I’d be happy.” Judge Roan sustained the solicitor. The question was repeated.

Black answered that he was very nervous, and had trouble putting on his collar and tie. Frank mentioned breakfast twice, said Black. He asked questions rapidly. Frank asked him if anything had happened at the pencil factory and before he could answer that question, asked him if the night watchman had reported anything to the police. Black said that he gave indirect answers to both questions, and told Frank simply he’d better dress and come down to the factory and see.

Black said that he was watching Frank insisted, too, that he wanted a face seemed pale. Frank’s voice was hoarse and “trembly.” Black said that Frank insisted, too, that he wanted a cup of coffee before he left the house.

“What was said in the automobile when you were going to the factory?”

“Frank wanted to know what had happened, and I asked him if he knew a girl by the name of Mary Phagan and told him that her dead body had been found in the basement. Frank said he didn’t remember such a girl; that he knew very few of the girls employed in the factory.

TRIP TO MORGUE.

“I suggested that we go by the undertaker’s shop. When we entered the undertaker’s, one of the undertakers was in front. Rogers followed him. Frank went next, and I followed Frank. When the undertaker lifted the sheet down, Mr. Frank looked at her and stepped aside. I would say that he glanced at her casually.”

“Do you know that he saw her face?”

“I can’t say.”

“Did you see Gheesling turn her head over?”

“Yes,” that was just about the time Frank stepped aside.”

“What do you mean by ‘stepped aside?’ Where did he go?”

“He stepped behind a curtain.”

“Could he see the body from there?”

“No.”

STEPPED AWAY FROM BODY.

“Did he ever go into the room where the body was?”

“Except for that first time I can’t say that he did. After he stepped behind the curtain he went away from the body.”

The solicitor was interrupted by Attorney Rosser, who declared that he was “viciously leading” the witness. After a little tilt, the solicitor was allowed to proceed.

“What did Frank say then?”

“I asked him if he knew the girl, and he answered that he did not know her just then, but thought from her dress that he had paid her off Saturday and could tell by going to the factory.”

“How long did you stay at the undertaker’s?”

“About five minutes. We went from there to the factory, and just as we drove up we saw Mr. Darley and another man. There was a general conversation as we went up the stairs.”

Judge Roan adjourned the court at that point, 12:25 o’clock, until 1 o’clock.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

A large crowdr than at preceding sessions was waiting outside the court house when the doors were opened Wednesday afternoon. Shortly before 3 o’clock as many as could find seats were allowed to enter, and a number were turned away. A number of women were among the crowd.

Court re-convened at 3 o’clock.

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

Atlanta Georgian
July 30^th, 1913

STATE ADDS NEW LINK TO EVIDENCE CHAIN BY BOOTS ROGERS’ STORY

Sensational testimony by J. M. Gantt, discharged pencil factory employee, was promised Wednesday by Solicitor Dorsey and Frank A. Hooper, who is assisting him. They admitted that Gantt had testimony that had never before been published and would be one of the State’s most material and direct witnesses.

The defense has heard that Gantt will testify he saw Frank and Conley together on the day of the crime. Gantt was expected to follow Grace Hicks on the stand.

The State added another link in the chain of circumstantial evidence it is seeking to forge about Leo M. Frank by calling W. W. (Boots) Rogers to the stand Wednesday.

Rogers is the former county officer in whose automobile the policemen went to the National Pencil Factory Sunday morning after Newt Lee, factory nightwatchman, had called up the police station.

Rogers was on the stand two hours, but in this time he failed to give any material evidence that had not already been presented to the Coroner’s Jury.

As in the testimony of Sergeant L. S. Dobbs, another of the persons who visited the factory the morning after the crime, it was the purpose of Solicitor Dorsey to emphasize the circumstances which he later proposes to construe as highly significant of Frank’s guilt.

Frank Laughs for First Time.

During the testimony of Rogers, Frank laughed heartily for the first time since the trial began—in fact, it was the first display of any emotion that the defendant has made.

Rogers was telling of his visit in the Frank residence at No. 68 East Georgia avenue when the incident occurred which aroused Frank’s laughter.

The ex-county officer said that Detective Black had suggested that a drink of whiskey would do Frank good. Rogers said that Mrs. Frank had said that her father, Mr. Selig, had suffered an attack of acute indigestion and that there was no whisky left in the house.

“He had had an attack of acute indigestion and drank up all the liquor,” repeated Attorney Rosser, humorously, “Well, I have those attacks occasionally myself.”

Defense Hints Attack Theory.

Miss Grace Hicks, of No. 100 McDonough road, followed Rogers on the stand and Solicitor Dorsey, after having her tell of identifying Mary Phagan the morning after the murder, started at once on a line of questioning that indicated his theory that Mary Phagan was first attacked in or near the women’s toilet on the second floor of the factory.

Attorney Rosser, on cross-examination, brought out that Frank seldom spoke to the girls and that she did not know that he was familiar with them.

The most important points in the testimony of “Boots” Rogers in the re-direct examination were:

That he heard Detective Starnes make no mention of what had happened at the factory when Starnes called Frank Sunday morning.

That Frank, although the interval between calling him and the arrival of Rogers’ car at Frank’s home was only five or six minutes, was dressed for the street, except for collar, tie, coat and hat.

Says Frank Was Nervous.

That Frank’s shirt had the appearance of being freshly laundered.

That Frank appeared nervous and asked of Detective John Black if anything had happened at the factory, and if the nightwatchman had reported anything to the police.

That Frank’s words were jumpy; that he continuously was rubbing his hands, and that he moved about nervously.

That t[h]e defendant, when he was taken to the undertaking room, avoided going into the room, where the Phagan girl’s body lay, and that he never looked into the face of the girl whom the State charges was his victim.

That Frank still was nervous when taken to the factory. That he witnessed Frank take the tape from the time clock and heard him remark that the punches were correct. That he (Rogers), while Frank was in the office after a blank tape, examined the tape taken from the clock and saw that none of the punches had been missed.

Mincey, the star witness for the defense, was not in the witness room Wednesday, nor was he there Tuesday. The prosecution openly stated it did not expect Mincey to be introduced as a witness. Attorney Arnold would not discuss Mincey’s absence, but declared that he would be on hand at the proper time.

Factory Diagram Changed.

Court opened Wednesday with a discussion of the admissibility of the diagram of the pencil factory drawn by Bert Green, a Georgian staff artist. The key to the diagram and all objectionable wording had been removed.

Attorney Arnold still objected to the lines which he claimed outlined the theory of the prosecution.

“You don’t have to label a horse to see it as a horse,” he said.

Solicitor Dorsey cited legal authority which he claimed entitled him to present the diagram as evidence. Attorney Arnold said:

“Those dotted lines have nothing to do with the building proper at all. It undertakes to show something that the building itself wouldn’t show.”

Revised Chart Admitted.

When Solicitor Dorsey started to continued his argument Judge Roan interrupted and said:

“Do you mean for the dotted lines to show the theory of the prosecution?”

“Yes,” answered Dorsey.

“But,” continued the judge, “it is with the jury as to whether you prove this to be the correct theory or not.”

“Yes,” said Dorsey.

“On those grounds then I admit it as evidence,” said Judge Roan.

W. W. Rogers, the county policeman, who was one of the first to visit the scene of the crime, was the first witness of the day called.

Rogers on the Stand.

The jury was brought in after the picture was admitted.

The men filed into their seats, showing for the first time some signs of the long hours of confinement.

“Call W. W. Rogers to the stand,” said Solicitor Dorsey, announcing his first witness.

The young man, who took the police to the scene of the crime early that Sunday morning was sworn.

Q. Where were you Saturday night, April 26?—At the station house.

Q. Where were you at [several words illegible] […]

FRANK LAUGHS FOR FIRST TIME DURING TRIAL WHEN HOME INCIDENT IS TOLD

[…] o’clock Sunday morning?—A. I was still there.

Q. Where did you got from there?—A. I took the police to the pencil factory, where they had been called.

Q. What did you do then?—A. After a negro let us in I went down into the basement with the police and found the body.

Present as Starnes Phoned.

Q. Were you present when Detective Starnes called someone over the telephone?—A. Yes.

Q. What time was sit?—A. About 5 or 5:30 Sunday morning.

Q. Did you know who he called?—A. No.

Q. What did he say?—A. I don’t recall exactly, but in substance he was asking some one to come to the factory. I heard him say, “If you will come I will send an automobile for you.” He turned to me and asked me if I would go to Mr. Frank’s home and get him. He gave us the address and Detective Black went with me. Detective Black went to the door. I won’t be sure whether he knocked or rang the bell. Mrs. Frank answered the door. She had on a heavy blue bathrobe. We asked if Frank was there, and he came through the curtain into the reception hall.

Q. Was he dressed for the street?—A. Yes, with the exception of collar and coat.

Q. Can you tell exactly what he had on?—A. A pair of shoes, blue trousers, white pleated shirt and suspenders.

Neither Answered Frank.

Q. What was said?—A. When Frank came in he went directly to Black. He asked him, ‘Has anything happened at the factory?’ Black did not answer him, and, turning to me, he asked the same question. I did not answer.

Q. What else did he say?—A. He asked, “Did the nightwatchman telephone you anything had happened at the factory?”

Q. What else?—A. Black did not answer him then, but told him he had better come to the factory.

Q. What did Starnes say to Frank over the phone besides what you have already told?

“I object,” said Attorney Rosser, “on the ground that it is essentially a leading question.”

“You will have to put the question differently,” said Judge Roan to Mr. Dorsey.

Tells of Phone Talk.

Q. Detail, now, that Mr. Starnes said first.—A. Mr. Starnes was talking to someone over the telephone. I won’t be sure whether he told him who it was or not. He asked this party he was talking to to come to the factory. He said if he would, he would send an automobile for him. With that he turned to me and asked me to go to Frank’s house and get him.

Q. Did you hear anyone else call from the factory?—A. Soon after we reached the pencil factory, about 3:30 o’clock, I was up in the office with Policeman Anderson and Newt Lee. Anderson was trying to get someone over the phone. I don’t know who it was.

Q. What else happened at Frank’s home?—A. I think he asked his wife for his collar and coat.

Q. Was that all?—A. All I remember.

“Your honor,” said Mr. Dorsey, “he has clearly overlooked something. Can I direct his attention to it?”

Frank Recalled a Dream.

“How do you know it?” interrupted Rosser.

“I have his testimony before the Coroner’s jury and I have talked to him,” said Dorsey.

“Oh, Lord,” growled Rosser as he sat down.

Q. What was said about a dream?—A. Mr. Frank said something about dreaming or hearing the telephone during the night.

Q. Was anything said about whisky?—A. Yes; Mr. Frank said he had not had breakfast. He thought he would like to have a cup of coffee. Detective Black said a drink of whisky might do him some good. Mrs. Frank answered that Mrs. Selig had been ill with acute indigestion and had used all of the whisky in the house.

Q. How was Frank’s voice that morning?—A. He was nervous.

Q. What about his voice? Was it fine?—A. Yes, it was fine; somewhat like a woman’s. He asked questions rather abrupt, right off the reel. His questions were jumpy.

Appeared Very Nervous.

Q. What was his appearance when you first saw him?—A. He was rubbing his hands and was extremely nervous.

Q. Was his hair combed or tousled?—A. It was combed.

Q. What was the conversation on the way to the factory?—A. Black or myself—I don’t remember which—asked him if he knew a little girl named Mary Phagan. He asked if she worked at the pencil factory and we told him we thought she did. He said he would have to look on his pay roll to see if she did; that he didn’t know many of the girls there and that he never went out into the factory among them much. We suggested that we had better go by the undertaking establishment and let him see the body.

Q. Describe how you found the body?—A. The room was dark. Undertaker Gheesling went back of the body and turned on the light. The head of the dead girl was toward the wall. Ghe[e]sling took her face in his hands and turned it toward us. Mr. Frank had been behind me as we entered the room, but when Ghe[e]sling turned the girl’s face to me I looked around and Frank was going out of the room.

Didn’t See Her Face.

Q. How long did he have to see the face?—A. He didn’t have any time for when her face was turned to the light he had stepped outside the room.

Q. Did you ask him any questions?—A. Mr. Black asked him if he recognized the body. He said if her name was Mary Phagan he could tell whether she worked at the factory by looking over his pay roll.

Q. What was his attitude at the undertaker’s establishment?—A. He still appeared nervous.

Q. How?—A. Well, he stepped lively and moved quickly.

Frank sat passive during these questions, his expressions an enigma. His wife and mother on each side of him appeared weary.

Frank Looked at Books.

Q. What did Frank do when they got to the factory?—A. Frank went to the office and unlocked the safe. He got a book and ran his hand down a column and said: “Yes, Mary Phagan worked here; if I am not mistaken she was here Saturday and drew her pay.” He said it was some time a little after 12 o’clock. He asked us if we didn’t find a pay envelope near her body. We told him no.

Q. What was the time exactly, according to Frank?—A. He just said it was something a little after 12.

Q. What was his manner?—A. He was nervous and quick.

Q. What was done about running the elevator?—A. I don’t remember exactly who said it, but some one suggested that we see where the girl was murdered. Frank went out to the switchbox and opened it, and after he had turned on a few things the machinery began to run.

Tried to Start Elevator.

Q. Did anyone ask him about the switch box not being locked?—A. He said the insurance company had him stop locking it, saying it was against the law.

Q. Did Frank run the elevator?—A. He pulled the rope to start it, but it would not move. He called Darley and the elevator was started after some delay.

Q. Did anyone comment on the murder?—A. I think Mr. Frank said Darley had worked Newt Lee and that if anyone could get anything out of him it was Darley.

Q. What else happened?—A. Frank said: “We had better nail the back door, Darley.”

Q. What was done?—A. Frank and Darley went to nail the back door.

Q. What did you do then?—A. Frank said: “I guess we had better put in a new tape, Darley.” He then took the tape out of the box and remarked, “They are all punched all right.”

Frank Brought New Slip.

Q. Where was Newt Lee?—A. Lee was right behind me, handcuffed.

Q. Where was Darley?—A. He was right there.

Q. What happened next?—A. Mr. Frank went to his office, brought out a new slip. He took out the old slip and wrote on it April 26, 1913.

Q. What did he do with it?—A. He folded it once and went into his office.

Q. Did you see that slip?—A. Yes, I glanced at it. The first punch was 6:01 and the second at 6:32. There did not appear to be any skip in it.

Q. Did you hear Frank say anything about something to eat?—A. Yes, several times he said he wanted to get a cup of coffee.

Attorney Rosser objected.

Didn’t Notice His Eyes.

“Maybe several wanted a drink—I expect they did,” he said.

Solicitor Dorsey continued.

Q. Did you notice Frank’s eyes during the stay in the factory?—A. No.

Q. How long did you and Frank remain in the factory?—A. I should say something more than an hour.

Q. Where did you go?—A. In the automobile with Lee, Darley, Black and Frank to the police station.

Q. Was anybody under arrest?—A. Lee.

Q. Was Frank?—A. I didn’t consider him so.

Q. What happened at the station?—A. They took Frank up to Chief Lanford’s office.

Q. Did you see Frank do any writing?—A. I saw Newt Lee write, but not Frank.

Dorsey again wanted to refresh Rogers’ memory about his testimony before the Coroner’s jury. Rosser again objected. Judge Roan declared the witness could not be led.

Q. Did you see the officers do anything with Frank and Lee at the station?—A. I saw them take Mr. Frank and Lee up the stairs.

Q. Did you see Frank with a pencil?—A. I can’t say that I did or did not. I was around there so much and saw so much.

Q. What was Frank’s attitude at the station?—A. He appeared nervous, as he had all the morning.

Q. Did you or not have occasion to observe Frank’s hand at the police station?—A. No, sir, I did not.

Rosser Takes Witness.

Mr. Rosser then took up the cross-examination.

Q. You never saw Frank before that morning.—A. No.

Q. You don’t know whether what you considered his nervousness was natural to him or not?—A. No.

Q. How long after you had knocked at Frank’s door was it before Frank came?—A. About a minute or two.

Q. You went to the factory with the police?—A. Yes.

Q. You had some trouble in finding whether the child was black or white?—A. Yes.

Q. Didn’t someone have to pull down her stocking and look at the flesh before they could tell her color?—A. Yes, I believe so.

Tells of Victim’s Face.

Q. Was there dirt on her face?—A. Yes, and some in her eyes.

Q. How long were you at Frank’s home?—A. About fifteen minutes.

Q. It took that long for the things you have told us to happen?—A. Yes.

Q. Are you sure of it?—A. Pretty sure.

Q. You don’t know what time it was when you went to the undertaker’s? You don’t know whether it was 7 o’clock or not, do you?—A. I can’t be sure of that. I am trying to refresh my memory as best I can.

Q. Did you swear to that conversation with Frank about the pay envelope at the Coroner’s inquest?—A. Yes. I told something about it.

Q. Are you as sure of that as the other things you have sworn to this morning?—A. I am sure I said something about it.

Visit to Frank’s Home.

Q. Was anything said about a little drink doing you all good?—A. Yes. When we were at Frank’s home Black said something about a drink. Mrs. Frank called to Mrs. Selig and she said there was no whisky in the house; that Mr. Selig had an attack of indigestion the night before and used it all.

Q. When you were at the undertaker’s, how did you get to the chapel—A. We went down a long corridor.

Q. Did you know that Ghe[e]sling, standing in front of the corpse, saw Frank looking at it?—A. No.

Q. Then you won’t say that Frank didn’t see the young girl’s face?—A. I do say that it would have been impossible for anyone to see her face when it was turned to the wall, and I can swear that no one but Mr. Ghe[e]sling and I went up to the corpse.

Might Have Seen Body.

Q. Wasn’t it possible that Frank saw the body and the face at the same time you did and turned his head at the same time you did?—A. Yes, I suppose so.

Q. Did Frank have any trouble unlocking the safe at the office? Did he work the combination the first time?—A. Yes, without any trouble.

Q. Mr. Frank tried the elevator and couldn’t?—A. Yes.

Q. He called Mr. Darley?—A. Yes.

Q. Did it run smoothly when it started?—A. Yes.

Q. Did it stop with a jerk when it reached the bottom?—A. No; it just stopped.

No Stains in Sawdust.

Q. Was there blood on the sawdust where you found the body?—A. No; we couldn’t find any.

Q. Was there blood anywhere?—A. Yes; some on her underskirt.

Q. Was there blood on her head?—A. Yes, there was some dry blood matted in the hair.

Q. Was there blood running anywhere on the body?—A. I don’t remember any.

Q. Who turned her over?—A. Sergeant Dobbs, I believe.

Q. Were you there when they found the shoe?—A. No.

Q. Were the shoe and hat found that morning?—A. They were not before I left to get Grace Hicks to identify the body.

Went to Station With Party.

Q. How did it happen that Frank went with you to the police station? Did he volunteer to go?—A. I don’t know exactly. He went along with the party without any hesitancy.

The question was interrupted by a whispered conference between Rosser and Arnold; then Rosser continued.

Q. When Mrs. Frank was telephoning to Darley; how far were you from the telephone?—A. About 6 feet.

The re-direct examination was begun by Dorsey:

Q. Could you tell by a glance at the hair whether the girl was white or not?—A. Yes, you couldn’t tell by the face, but it was evident it was the hair of a white girl.

Couldn’t Have Seen Face.

Q. Did you say Frank did or did not see that girl’s face in the undertaking establishment?

“I object,” said Rosser.

“You can ask only what opportunities he had to see the face,” answered Judge Roan.

A. He couldn’t see it because her body was not lying so that he could.

Rosser said: “Mr. Rogers, didn’t you tell me that you didn’t know where Mr. Frank was when you looking at the girl’s face?”—A. Yes; but he couldn’t have seen it, unless he was standing near me, and he wasn’t standing near me.

Dorsey asked: “Did Frank ever go into the room in which the body was?”—A. To the best of my knowledge he did not. He went in the direction of the toilet, or a room which I took to be a toilet.

Grace Hicks on Stand.

Rogers was then excused, and Miss Grace Hicks went on the stand. She was questioned by Dorsey.

Q. Did you know Mary Phagan?

At this point members of the jury asked for water and while it was being secured for them, Frank leaned over and held a whispered conversation with Rosser.

The question was repeated.

A. Mighty near a year.

Q. Where did you know her?—A. At the National Pencil Factory.

Q. Did you identify her body the morning after the crime?—A. Yes.

Knew Her By Hair.

Q. How did you know her?—A. By looking at her.

[several words illegible] [s]poke in a very soft voice. She appeared about 16 years of age. She wore a white dress with light blue ribbons around her neck and elbow sleeves.

Q. How was she when you saw her?—A. She was covered except her head.

Q. How did you know her?—A. By her hair. It was so long and pretty.

Q. Where did you work?—A. In the metal room.

Q. What did you do first when you went to the factory each day?—A. Punched the clock.

At Factory Every Day.

Q. How often was Mary at the factory?—A. Nearly every day.

Q. Where was Mary’s work place?—A. Right next to the dressing room.

Q. Did you see where the blood was?—A. Yes.

Q. A person going from the office back to the rear of the second floor would have had to pass the dressing room, the place near where Mary Phagan worked, wouldn’t they?—A. Yes.

Q. Did Frank pass there every day?—A. Almost every day. He would come back two or three times a day to see how the work was going on.

Q. When was Mary at the factory last to work?—A. The Monday before April 26.

Saturday Regular Pay Day.

Q. Why didn’t she work that week?—A. The metal had given out.

Q. Where was the metal kept?—A. In a little closet under the stairway.

Q. When was the regular pay day?—A. Saturday at 12.

Q. Was anyone paid off Saturday, April 26?—A. Most of them were paid on the Friday night before, as Saturday was a holiday.

Dorsey then had the witness point out the machinery where Mary Phagan worked on the second floor, as shown on the Bert Green diagram. Then Rosser took the witness on cross-examination.

[This section added from the Home edition of Atlanta Georgian]

Never Spoke to the Girls.

Q. You worked there a year?—A. I worked there five years. Mary worked there a year.

Q. In those five years how many times did you speak to Mr. Frank?—A. Three times.

Q. How many times did you see him speak to Mary Phagan?—A. None.

Q. Did he ever speak to the girls when he came through the metal room?—A. No.

Q. What did he say to you the time he spoke to you?—A. He was passing through the room one day with a visitor. I was leaning my head on my hand. He said: “You can run this machine asleep, can’t you?” The other times he spoke to me on the street.

Q. Did he know your name?—A. I don’t know; he knew my face.

Combed Hair at Machines.

Q. Miss Grace, there was a place up there where you combed your hair, wasn’t there?—A. Yes.

Q. Where was it?—A. Sometimes we combed our hair at the machines.

Q. What color was Mary Phagan’s hair?—A. It was sandy, darker than mine.

Q. How far from the machine where you saw and combed your hair, was the lathe where the strands of hair were found?—A. About 15 feet.

Q. Was there another girl who sat near Mary who had hair like her’s?—A. Yes, Magnolia sat on one side of her and I sat on the other. Magnolia’s hair was sandy, too.

Q. You went on Friday to get your pay with the other girls, didn’t you?—A. Yes, sir.

Frank Not Paying Workers.

Q. Who was paying off, Mr. Frank?—A. No, I don’t remember who. It wasn’t Mr. Frank, though.

Q. Whom did you see there?—A. Magnolia Kennedy and Helen Ferguson.

Q. Who were the other girls in your department?—A. None other but Mary.

Q. What did you do in that department?—A. Cut metal tips.

Q. What time did they pay off on Friday?—A. About 6 or 7 o’clock, a little later than usual.

Q. Wasn’t there placards in the factory stating that Saturday would be a holiday?—A. I didn’t see any. I didn’t know there was to be a holiday until Mr. Quinn told me.

Solicitor Dorsey then took up the redirect examination.

Q. If there had been any cards stating there was to be a holiday you would have seen them, wouldn’t you?—A. Yes, I think I would.

Q. When did you know there was to be a holiday?—A. When Mr. Quinn informed me Friday.

Q. Do you still work at the pencil factory?—A. Yes.

Q. Do you still work at the pencil factory?—A. Yes.

Q. How do you know that a man sitting at Frank’s desk could not see a person registering?—A. I don’t know.

Q. You say there was paint around the machine?—A. There was paint in the polishing room.

Q. How far is it from the end of the dressing room where they say blood was found to the polishing room?—A. Four or five feet.

Q. How far back in the room do they keep the paint?—A. On all the machines.

Saw No Red Paint on Floor.

Q. Did you ever see any on Mary’s machine?—A. No.

Q. Was the paintroom off and separate?—A. Yes.

Q. Did they keep paint out where Mary’s machine and dressing room were?—A. No.

Q. Did you ever see any outside?—A. Sometimes drops on the floor where the women come out to get water.

Q. Was it easy to tell whether it was paint or blood?—A. I never saw any red paint on the floor.

Here Attorney Rosser took up the recross-examination.

Q. They did have red paint in there, and they could have dropped it?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. It was hard to tell what color it was, after it hit the floor, wasn’t it?—A. The floor was awful dirty.

Detective Black Called.

Detective John R. Black followed Miss Hix to the stand. Solicitor Dorsey questioned him.

Q. Where were you working before you went with the police department?—A. Atlanta Brewing and Ice Company.

Q. Who owned the stock of that company?—A. McCandless—

Here Attorney Rosser jumped to his feet.

“I object,” he exclaimed, “That can have no bearing on this case.”

“I agree with you,” ruled Judge Roan.

Q. When did you first see Newt Lee, the day the crime was reported?—A. About 5 or 5:30 o’clock in the morning.

Tells of Visit to Frank Home.

Q. Did anyone call Mr. Frank?—A. Mr. Starnes called Frank and asked him if he would come to the pencil factory.

Q. Was that all?—A. All that I can recall.

Q. Describe what happened when you went to Frank’s house.—A. I went to the door and rang the bell. Mrs. Frank came to the door and asked what we wanted. I told her I was detective from the police station and wanted to see Mr. Frank. Almost at once he stepped from behind some curtains. He asked almost immediately if anything had happened at the factory.

Knew Frank Previously.

Q. Did you know Frank before you went to the factory?—A. Yes, I saw him about two years ago and again about eighteen months ago.

Q. Then you knew him?—A. Yes.

Q. Did you know him or recognize him, when you saw him that Sunday morning?—A. No.

Q. Was Frank nervous or excited when you saw him two years ago?—A. No.

Here Attorney Rosser objected to the testimony being given along this line. Attorney Arnold also arose to his feet and said:

“No police officer can give an opinion as to how a man looks!”

Judge Roan said:

“Now, Mr. Black, state the facts and give your reasons.”

Says Frank Was Nervous.

Q. When you saw Frank the morning of April 27, did he seem nervous?—A. Yes.

Q. Why?—A. Because he had some considerable trouble putting on a collar. It seemed that he couldn’t tie his necktie, and he kept asking fast questions. He asked real quick: “Has anything happened at the pencil factory?” And before I could answer, he asked: “Did the night watchman report it?”

Q. Did he express any anxiety to go to the pencil factory?

Rosser objected with: “That is merely a conclusion, your honor.”

Frank Without Breakfast.

“Let him state exactly what happened, and the jury can draw their conclusions,” said Judge Roan.

Q. Did he ask for anything before leaving home?—A. He kept saying he had had no breakfast and would like to get some before he left.

Q. Did he mention anything else about breakfast?—A. Yes, he told Chief Lanford at the factory that he had had no breakfast.

Q. Tell everything he said in the automobile about the murder?—A. I asked him if he knew a girl named Mary Phagan, who had been found dead there. He said no, but he could tell from the records.

Q. What happened at the undertakers?—A. We went in and the man pulled the cover back. Frank looked at her for a second.

Stopped Behind Curtain.

Q. Are you sure he saw her face?—A. No, but I think so.

Q. Where did Rogers go when Ghe[e]sling turned the girl’s face?—A. I don’t know.

Q. Where did Frank go?—A. He stepped aside. There was a curtain hanging there and he stepped behind it.

Q. What did Frank do after he stepped behind the curtain?—A. I don’t know.

Q. Did he get a better view of the body from there?—A. He didn’t get any view at all.

Q. Did Frank ever go into the room where the body was?—A. He passed by it when we first entered the establishment.

Q. With that exception, did he ever go into the room?—A. Not to my knowledge.

Q. How long after he went behind the curtain did you see him?—A. In a few minutes we went out to the automobile.

Q. Was he going toward the body or away from it?—A. Away from it.

Q. State whether or not Frank said anything—

Not Sure of Girl’s Identity.

Here Attorney Rosser objected:

“Your honor, my friend evidently learned under a pastmaster the art of asking leading questions,” said Rosser.

“I want a ruling on this question,” returned Dorsey, “It is not leading.”

Judge Roan overruled the objection.

“Well, your honor sustains me and overrules Mr. Rosser,” said Dorsey, “The witness will answer the question.”

A. Frank said he was not sure he could identify her, but thought from her clothes she was the girl he had paid off Saturday. He said he could tell by looking at his pay roll.

At 12:30 o’clock court adjourned until 2 o’clock.

Attracted by the report that the State intended to introduce its most important witnesses during the day, a larger crowd than that which clamored for admission on the first two days of the trial besieged the courthouse Wednesday morning as the time for the resumption of the Frank trial approached.

[This section is from an Extra of the Atlanta Georgian]

Wife Cheers Frank.

For several minutes before Judge Roan called the court to order for the afternoon session Mrs. Frank sat with her arm around her husband’s shoulder, laughing and carrying on a happy conversation. Frank was visibly cheered by her.

Detective Black, who was on the stand at the noon adjournment, was recalled to the stand. Solicitor Dorsey delayed the questioning several minutes, waiting for Attorney Arnold to arrive. Then he proceeded.

Q. What examination of the clock did Frank make before he said it was punched correctly?—A. He took out the tape and examined it. He said the punches were right until 2:30.

Q. When did Frank first say the clock was not punched correctly?—A. He told me Tuesday.

Gave Slip to Lanford.

Q. Did he have the slip?—A. Yes, he had given it to Chief Lanford Monday.

Q. What did he do with the slip he took out Sunday morning?—A. He took it into his office.

Q. Do you know whether this is the slip he took from the clock?—A. No.

Q. When did you first hear that Frank had said there were three misses?—A. I don’t recall.

Q. At that time, who was being held.—A. Newt Lee.

Q. Frank had not been arrested?—A. No.

Q. What skips did Frank say Newt Lee had made?—A. I think it was from 10 until 11:30—I can’t recall exactly.

Attorneys Clash Again.

Q. How long after he was arrested did he employ counsel?

Attorney Arnold here objected.

“This witness does not know who employed counsel or whether they ever employed counsel, and besides he would have been in a mighty bad fix if he hadn’t,” declared Attorney Arnold. “It is also immaterial and irrelevant. What do you say, Mr. Dorsey?”

Dorsey replied:

“I want to show that this man employed counsel before he was arrested or even a su[s]pect, and I want to show it as one of the circumstances that led to this prosecution.”

Judge Overrules Objection.

Judge Roan overruled the objection, saying that in his opinion the Solicitor’s reason was material.

Q. State when Frank first had counsel.—A. About 8:30 o’clock Monday morning. Mr. Rosser came into police headquarters.

Q. What happened at Frank’s house before he went to police headquarters?—A. Mr. Hazlett went to Frank’s house and told him we wanted him to go to police station with us to discuss the case. It was about 7:30 o’clock.

Q. What time did you go to the police station?—A. We got to the station some time after 8 o’clock and soon Mr. Rosser and Mr. Herbert Haas came down.

Q. What did Mr. Haas have to say?—A. He wanted officers to go out and search Frank’s house.

Q. Had Frank been arrested?—A. No.

Q. What time did this take pla[c]e?—A. A little after 11 o’clock.

Q. Who did Rosser confer with when he went down at 8:30 o’clock on that Monday?—A. He conferred with Mr. Frank.

Q. Do you know anything about a conference between Newt Lee and Frank Tuesday night?—A. Yes, I suggested to Mr. Frank that he have a talk with Lee. They were alone in a room about ten minutes.

Q. Did you hear what they said?—A. No.

Q. What did Frank say about the conference?—A. Mr. Frank said Lee stuck to his story that he didn’t know anything about the crime.

Frank Seemed to Suspect Gannt.

Q. Did he say he tried to get anything out of Lee?—A. He said that Lee was the only one there and ought to know something about it.

Q. Did he say he suspected Lee?—A. He seemed to su[s]pect Gantt. He said he had discharged Gannt and had seen him at the pencil factory about 6 o’clock Saturday afternoon.

Q. Was Gantt arrested?—A. Yes.

Q. Was it after this conversation?—A. No, before.

Q. When did Frank first mention Gantt?—A. Sunday morning.

Q. Was that before Gantt’s arrest?—A. Yes.

Q. Were other suspects arrested?—A. Jim Conley.

Q. After you and Hazlett arrested Frank did you talk to him?—A. Yes.

Answer is Ruled Out.

Q. What was his appearance?—A. He was nervous, just as any man would be who was arrested.

“Your honor,” said Dorsey, “I move that that be ruled out as a gratuitous opinion. The jury is just as capable of judging whether he acted as any man would have acted or not.”

Attorney Rosser objected.

Judge Roan first said he would not strike the statement, but finally on the statement of Dorsey that he would withdraw the question, he said he would rule out the answer.

“I will put the question in a different way,” said Dorsey, “I will knock it down and set it up again.”

Q. What did Frank do Tuesday to make you think he was nervous?—A. He had nothing to say. He wouldn’t answer questions, while before that he appeared affable and in a good humor.

Here Mr. Rosser took up the cross-examination.

Q. You know that when Mr. Frank was at the station house on Monday he would not leave without consent?—A. No, I came down to the station house with Mr. Frank and I had not arrested him.

Q. Didn’t you swear he was released when he was allowed to leave the station?—A. Yes, but I retract that.

Q. A word put in just as a joke, just swore to a lie?

Black remained silent.

Q. Don’t you know, Brother Black, that I didn’t reach the station house until between 10 and 11 o’clock?—A. No, I think you came there between 8 and 8:30 o’clock.

Q. Didn’t you swear that I came there between 8 and 8:30 o’clock?—A. No. I swore that I got there between 8 and 8:30 o’clock and I thought you did.

Q. Don’t you remember that I came up and had to be introduced to Mr. Frank—that I didn’t know him?—A. No, I didn’t know that you didn’t know him.

Q. Don’t you remember that he told me he wanted a statement and I told him to give it without having a conference with him?—A. Yes.

Rosser Exerts Himself.

Q. Didn’t Chief Lanford order him into his office in the same tone he would talk to a negro?—A. No, I didn’t hear Chief Lanford talk in such a way. You wouldn’t let him go in without being with him.

Q. Didn’t I say I didn’t want him to give a statement without a third party being present so that it could not be stated he said something he didn’t say?—A. You wanted to be there when he made any statement.

Mr. Rosser was particularly vigorous in his tone of questioning. It was evident he was exerting himself more now than at any time since the trial began.

“Now,” he remarked aside, “we’ll go back and take up the story.”

Detective Fails to Remember.

Q. You or Lanford, one, told me that you didn’t want me in there?—A. I don’t remember.

Q. I told you that I was going in to hear what he said for fear you would say he said something he didn’t say?—A. I don’t recall it.

Q. When you released him he was not arrested until 11 o’clock, was he?—A. Yes.

Q. You were at the coroner’s inquest?—A. Yes.

Q. Frank answered all the questions freely?—A. Yes.

Q. You think you had one conversation with Mr. Frank before that Sunday morning?—A. Yes.

Q. Do you recall who was with you?—A. No, I don’t.

[This section is from the evening edition of Atlanta Georgian.]

Attracted by the report that the State intended to introduce its most important witnesses during the day, a larger crowd than that which clamored for admission on the first two days of the trial besieged the courthouse Wednesday morning as the time for the resumption of the Frank trial approached.

That sensation is to be sprung by the defense by the production of the mysteriously missing ribbon and flowers from the hat of the murdered girl was repeatedly indicated by Attorney Rosser’s line of questioning Tuesday and the afternoon before.

Beginning with Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan, the attorney for Frank interrogated every witness who saw the girl alive or dead that day in regard to the ribbon and flowers.

Mrs. Coleman said that the ribbon and flowers were on the hat when Mary left home. Newt Lee said that he had seen no sign of the missing trimmings. The testimony of Sergeant L. S. Dobbs was the same. Detective Starnes, when he was turned over for the cross-examination, made the same admission.

It is believed that Rosser will produce the ribbon and will attempt to establish that it was found in a place throwing suspicion upon the negro Conley.

Frank was brought to the courthouse at about 8 o’clock Wednesday morning. There was no change in his demeanor or physical appearance. If the trial has been any strain upon him he does not display the effects. He was dressed in the dark mohair suit he wore Tuesday. He greeted his friends cheerily and spoke confidently of acquittal.

The jurors, sleeping in three rooms at the Kimball House, spent a restless night. They appeared rather fagged when they were brought into the courtroom at 9 o’clock.

First Witnesses Unimportant.

Attorneys for the State have announced that the witnesses called Monday and Tuesday were only for the purpose of starting the presentation of evidence against Leo Frank right from the opening incidents of the day that the murder was committed, and that they were important only in so far as they assisted in making a continuous chain of evidence, and as they made here and there statements which might be interpreted as damaging to the accused.

Working on the foundation laid by Tuesday’s testimony, Solicitor Dorsey was understood to be prepared Wednesday and Thursday to introduce witnesses who would swear that the red stains found in two places on the second floor were splotches of blood and not aniline or any other coloring stain; also that the bloody fingerprints on the rear door of the basement were the finger-prints of Leo M. Frank.

City Detective J. N. Starnes just before he left the stand Tuesday night identified pieces of wood as pieces he had chipped from the rear door of the factory. There were finger-prints easily distinguishable upon them. A finger-print expert was in the employ of Solicitor Dorsey for some time during the investigation of the murder mystery and was named among the State’s witnesses.

The red-stained chips from the factory floor were sent to Dr. Claude E. Smith, city bacteriologist, for analysis. Dr. Smith also is one of the State’s witnesses and was expected to be called Wednesday or during Thursday forenoon session.

Writing Pad Evidence?

It was understood when the trial opened Wednesday morning that Detective Starnes would be recalled to the stand by the Solicitor to tell of finding on a shelf just outside Frank’s office writing pads of paper similar to that on which the notes found by Mary Phagan’s body were written.

If the Solicitor did not alter his plans meantime, J. M. Gantt, discharged factory employee, was to be the next witness on the stand. Gantt told at the Coroner’s inquest that Frank appeared nervous and apprehensive when he (Gantt) went to the factory at 6 o’clock Saturday night to get some shoes he had left in the building.

Starnes was on the stand practically all of Tuesday afternoon. While the direct examination was in progress the detective told of his part in scouring the pencil factory for evidence.

One of his statements on which the State is relying to establish that Frank acted and talked in an incriminating manner the morning the body was found consisted in his testimony in regard to a telephone conversation which he said he had with the factory superintendent that morning.

Starnes, under the examination of Dorsey, said that he had been very guarded when he called up Frank that morning and had merely said that he desired Frank’s presence at the factory. He denied that he had mentioned the fact that a girl had been killed.

Claim Frank Knew.

It is the purpose of the State to seek to establish that Frank, without being told of what had happened, had made remarks to the officers when they came for him which indicated he was not unaware that a girl had been murdered in his factory.

The main points of Starnes’ testimony were:

That he had discovered stains resembling blood in two places on the second floor of the factory.

That Frank made a strange remark to Foreman M. B. Darley that he “had more than one suit of clothes,” referring to the fact that he had on a different suit than the one he wore the day before.

That Lee appeared composed when questioned Sunday by the detectives.

That he witnessed the new night watchman in the pencil factory make a complete punch of the time clock covering a period of twelve hours in five minutes.

Under Rosser’s cross-examination Starnes admitted that it was practically impossible for him to remember that exact words he used in certain parts of his testimony at the Coroner’s inquest. This admission was obtained by Rosser to show that Starnes’ memory in respect to the telephone conversation with Frank could not be regarded as any more reliable. Rosser brought out that Starnes failed to mention at the Coroner’s inquest either the matter of the telephone conversation or of the alleged conversation he held with Frank the morning of the murder.

Starnes also admitted that the finger-print chips which were shown him by Solicitor Dorsey might not be the same chips he had taken from the rear door of the basement, as the chips had been out of his possession part of the time during the investigation.

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

The Atlanta Constitution

Sunday, July 20, 1913

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

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

By Britt Craig.

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

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

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

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

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

Finding the Body.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His “Watching” Perfunctory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Negro “Seed Something.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Headquarters” Suddenly Awakens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yep. What’s the trouble?”

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

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

“Killing up on Forsyth street!”

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

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

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

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

The Constitution reporter had reached for a telephone.

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

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

The reporter’s office went unnotified.

Hurry-Up Run to Factory.

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

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

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

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

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

Lee Glad to See Officers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sergeant Dobbs was the first [to] speak:

“And this in a civilized country!”

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

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

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

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

So they put the handcuffs on Newt, the discoverer.

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

“Third Degree” for Negro.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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