Chapter 27: Cobb Librarian Discusses the Lynching of Leo Frank: 2023 Final

Word Count: 7203 Words, Reading Time: 25 Minutes

Last Updated on July 28, 2024 by Mary Phagan

Cobb Librarian discusses the lynching of Leo Frank

 

 

 

 

 

Marietta Daily Journal,

August 19/20, 2023, by Joel Elliott

Amy Albers, Librarian at the Switzer Library's Georgia Room presented "Lynching of Leo Frank" at the 108-year anniversary of Leo Frank's lynching.  Approximately a hundred people attended including myself and my sister. I made a comment about the "new marker" being installed at Mary's grave and the reason why -original marker was removed to 'bamboozle" the public into believing Leo Frank was innocent of Mary's murder.

PowerPoint Presentation:  Amy Albers

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFhI6QaKEE/b5oLnwbQfo5ZFVPt3x4xgQ/edit?utm_content=DAFhI6QaKEE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

 

Comments by Mary Phagan-Kean regarding PowerPoint Presentation:

Amy Albers:

Sexual Assault:

The autopsy report done by Dr. Harris confirms that Mary Phagan was sexually assaulted. Some people insist Mary Phagan was not sexually assaulted.

Startling Statements Made During Testimony of Dr. Harris

Atlanta Constitution
August 2^nd, 1913

Making the startling declaration that Mary Phagan had been killed within thirty or forty-five minutes after she had eaten dinner, Dr. Roy F. Harris, state chemist, took the stand during the afternoon session yesterday.

It was Dr. Harris who made the autopsy upon the body when it was disinterred in Marietta on May 5. He brought with him into court specimens of predigested cabbage which had been removed from the slain girl’s stomach.

He also testified to the effect that the girl had suffered violence before death and recited the condition in which he had found blood vessels and tissues of the girl’s organs.

He was questioned first by Solicitor Dorsey.

“What is your occupation?”

“I am a physician.”

“How long have you been a physician?”

“Since 1889.”

“Give the jury a brief history of your career.”
“I was graduated in Atlanta in 1839 and in Philadelphia in 1890. I was professor of chemistry in the medical college at Philadelphia, and later became assistant professor of bacteriology in the Jefferson Medical college. I was professor in the Atlanta College of Medicine, and have been director of laboratory in the state board of health since the inauguration of the board.”

“Did you examine the body of Mary Phagan?”

“Yes. On May 5.”

“What did you discover, if anything?”

“Several discolorations. One was on the forehead, one on an arm and one on each of the left and right legs. A huge discoloration was on the right eye.”
“What did the discoloration of the right eye seem to have been inflicted by?”

“By a fist.”
“Was there another wound?”

“Yes. One on the head about an inch and a half in length. On removing the skull I found no break, but discovered signs of hemorrhage beneath—a hemorrhage which would have rendered the victim unconscious.”

Death Caused by Strangulation.

“What was the cause of death?”

“There was a ridge in the throat apparently made by a stout cord. It was very deep. Strangulation, beyond a doubt, was the cause.”
“Why do you say, doctor, that a fist caused the discoloration of the eye?”
“Because the discoloration was swollen and didn’t show any degree of contusion that an instrument or hard substance would have caused.”

“Do you think that this and the other injuries were made before death?”

“Unquestionably.”

“What did you find in her stomach upon its removal?”
“One hundred and sixty-six cubic centimeters of cabbage and biscuits.”
“Was this substance digested?”

“No.”
Here the witness took from his satchel a small vial containing fluid preservative, in which floated a small amount of cabbage.

“This,” he said, “is some of what I removed from the stomach.”

“How long was this substance in her stomach before death?”
“She was either killed or received the blow upon the head thirty or forty-five minutes after her last meal.”

Evidences of Violence.

Dr. Harris then testified that in examining the organs of the girl’s body he had discovered evidences of violence.

“How long does it take a corpse to begin rigor-mortis?”

“It varies so much in different cases that it is impossible to determine.”

“Are you able to say how long it was before Mary Phagan died?”
“No. I can’t say.”

“How long did she live after eating her last meal?”

“Thirty or forty-five minutes.”
“How much blood did she lose?”

“That, I cannot say.”

It was upon this last answer that Dr. Harris suffered the collapse. He was assisted from the stand by Deputy Sheriff Plennie Miner before the defense was able to being its cross-examination.

 

Bitemarks:

Had Mary Phagan been bitten on the breasts? X-rays of her body had apparently shown teeth indentations on her neck and shoulder. Where were the X-ray records? Were the marks made by Leo Frank's teeth? Did Solicitor Dorsey have Mary's body exhumed a second time to check the marks against X-rays of Leo Frank's teeth?

*Jewish American scholars of the Leo Frank Case (Oney,[ And the Dead Shall Rise, 2003, pages 617-618] *Dinnerstein,[ The Leo Frank Case, 1991 Special , page 158] *Golden, [ A Little Girl is Dead, 1965, pages 53-54; 256-257] *Alphin,[ An Unspeakable Crime, 2010; pages 11, 46, 132] *Melnick, [ Black-Jewish Relations on Trial; Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, 2000; page 68], *Wilkes [Flagpole Magazine, May 5, 2004; page 7] and others) have cited  that Mary Phagan had bitemarks on her neck and shoulder and state that this as factual evidence and indicates Leo Frank is innocent and should be exonerated.

In 1913, Kodak produced the first prepackaged dental x-ray film. The packet of waxed waterproof paper contained two pieces of single-coated film. This film basically was still photographic film. In 1919, Kodak produce the first true dental x-ray film, designed for direct exposure by x-rays.

First Court case in Georgia when dental x-rays were used:

1985:  Henson

https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/court-of-appeals/1985/69545.html

Atlanta Journal, August 3, 1913

"Both physicians [Dr. Harris, Dr. Hurt] and the undertaker agree that there were no beastly and unspeakable mutilations about the dead girl’s body, such as street rumor and gossip originally attributed to the perpetrator of the crime."

Mary Phagan was embalmed by William Gheesling at P.J. Bloomfield's Mortuary on late morning of April 27, 1913 and Dr. Hurt completed a post-mortem.  Dr. Harris did an autopsy on May 5, 1913. None of these experts who examined the body of Mary Phagan ever reported bitemarks on her neck and shoulder, or anywhere on her body for that matter.

Mary Phagan was exhumed when a rumor that a girl that looked similar to her appeared to be on drugs, during the evening of the murder April 26, 1913.  No bitemarks were ever reported anywhere on her embalmed body, during further examinations, or after exhumation on the morning of May 5, 1913.

During the trial of Leo Frank, numerous physicians witnesses for both the State's prosecution and Defense team never mentioned bitemarks on Mary Phagan's neck and shoulder.  Newspaper reports from the Atlanta Journal, Atlanta Constitution, and the Atlanta Georgian from 1913-1915 never mentioned bitemarks or photos of the teeth marks on her body did not correspond with Leo Frank's set of teeth of which several photos were taken.  Governor John M. Slaton Commutation does not mention evidence of bitemarks on Mary Phagan's shoulder, neck or anywhere else on her body [Chapter 7] and states "The body was not mutilated:..."Nowhere in the testimony can it be found that Mary Phagan was bitten on her breast.

Where did these claims come from?  The report of such a bite surfaced many years later when in 1964, Pierre Van Passen*, who had studied the evidence and X-rays of the Frank case in 1922, reported that he found X-ray pictures showing the girl had been bitten on the left shoulder and neck before strangulation, and that, moreover, those indentations did not correspond to the X-rays of Leo Frank's teeth.

 *Pierre Van Passen published his book in 1964, To Number our Days.  where he recollects memories back to 1922 when he was living and working at the capital in Georgia for the Atlanta Constitution.  He claimed he found a file at the Fulton County Courthouse and found an envelope with a "sheaf of papers and number of x-ray photos showing teeth indentures."

To Number our Days

Pierre van Paassen, 1964; Pages 237-238

“The Jewish community of Atlanta at that time seemed to live under a cloud. Several years previously one of its members, Leo Frank, had been lynched as he was being transferred from the Fulton Tower Prison in Atlanta to Milledgeville for trial on a charge of having raped and murdered a little girl in his warehouse which stood right opposite the Constitution building. Many Jewish citizens who recalled the lynching were unanimous in assuring me that Frank was innocent of the crime. *Leo Frank was not lynched as he was being transferred from the Fulton Tower Prison in Atlanta to Milledgeville.  Slaton commutated his sentence on June 21, 1915 where he was moved to Milledgeville.  Leo Frank was in Milledgeville until he was lynched on August 17, 1915.

“I took to reading all the evidence pro and con in the record department at the courthouse. Before long I came upon an envelope containing a sheaf of papers and a number of X-ray photographs showing teeth indentures. The murdered girl had been bitten on the left shoulder and neck before being strangled. But the X-ray photos of the teeth marks on her body did not correspond with Leo Frank’s set of teeth of which several photos were included. If those photos had been published at the time of the murder, as they should have been, the lynching would probably not have taken place.

“Though, as I said, the man died several years before, it was not too late, I thought, to rehabilitate his memory and perhaps restore the good name of his family. I showed Clark Howell the evidence establishing Frank’s innocence and asked permission to run a series of articles dealing with the case and especially with the evidence just uncovered. Mr. Howell immediately concurred, * but the most prominent Jewish lawyer in the city, Mr. Harry Alexander, whom I consulted with a view to have him present the evidence to the grand jury, demurred. He said Frank had not even been tried. Hence no new trial could be requested. *Frank was arrested, tried and convicted of Mary Phagan’s murder on August 25, 1913. Moreover, the Jewish community in its entirety still felt nervous about the incident. If I wrote the articles old resentments might be stirred up and, who knows, some of the unknown lynchers might recognize themselves as participants in my description of the lynching. It was better, Mr. Alexander thought, to leave sleeping lions alone. Some local rabbis were drawn into the discussion and they actually pleaded with Clark Howell to stop me from reviving interest in the Frank case as this was bound to have evil repercussions on the Jewish community.

“That someone had blabbed out of school became quite evident when I received a printed warning saying: ‘Lay off the Frank case if you want to keep healthy.’ The unsigned warning was reinforced one night or, rather, early one morning when I was driving home. A large automobile drove up alongside of me and forced me into the track of a fast-moving streetcar coming from the opposite direction. My car was demolished, but I escaped without a scratch….”

 

Autopsy Report

Never Before Published Mary Phagan Autopsy Photo, Released 2013

The Battered Clothing of Mary Phagan, who was murdered at around noon on Saturday, April 26, 1913

 

1913. H. F. HARRIS, Sworn for the State, August, 1913.

I am a practicing Physician. I made an examination of the body of Mary Phagan on May 5th [1913].

[Skull and Head]

On removing the skull I found there was no actual break of the skull, but a little hemorrhage under the skull, corresponding to point where blow had been delivered, which shows that the blow was hard enough to have made the person unconscious. This wound on the head was not sufficient to have caused death.

[Strangulation]

I think beyond any question she came to her death from strangulation, from this cord being wound around her neck.

[Left Fist Punches the Victims Right Eye]

The bruise around the [right] eye was caused by a soft instrument, because it didn’t show the degree of contusion that would have been produced by a hard instrument. The outside cuticle of the skin wasn’t broken. The injury to the [right] eye and scalp were caused before death.

[Stomach]

I examined the contents of the stomach, finding 160 cubic centimeters of cabbage and biscuit, or wheaten bread. It had progressed very slightly towards digestion. It is impossible for one to say absolutely how long this cabbage had been in the stomach, but I feel confident that she was either killed or received the blow on the back of the head [From the solid iron handle of the bench lathe found in the metal room] within a half hour after she finished her meal [(According to Mrs. Coleman, 11:30 a.m. is when Mary Phagan ate her last meal)]. I have some cabbage here from two normal persons. Here was same meal taken of cabbage and wheaten bread by two men of normal stomach, and contents taken out within an hour. We found there was very little cabbage left.

[Genitals]

I made an examination of the privates of Mary Phagan. I found no spermatozoa. On the walls of the vagina there was evidences of violence of some kind. The epithelium was pulled loose, completely detached in places, blood vessels were dilated immediately beneath the surface and a great deal of hemorrhage in the surrounding tissues. The dilation of the blood vessels indicated to me that the injury had been made in the vagina some little time before death. Perhaps ten to fifteen minutes. It had occurred before death by reason of the fact that these blood vessels were dilated. Inflammation had set in and it takes an appreciable length of time for the process of inflammatory change to begin. There was evidence of violence in the neighborhood of the hymen.

[Rigor Mortis]

Rigor mortis varies so much that it is not accurate to state how long after death it sets in. It may begin in a few minutes and may be delayed for hours.

[Estimated Range for Time of Death Based on 11:30 a.m. Meal Digestion: Twelve Noon to 12:15 p.m. on Saturday April 26, 1913]

I could not state from the examination how long Mary Phagan was dying. It is my opinion that she lived from a half [noon] to three-quarters of an hour [12:15 p.m.] after she ate her [brunch] meal [at 11:30 a.m. according to Mrs. Coleman, Mary’s biological mother who testified she served her daughter a meal, before she left].

[Sexual Violence: Rape]

The evidence of violence in the vagina had evidently been done just before death.

[Forensics of Strangulation]

The fact that the child was strangled to death was indicated by the lividity, the blueness of the parts, the congestion of the tongue and mouth and the blueness of the hands and fingernails.

[Lungs]

The lungs had the peculiar appearance which is always produced after embalming when formaldehyde is used. I am of the opinion that the wound on the back of the head could not have been produced by this stick (referring to: Defendant’s Exhibit 48, Leo Frank Trial Brief of Evidence, 1913).

[(Exhibit 48 was a bloody stick planted on the first floor of the National Pencil Company factory, by associates of the Leo Frank legal defense team, nearly three weeks (20 days) after the crime, and discovered by Detective McWorth of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The significance of the bloody stick planted in the lobby, was that 3 weeks after the murder, other evidence like a pay envelop was put at the lobby where Conley had sat on Saturday, April 26, 1913. The stick was another failed effort to develop forensic evidence that Phagan was assaulted by Jim Conley in the lobby, when she walked down the stairs from the second floor, this planted evidence was in contradiction to all the forensic evidence suggesting Leo Frank murdered Mary Phagan in the metal room at the rear of the second floor. The stick was discovered by Detective McWorth around May 15th, 1913. Detective McWorth was relieved of his services in the Mary Phagan murder investigation after he kept on discovering planted evidence in the lobby of the National Pencil Company, three weeks after Atlanta Police had meticulously searched the building for clews.)]

[Microscope Analysis to Determine if Menstruation Could have Caused the Evidence of Violence to the Vagina]

I made a microscopic examination of the vagina and uterus. Natural menses would cause an enlargement of the uterus, but not of the vagina. In my opinion the menses could not have caused any dilation of the blood vessels and discoloration of the walls.

[Stomach and Digestion Analysis]

From my own experiments I find that the behavior of the stomach after taking a small meal of cabbage and bread is practically the same as taking some biscuit and water alone. I examined Mary Phagan’s stomach. It was normal in size, normal in position, and normal in every particular.

I made a microscopic examination of the contents in Mary Phagan’s case. It showed plainly that it had not begun to dissolve, or only to a very slight degree, and indicated that the process of digestion had not gone on to any extent at the time that this girl was rendered unconscious. I found that the starch she had eaten had undergone practically no alteration. The contents taken from the little girl’s stomach was examined chemically and the result showed that there were only slight traces of the first action of the digestive juices on the starch. It was plainly evident that none of the material had gone into the small intestines. As soon as food is put in the stomach the beginning of the secretion of the hydrochloric acid is found.

It is from the quantity of this acid that the stomach secretes that doctors judge the state and degree of digestion. In this case the acid had not been secreted in such an excess that any of it had become what we call free. In this case the amount of acid in this girl’s stomach was combined and was 32 degrees. Ordinarily in a normal stomach at the end of an hour it runs from 50 to 70 or 80. I found none of the pancreatic juices in the stomach which are usually found, about an hour after digestion starts.

 

 

CROSS EXAMINATION BY DEFENSE:

I don’t remember when Mr. Dorsey first talked to me about making this autopsy. As long as the heart was beating you could have put a piece of rope around the neck of this little girl and produced the same results as I found. I took about five or six ounces altogether out of the stomach. It was all used up in making my experiments. I know of no experiments made as to the effect of gastric juices where the patient is dead. The juices of the body after death gradually evaporate. The chemical analysis of each cabbage varies, not only in the plant but from the way it is cooked. It is a very vague matter as to what influences may retard digestion. Every individual is almost a law unto himself. To a certain extent different vegetables affect different stomachs different ways, but the average normal stomach digests anything that is eaten within reason. Some authorities claim that exercise will retard digestion. I don’t know that mental activity would have very much effect in retarding the digestion.

It is the generally accepted opinion that food begins to pass out of the stomach through the pyloris in about a half an hour. A great many things pass out of the stomach that are not digested. The juices of the stomach make no change in them. The stomach does not emulsify a solid. I never knew a normal man who could digest a solid. The science of digestion is rather a modern thing. I did not call in any chemist in making this examination. I said it was impossible for any one to say absolutely how long the cabbage had been in the stomach of Mary Phagan before she met her death, not within a minute or five minutes, but I say it was somewhere between one-half an hour and three-quarters. I am certain of that. Of course, if digestion had been delayed this time element would
change.

[Penis, Finger or Object?]

The violence to the private parts might have been produced by the finger or by other means, but I found evidence of violence. It takes a rather considerable knock to tear epithelium off to the extent that bleeding would occur. I found the epithelium completely detached in places and in other places it was not detached. A digital examination means putting the finger in. The swelling and dilation of the blood vessels could be seen only with a microscope. It is impossible to say how much they were swollen.

A scalp wound is very prone to bleed.

-End of Witness Testimony Concerning the Mary Phagan Autopsy, Leo Frank Trial Brief of Evidence, 1913

Sources: Available at littlemaryphagan.com

 

Mary Phagan? Who is Mary Phagan? I Don’t Know Mary Phagan.

Harry Scott’s statements corroborated the prosecution contention that Leo Frank did actually know Mary Phagan and that Frank lied about not knowing her. Leo Frank confided in Harry Scott that he knew John M. Gantt was intimate with Mary Phagan and led to his arrest.  This statement would damage the credibility of Leo Frank, who claimed he didn’t know Mary Phagan, because the reasoning is that if Leo Frank didn’t know Mary Phagan, then how did he know John M. Gantt was intimate with her? Also, if Phagan had worked on the same floor as Leo Frank for about a year and drew nearly fifty pay envelopes from him, and Frank had to walk by Mary Phagan’s workstation each day to go to the bathroom, it seemed difficult to substantiate that Frank did not know one of his employees according to the prosecution. In sum, Harry Scott being a defense witness and revealing that Leo Frank told him Gantt was intimate with Mary Phagan was a bombshell for Frank, who would still maintain at the trial during his August 18, 1913, testimony that he did not know Mary Phagan. Frank testified well after Harry Scott, creating a situation where the jury had to decide who was more likely to be telling the truth and thus who was more credible.

.

Inconsistencies in the Time of Mary Phagan’s Arrival:

On Sunday, April 27, 1913, Leo Frank told police Mary Phagan came into his office at 12:03 p.m. On Monday, April 28, 1913, Leo Frank told Police Chief of Detectives Newport Lanford in front of numerous officers and detectives (see State’s Exhibit B) that Mary Phagan came into his second floor office on April 26, 1913, between “12:05 and 12:10, maybe 12:07”. Harry Scott, hired by the pencil factory owners, stated at the coroner’s inquest that Leo Frank told him at one point that Mary Phagan had arrived at his second floor office at 12:10 p.m. on April 26, 1913. At the murder trial, when Leo Frank testified, making a statement to the jury on August 18, 1913, he told the court that Mary Phagan had arrived ten to fifteen minutes after Hattie Hall left his office. Miss Hall before the trial said she departed at high noon, and at the trial, she said it was 12:02 p.m. when she left Frank and thus Leo Frank’s trial testimony puts Mary Phagan coming into his office at 12:12 to 12:17 on April 26, 1913.

See: Leo M. Frank Georgia Supreme Court Case File (1,800 images, Volumes 1 & 2).

 

Coroner’s Inquest:  Jim Conley did not testify at the Coroner’s Inquest.

We, the coroner’s jury, empaneled and sworn by Paul Donehoo, coroner of Fulton County, to inquire into the death of Mary Phagan, whose dead body now lies before us, after having heard the evidence of sworn witnesses, and the statement of Dr. J. W. Hurt, County Physician, find that the deceased came to her death from strangulation. We recommend that Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee be held under charges of murder for further investigation by the Fulton County grand jury.

(signed)

Homer C. Ashford, Foreman
Dr. J. W. Hurt, County Physician

Coroner Donehoo approved the unanimous finding of the inquest jury.

 

 

Rosser’s Grilling of Negro Leads to Hot Clashes by Lawyers:

 

August 5, 1913: Amazing Testimony of Conley Marks Crucial Point of Trial, Says Frank Admitted Crime (Atlanta Constitution)

August 5, 1913: Conley Grilled Five Hours by Luther Rosser (Atlanta Constitution)

August 4, 1913: Jim Conley Tells an Amazing Story; Many New and Sensational Features Added to Tale as Originally Given to Police (Atlanta Journal)

August 4, 1913: Many Discrepancies Between Conley’s Testimony and His Testimony Given to Detectives (Atlanta Journal)

August 5, 1913: Defense Moves to Strike Most Damaging Testimony (Atlanta Journal)

August 5, 1913: Lawyers on Both Sides Satisfied with Conley (Atlanta Journal)

August 7, 1913: Judge’s Decision Admits Conley Testimony in Full (Atlanta Constitution)

 

August 4, 1913

Atlanta Georgian

O.B Keeler

Atlanta Georgian
August 4^th, 1913

 

Conley withstood Luther Rosser’s bullying, badgering tactics that routed and humiliated other witnesses for 3 days! The negro forgot nothing, omitted nothing that he had told before. If he was telling a black lie to save his own neck from the gallows, it was still more wonderful. He had a remarkably retentive memory or an imagination far beyond the normal even for his notably imaginative race.

O.B. Keeler, a native Mariettan, reporter and journalist who covered the trial for the Atlanta Georgian, claimed it would have been impossible for Conley to invent such testimony, and the Atlanta Constitution reported:

“No such record has ever been made in a criminal court case in this country.  Conley may be telling the truth in the main, or he may be lying altogether.  He may be the real murderer or he may have been an accomplice after the fact.  “Be these things as they may, he is one of the most remarkable Negroes that has ever been seen in this section of the country.  His nerve seems unshakable.  His wit is ever ready.  As hour by hour the attorneys for the defense hammered away and failed to entrap the Negro, the enormity of the evidence became apparent.

Finally came the virtual confession of the defense that they had failed to entrap the Negro and they asked that the evidence be stricken from the records. The Negro withstood the fire and Frank’s attorneys are seeking to have the evidence expunged from the records.”

 

Mob shouting antisemitic outside the door with the windows:

According to Steve Oney, considered the ADL expert::

And the Dead Shall Rise, 2003

Steve Oney

Page 453:

“On the last day I was in Atlanta I went to the office of one of Frank’s lawyers to say good-bye.  The telephone rang.  *“If they don’t hang that Jew, we’ll hang you,” came the message. This phrase – ‘If they don’t hang that Jew, we’ll hang you’- would not enter the popular consciousness, with many of the condemned man’s supporters claiming that it had been chanted by crowds at the trial.”

 

The Phagan Family Newsletter #4 January 2020; March 2020:

Former governor Roy Barnes Claims Leo Frank Did Not Kill Mary Phagan: He Insists that the Century-Old conviction was “wrong”.

http://www.littlemaryphagan.com

Here, again, Steve Oney is clear: “[I]t didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple years after the crime, and then it got stuck into subsequent recountings of the story…. Jews were accepted in the city, and the record does not substantiate subsequent reports that the crowd outside the courtroom shouted at the jurors: ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you.’” In the book Night Fell on Georgia, by Charles and Louise Samuels, they write: “Leo Frank was a Jew, but at the time there was little, if any anti-Semitism in Atlanta.” The Breman Museum stopped making the false claim of anti-Semitic chants. Only Roy Barnes and his ADL cohorts continue that propaganda.

SOS:

There were only two ways of getting into the basement, the elevator and scuttle hole ladder.  The ladder rested on the dirt floor and it ran up to a hole which was covered by a trap door. The bottom of the elevator shaft was uneven so it could have rest on one part and not touch the others; elevators at that time did not always exactly hit the bottom.

The scuttle hole is two feet by two feet and three inches- or about four and one-half square feet.  Witness said it was difficult for one person to pass through the hole and descend the ladder.  It closes with a door that fits into the floor and that can be easily lifted.  From this, down to the dirt floor of the basement, is a ladder-not stairs made of two scantlings and a great number of rungs or rounds.  The basement is deep- the ladder is about twelve feet long.  The basement has a dirt floor.  It is very dirty from the coal dust ashesm cinders-almost anything that makes dirt is such a place.

Brief of Evidence, 1913

 

The Leo Frank Case

Inside Story of Georgia’s Greatest Murder Mystery

Published by Atlanta Publishing Company

1913

Page 15:

“In his nervousness, Frank did not see that the elevator rope was caught, and Darley reached over and helped him release it. After viewing the basement room where the body was found, the party returned upstairs.”

Page 27-28:

“Officer Brown followed Anderson on the stand, and gave testimony extremely damaging to Newt Lee, declaring, as did Anderson, that it was impossible to tell that the body was that of a white girl unless within a very few feet of it. He said that only until he rolled down the stocking below the knee and saw the flesh could he tell that the girl was white. He described the fearfully dirty appearance of the body, stating that only by being dragged could it have accumulated so much dirt and grime.”

Page 51:

“Then Mr. Frank hops off the elevator before it gets even with the second floor and he makes a stumble and hits the floor and catches with both hands…”

Page 75:

“The defense sought to show on cross-examination that the distinct track did not begin at the elevator but a few feet away at the foot of the ladder from the scuttle hole in the first floor.  Sergeant Dobbs, testimony was to the effect that indications of the dragging of the body begain at the side of the elevator pit.”

Much has been made of Conley’s admission that defecated in the elevator shaft on Saturday morning, and the idea that, because the detectives crushed the feces for the first time when they rode down in the elevator the next day, Conley’s story that and Frank used the elevator to bring Mary Phagan’s body to the basement of Saturday afternoon could not be true -thus bringing Conley’s entire story into question.  But how could anyone determine with certainty that the “crushing” was the “first crushing” And nowhere in the voluminous records of the case – including Governor Slaton’s Commutation Order in which he details his supposed tests of the elevator – can we find evidence that anyone made even the most elementary inquiry into whether or not the bottom surface of the elevator was uniformly flat. Furthermore, the so-called “shit if the shaft” theory of Frank’s innocence also breaks down when we consider the fact that the detectives inspected the floor of the elevator shaft before riding down in the elevator, and found in it Mary Phagan’s parasol and a large quantity of trash and debris.  Detective R. M. Lassiter stated at the inquest into Mary Phagan’s death, in answer to the question “is the bottom of the elevator shaft of concrete or wood, or what?”  “I don’t know.  It was full of trash and I couldn’t see.”  There was so much trash there, the investigator couldn’t even tell what the floor of the shaft was made of.

There may well have been enough trash, and arranged in such a way, to have prevented the crushing of the waste material when Frank and Conley used the elevator to transport Mary Phagan’s body to the basement.

Coroner’s Inquest

Knights of Mary Phagan:

First mention of Knights of Mary Phagan appeared in the New York Times on June 26, 1915:

New York Times, June 26, 1915; No source

First mention of “Knights of Mary Phagan” seven weeks before the August 17^th lynching written anonymously: “Violence Feared in Atlanta Today,” last paragraph:

“One of the strangest of these meetings is reported to have been held at Marietta, where Mary Phagan is buried.  One hundred and fifty citizens are said to have met at Mary Phagan’s grave and formed an oath-bound organization to avenge her death.  This body is to be known as the “Knights of Mary Phagan”, and it is the purpose of the organizers to form lodges over Georgia, the members being pledged never to rest until the murder of the girl has been avenged.  There seems to be little doubt that such a body has been formed.”

None of the three Atlanta-based newspapers mention “Knights of Mary ‘s Phagan”

 

Jeffersonian, June 24, 1915

Tom Watson

No reference to the Knights of Mary Phagan in this issue or any issue of the Jeffersonian or Watson’s Magazine [called Vigilance Committee in Jeffersonian, August 19, 26, 1915].

 

Mobs: PowerPoint Presentation

August 16, 1915 A mob of men overpower guards at the prison and kidnap Frank from the infirmary.

Called themselves the Vigilance Committee- you stated “this was not a mob that got upset, busted into the prison, pulled him out and lynched him on site. This was a very well planned operation.”

 

Marietta Vigilance Committee flyer – exodus of Jews in droves

Exodus of Jews:

A Little Girl is Dead, 1965

Harry Golden

Pages: 275-276

“By noon, all the Jewish businessmen had closed shop, and on the South Side people had sent their colored servants home.  Jews locked their homes and, in the afternoon, began checking into the hotels, the Winecoff, the Kimball House, the Georgia Terrace, and the Piedmont. Many of the Jewish men took their families to the railroad station and sent their wives and children to relatives outside the state.”

 

Strangers within the Gate City:  The Jews of Atlanta, 1845-1915 (Philadelphia, 1978)

Steven Hertzberg

Page 213:

“Harry Golden has written that all Jewish businessmen closed shop, locked their homes, and checked into hotels, most remaining for several days.  However, while Jews undoubtedly preferred the safety of hotel rooms and a few send their families out of the state, there was no dramatic exodus or panic.  The Jews were frightened, but most went about their business as usual, and no serious incidents occurred.”

Page 217:

“From 4,000 in 1910, the Jewish population rose to 10,000 in 1948, 16,500 in 1968, and 21,000 in 1976.”

 

The Jew Accused, 1991

Albert S. Lindemann

Page 270:

“Earlier accounts of this period, particularly Golden’s A Little Girl is Dead, presented a picture of Jewish panic, of exodus from the city but a more recent and careful scholar [Hertzberg] has concluded that ‘there was no dramatic exodus or panic [Jews]. The Jews were frightened, but most went about their business as usual and no serious incidents occurred.”

Page 275:

“Even when is Atlanta, where the Jewish community was deeply shaken by the Frank Affair and where Jewish leaders long opposed efforts to rehabilitate Frank because of the hostility such efforts might revive, Jews continued to move into the city in numbers no less impressive than before the Frank Affair.”

 

 

Institute of Southern Jewish Life Study

Goldring/Woldenberg, 2006

http://www.isjl.org/history/archive/ga/atlanta.html

“The Community Grows

Despite the fears stemming from the Frank lynching, Atlanta’s Jewish community continued to grow.  In 1910 there had been 4.000 Jews, by 1937 there were 12,000.”

Alonzo Mann:

1983 pardon: DENIED based on Alonzo Mann’s Testimony.  The parole board held in 1983 that the evidence did not prove Mr. Frank was innocent. The one-page pardon issued today said, ''Such a standard of proof, especially for a 70-year-old case, is almost impossible to satisfy.''

Mr. Snow said the board told the Jewish groups that their original petition, which asserted Mr. Frank's innocence, had left the board ''limited in what we could do.''

 

1986 Pardon:  Without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the state's failure to protect the person of Leo Frank and thereby preserve his opportunity for continued legal appeal of his conviction*, and in recognition of the state's failure to bring his killer to justice, and as an effort to heal old wounds, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, in compliance with its constitutional and statutory authority, hereby grants to Leo M. Frank a pardon. *all legal appeals had been exhausted.

Sign Change:  December 2, 1995

Transcription of The Marietta Daily Journal, Saturday, December 2nd, 1995

Article from the 2nd day of December in the year 1995, published in the Marietta Daily Journal, about the dishonest and opaque changing of a historical marker without informing the public, until citizens noticed the brazen change and raised the issue.

 

Family of Mary Phagan protests marker change

 

Without a formal vote and with the press absent, Marietta City Council has changed the inscription on the city's historic marker at the grave of rape-murder victim Mary Phagan in the Marietta City Cemetery. The Phagan family is blaming Councilman Philip Goldstein.

The descendants of Miss Phagan are upset because the family was not notified before or after the change, and only learned of it on a cemetery-cleaning visit. The family says the newly-placed marker - which sits on a city-maintained path near the grave and is not to be confused with Miss Phagan's ornate tombstone, which makes no mention of the circumstances of her death - omits the reason for the 1986 posthumous pardon given Leo Frank.

Frank - Miss Phagan's boss - was convicted in 1913 by a Fulton Superior Court jury of the 13-year-old girl's murder in an Atlanta pencil factory and sentenced to hang. When Gov. John Slaton commuted Frank's sentence to life in 1915, a group of Marietta men abducted Frank from the state prison near Milledgeville and lynched him near what is now the Big Chicken on Frey's Gin Road in Marietta.

 

The Phagan family initially opposed placing a marker at their ancestor's grave, fearing there would be increased damage to the cemetery plot and curiosity seekers would leave graffiti. That hasn't happened. Late Mayor Joe Mack Wilson told east Cobb resident and Cherokee County special education teacher Mary Phagan Keen, a great-niece of Mary Phagan, that the grave was the most sought by visitors to Marietta and should have a marker, along with several other notable graves in the cemetery.

Mayor Wilson told the Phagan family the city would let them approve the text of the marker. The family insisted the unusual conditions of Frank's 1986 pardon be explained. That was done. Now controversy has arisen because that portion of the marker has been changed.

The Georgia Pardons and Parole Board in 1983 turned down a request for a pardon based on Frank's alleged innocence. Frank's former office boy, Alonzo Mann, told two Nashville Tennessean newsmen he saw black janitor Jim Conley holding a limp body in his arms the day of the murder. In its 1983 denial of a pardon for Frank, the board said after Mann's testimony it "did not find conclusive evidence proving beyond any doubt that Frank was innocent."

A new parole board then granted Frank a pardon in 19896 on the grounds the state did not protect him in prison, thereby allowing him to be lynched and thus ending any further court appeals. Frank's conviction was appealed unsuccessfully by his lawyers three times to the Georgia Supreme Court and twice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 1986 pardon said: "Without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the state's failure to protect the person of Leo M. Frank and thereby preserve his opportunity for continued legal appeal of his conviction, and in recognition of the state's failure to bring his killers to justice, and as an effort to heal old wounds...the board hereby grants to Leo M. Frank a pardon." The family opposed the 1986 pardon, and now is irked at the council and Goldstein.

"We are as much a victim as the family of Leo Frank," said Ms. Keen. For 80 years, we have been the object of the curiosity[sic]-seekers and subjected to unfair and untrue books and TV docudramas. The current council didn't show the same respect to us as did Mayor Wilson and a previous council." Ms. Keen's father, James Phagan, said the action was "extremely insensitive of the council" and "disingenuous of Councilman Goldstein. How can you separate Mary Phagan and Leo Frank?" he asked. "Can you mention the Holocaust and not mention Hitler? It's simply pandering by Councilman Goldstein to a segment of the community. It's another effort to change history."

The inscription change was made by the Parks and Tourism Committee chaired by Councilman Dan Cox. Members are Councilwoman Betty Hunter and Goldstein. The full council OK'd the action. Cox admitted the committee had yielded to "political pressure" by Goldstein and the Jewish community. Calling the change "a no-win situation," Cox said he reluctantly consented to the change "because it offended a part of the community."

On the 80th anniversary of Frank's lynching Aug. 17, a group of Jewish leaders led by Rabbi Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth in east Cobb said the historic marker at Mary Phagan's grave should be removed. The group placed a small plaque in the side of the VPI Corp. building owned by Roy Varner at 1200 Roswell St., near the site of Frank's lynching. The plaque reads: "Wrongly Accused, Falsely Convicted and Wantonly Murdered." Attending the ceremony were Marietta Councilmen Goldstein and James Dodd, who told Jewish leaders they would look into removing the line of the marker that refers to the pardon conditions.

"This is a plaque that marks the grave of Mary Phagan," said Goldstein. "The last two lines deal with information on Leo Frank, and it's not his grave." Goldstein was quoted in the Jewish Times as saying: "The wording is factually correct. The mention of Frank on Phagan's marker should be deleted because it is irrelevant, not because it upsets the Jewish community."

It was Dodd who brought the matter before council, supported by Goldstein. "This is a lose-lose situation for me," Goldstein said. The marker referring to the condition of Frank's pardon has been removed and replaced with a previous marker the Phagan family had objected to.