Next to Phagan’s body were two small notes that purported to pin the crime on Newt Lee, the night watchman at the factory. A grand jury indicted Leo for Mary’s murder on May 23. All Rights Reserved. Detectives realized the last person to see Mary alive was her boss. If you think Jim did it, you become aligned with good ole boys who believe America was great when Mary was raped and killed. [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 … Despite what might happen, he immediately told the police. But there is no evidence to support this claim. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com: accessed ), memorial page for Mary Phagan (1891–11 Apr 1915), Find a Grave Memorial no. Who killed her?” The two girls were friends who often worked side by side. Not much larger than Mary. Frank, you’d better get your clothes on and let us go to the factory and see what happened.”. He barely survived the attack. Thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan is found sexually molested and murdered in the basement of the Atlanta, Georgia, pencil factory where she worked. On July 28, the prosecution presented its case. Jury selection began on July 24, 1913. The June 21, 1915 commutation provoked Tom Watson into advocating Frank's lynching. Although the independence-minded Basque region opposed General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, ...read more, On April 26, 1954, the Salk polio vaccine field trials, involving 1.8 million children, begin at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia. Under oath, Jim offered a story. 106 years later, we might finally find out for sure. In the metal room, Mary resisted Leo’s advances. Did Leo Frank kill Mary Phagan? Leo married Lucille Selig, whose family established the first Synagogue in Atlanta. In fact, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1920. Now little Mary's mother She weeps and mourns all day, Praying to meet little Mary In a better world some day. When another suspect, Jim Conley, a black sweeper at the factory, was introduced, the case took a racial turn. Leo Max Frank – born April 17, 1884, was a violent Jewish serial child molester, pedophile-rapist, adulterous whoremonger and vicious strangler known for the 1913 ritual murder of 13 year-old Mary Phagan. Cobb, being a former sheriff. On the witness stand, Jim told the same story he told the police. “My God!” Grace cried when she saw the body, “That’s Mary Phagan! Leo claimed he didn’t know the girl’s name, but she asked him if the sheet metal was delivered. His conviction was the first for war crimes by a former head of state in an international court since the Nuremberg trials ...read more, On April 26, 1986, the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. Of course, you know I ain’t built like other men.”. On April 26 in 1977, ...read more, Almost a decade after they met at a celebrity tennis tournament, the television news reporter Maria Shriver marries the movie actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger on April 26, 1986. Her murder later led to one of the most disgraceful episodes of bigotry, injustice and mob violence in American history. Jim was in a better position to carry and conceal Mary’s body than Leo was, so he allegedly offered Jim $200 to do exactly that. Detective “Boots” Rogers graphically described how Newt discovered a body. My name is Mary Phagan-Kean, and I live to tell the story that I know. Police also discovered strands of hair that looked like Mary’s, along with drops of blood splattered on the floor. Leo was high-strung. The police did not arrest him because he told them he was not near the factory the day of Mary Phagan’s murder because he claimed he was drunk all day. Panicked, Leo strangled Mary to death to prevent her from telling anyone. On August 16, The mob stormed the Milledgeville Prison. Children in the United States, Canada and Finland participated in the trials, which used for the first time the ...read more, On April 26, 1984, President Ronald Reagan arrives in China for a diplomatic meeting with Chinese President Li Xiannian. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Monteen Stover claimed she also went collect her pay that day but found Leo’s office empty. Despite his terror that he may be blamed, as a black man, for the murder, Lee immediately fetched the local police. Jim Conley died sometime in 1962. The clothing Mary Phagan wore when she died, April 27, 1913, public domain Ten days later, an anonymous worker called in a tip; factory worker Jim … It was an eerily quiet day at the police headquarters for a Saturday. The police did nothing to stop the spectacle. Frank was tried by Judge Leonard Roan, who allowed the blatantly unfair trial to go forward even after he was privately informed by Conley’s attorney that Conley had admitted to Frank’s innocence on more than one occasion. Officer Anderson jumped in his car and drove to the pencil factory with Officers Dobbs and Brown. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. They intended to describe Newt, an innocent man. It was young Mary Phagan, beaten, raped and strangled with a cord cut deep into her neck. Ten days later, an anonymous worker called in a tip; factory worker Jim Conley was there that day too, and he may have been washing blood off his shirt. First, it was Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia, and she was excited to show off her new dress and watch the parade. Jim Conley served one year on a chain gang as an accessory to Mary’s murder. The letters implicated a lanky black man with dark skin — a man unlike Jim, who was black, but light-skinned and stout. They didn’t respond. Start studying Murder of Mary Phagan Pt. She is convinced Frank was guilty and livid at the thought of him being declared innocent. Others thought he was guilty and deserved to die for his crimes. The vigilantes cut the prison phone lines, drained gasoline from the police vehicles, and kidnapped Leo from his cell. When she was 10-years-old, Mary dropped out of school and found factory work. The conference marked a turning point in the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. With the threat of imminent war looming in July 1914, the Italian army under Chief of Staff Luigi ...read more. She was found murdered in the basement of the factory at around 3 a.m., on April 27th, the middle of the night after "Confederate Memorial Day." Afterward, Leo allegedly told Jim, “I wanted to be with the little girl, and she refused me. A lynching that destroyed any possibility of justice in this case, First, the formation of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to Jewish identity and anti-hate. Leo was a slight man at 5'7" and about 145lbs. Murder at the Pencil Factory: The Killing of Mary Phagan 100 Years Later (A True Crime Short), R. Barri Flowers, Appellate of Decisions in the Leo Frank Case, The Murder of Mary Phagan: A True Story, Mary Phagan (MP3/Audio Book), Antisemitism in America, Leonard Dinnerstein, The Murder of Mary Phagan: A True Story, Mary Phagan, Lockdown Files — The Hinterkaifeck Killings, The Unsolved Murder of Dorothy Jane Scott, Bear Brooks Murder Victims Finally Identified — True Crime, 5 Spine-Chilling Crimes of the Ken and Barbie Killers, She Was Convicted of Murder, Now She Sells Art on Instagram. Conley then decided to shift the blame toward Leo Frank, the Jewish owner of the factory. Alonzo asked his parents, who advised him to keep it to himself, which he did for 69 years. Leo left the building at 1:20 PM for lunch, returned at 3 PM, and was home for dinner. The body was stiff and cold, indicating the girl had been killed hours prior. The family found themselves in dire straits and moved to Bellwood, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. “Did she work at the factory?” Leo asked nervously, “ I don’t know many of the girls, but I can look on my payroll and see.” This statement incriminated Leo since investigators knew Mary picked up her check from the man the previous day. Little Mary wouldn’t live to see the parade. Her father had died earlier but her mother quickly remarried. But that stillness was shattered with a telephone call at 3:30 AM. The case’s prosecutor was Hugh Dorsey, a notorious bigot and friend of Georgia’s populist leader, Tom Watson. Originally sentenced to death, Frank lost several appeals and a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in April 1915. He wrote in The Jeffersonian and Watson's Magazine: "This country has nothing to fear from its rural communities. Many women came forward to say Leo made inappropriate advances towards them at work. However, it’s been alleged he confessed on his deathbed to killing Mary Phagan. The Knights of Mary Phagan then made their way to the prison farm where Frank was incarcerated. I made an examination of the body of Mary Phagan on May 5th [1913]. They made sure Leo faced the general direction of Mary’s home and hanged him. Her mother was the widow Frances Phagan; Mary’s father succumbed to the measles before she was born. Newt led the policemen, pistols drawn, to the small recess in the impossibly dark basement where the body was located. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. The trip marked the third time a U.S. president had traveled to China since President Richard Nixon’s historic trip in 1972 (Gerald Ford visited in 1975). 13-year-old Mary lay there face down. Mary Phagan-Kean is the great-niece and namesake of the factory worker killed at age 13. Little Mary Phagan Case History A crowd gathered outside the courthouse and shouted, “Hang the Jew!”. The board said: ''The funeral of Mary Phagan, the police investigation and the trial of Leo Frank were reported in the overblown newspaper style of the day. Officer Rogers happened to have a relative, a young girl named Grace Hicks, who worked at the factory, so he picked her up, hoping she would identify the body. Leo transferred from Fulton County Jail to Milledgeville State Prison Farm. The jury deliberated for two hours, and reached a unanimous verdict; Leo was guilty of first-degree murder. Reportedly, Watson told Dorsey, “Hell, we can lynch a n***** anytime in Georgia, but when do we get the chance to hang a Yankee Jew?”. He was the last person to acknowledge having seen Phagan alive. Newer materials are authored mostly by hate groups. As he recuperated, a group of Atlanta citizens banned together, calling themselves The Knights of Mary Phagan. With each motion, his execution date got pushed back a little farther. Alonzo Mann, Leo’s office boy, was 13 years old when Mary Phagan died. He continually proclaimed his innocence. Atlanta would not have a race riot that year. There was no denying it, so Jim admitted he wrote them. He remained in custody at Fulton County Jail. Near a lathe machine where Mary often worked, they found the envelope that should have contained her pay. Sergeant Dobbs shook his head, “And this,” he said, “In a civilized country!”. Leo asked, “Did the night watchman call up and report anything to you?”, Detective Black responded, “Mr. Leo Frank, the superintendent of the factory, paid her. The office of her boss, 29-year-old Leo Max Frank, was just 200 feet away. On this day in 1957 or ’67, they would have been waiting for a filming of an episode of Password or maybe Captain Kangaroo. Police immediately brought him in for questioning. Twelve men, four of them Jewish, heard the case in Judge Leonard Roan’s court. Conley said that Frank admitted that he had accidentally killed Mary Phagan when she resisted his advances, and sought his help in the hiding of the body and in writing the black-dialect “death notes” that attempted to throw suspicion on the night watchman. The jury was terrorized into a conviction despite the complete lack of evidence against Frank. Lee's worry was well founded. During the trial, Alonzo testified that he went to the Pencil Factory that day too. They took the message and destroyed it because Leo wrote it in German. They weren’t expecting Newt would give them enough info to detain Leo. She asked him if the metal shipment arrived. She was 12 years old. Conley noticed him and threatened his life. I struck her, and I guess I struck her too hard. The people of Atlanta became divided once again, with some believing in Frank’s innocence. Newt was terrified that he, a black man in 1913 Georgia, found the body of a murdered white child. The trial was packed with Watson’s followers and readers of his racist newspaper, Jeffersonian. Atlanta was still recovering from the 1906 race riots, and race relations were still volatile. Each with an agenda that has little to do with identifying Mary’s killer. The exact year of Beckwourth’s birth is in dispute. Yes, Leo Frank literally raped and garrotted Mary Phagan, around minutes past noon on Saturday, April 26th, 1913. A terrible gash on her head, and a length of twine embedded in the skin around her neck suggested murder. He reiterated he wasn’t sure he knew the girl. Secondly, she had to go to the National Pencil Company and pick up her final paycheck of $1.20 from her boss, Leo Frank. However, it came out that Annie Maude Carter, Conley’s girlfriend at the time, claimed Conley told … Autopsy Photo of Mary Phagan DR. H. F. HARRIS, sworn for the State, August, 1913. 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