Mary Phagan, a 12 yr. old employee of the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, was murdered .

The murderer

Frank was a Cornell-educated Jew raised in New York City, living in Atlanta. President of his local B'nai Brith, active in civic affairs, he was supervisor at the National Pencil Factory, where Phagan worked.

Frank was well known as a sexual deviate that forced employees to have sex.

12 years old

On the day of the murder, Conley went on, he came into the office and found Leo crouching over the unconscious girl. Leo told him that Mary had resisted his advances, and when he grabbed her had fallen and struck her head. When he had finished with her he decided to kill her. So he strangled her to death with the cord.

Frank tried to get Conley to burn the body in the factory's basement furnace.

Conley said Frank told him to wrap up the body and put it in the basement. Conley tried to do so, but said he could not lift the body.

" Here  Frank uttered the ominous phrase "Why should I hang?"

Frank then had Conley write the notes found near the body, apparently in an attempt to incriminate Newt Lee.

Newt Lee discovers the body and calls the police. The police found the body black from cinders and dirt.  One eye had been blackened by a blow. Over both eyes was a slight abrasion. The left side of the head bore a two-inch wound, and there was a cut below the left knee. Drawn tightly about her neck was a cord buried in the flesh.

The girl had been beaten and strangled; and she had been raped.

Newt Lee

That night, Frank called Lee to ask if everything was alright, an unusual practice for him.

ADL formed

Soon thereafter the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith was founded in New York; its founding was based largely on the Leo Frank case and its aftermath. Ironically, Leo Frank had been president of the Atlanta chapter of B'nai B'rith.

Banai Brith employs senator

June 24, 1913 - Georgia senator Hoke Smith denied rumors he had been approached about and was considering aiding in Leo Frank's defense. The rumors spread after defense attorney Luther Rosser and National Pencil Company president Ike Haas stopped in Washington, D.C. en route to New York.

May 9, 1913 - Fourteen year old Monteen Stover said she had arrived at the National Pencil Factory around 12:05 PM (roughly the same time as Mary Phagan had arrived) and that Leo Frank was not in his office. This contradicted Frank's testimony that he had been in his office the entire time in which it was thought Phagan had been murdered.

Another woman reported that she was walking outside the factory around 4:30 PM when she heard three piercing screams come from the basement of the building.

May 21, 1913 -

Solicitor Hugh Dorsey announced that he would go before the grand jury on May 23rd and ask for indictment on Leo Frank and that the evidence presented would concentrate on Frank.

May 22  a new controversy arose in the Mary Phagan murder investigation. Phagan's step father signed an affidavit accusing Thomas Felder, the attorney responsible for bringing the Burns Detective Agency into the case, of approaching him about allowing Felder to prosecute the case.

Detectives presented transcripts of dictograph recordings in which Felder had offered them $1000 for access to the case evidence.

Various witnesses to Leo Frank's sexual deviencies

Body exhumed 2nd time

May 25, 1913 - A second exhumation of Mary Phagan's body took place, this time to look for fingerprints; a fingerprint expert had been called in to help with the case.

The undertaker who embalmed Phagan's body said there was evidence of sexual assault and the county physician said there was evidence of a sexual assault.

June 3 - Minola McKnight, the Frank family cook  signed a statement saying Leo frank was very nervous and drinking heavily the night after the murder of Mary Phagan. She said she overheard Frank's wife say he made her sleep on the rug and kept asking for his pistol so he could shoot himself.

Frank had told her -- "It is mighty bad, Minola. I might have to go to jail about this girl, and I don't know anything about it."

Finally she said her wages had been raised as a " tip to keep quiet."

Trial begins

July 28, 1913

A jury was quickly selected and seated. The first witness called was Mrs. J.W. Coleman,  mother of Mary Phagan. She managed to stay collected during most of her testimony, but finally broke down in tears when asked to identify the clothes her daughter had worn on the day she was murdered.

Next on the stand was George Epps, a thirteen year old boy who also worked at the National Pencil Factory. He had ridden the streetcar with Phagan the morning of April 26th, and the two had agreed to meet for an ice cream and to watch the Confederate Memorial Day Parade at 1:00 that afternoon.

Leo Frank's various alibi's

June 2, 1913 - At first she corroborated Frank's story concerning the times he arrived home for lunch and then returned to the factory the day of the murder. She was agitated, believing her estranged husband had been telling lies to the police to get her in trouble. She said both she and Frank were innocent.

August 9, 1913 - the twelfth day in the Leo Frank trial. Herbert Schiff, Jewish assistant to Leo Frank, said he worked most Saturdays and had never seen any women in Frank's office except his wife. He added that he had never seen C.B. Dalton either.

May 7, 1913 -  The wife of one of the mechanics who had testified on April 30 said she visited her husband at the factory that day and saw a "strange Negro" boarding the elevator as she left around 1:00 PM. Detectives on the case said someone was planting false evidence and trying to block the investigation.

Murderer hires the investigators

Leo Frank of the National Pencil Factory  expressed his unhappiness with the investigation's progress, so he personally brought in a Pinkerton's detective to aid in the investigation.

  This was the seventh, and pivotal, day in the trial of Leo Frank. Jim Conley, a sweeper at the factory, was called to testify and presented a gruesome, graphic, and sometimes revolting tale.

In fact his testimony was so lurid that Judge Roan ordered all women and children cleared from the courtroom.

Conley testified he had "watched out" for Frank on several occasions, while he entertained young women in his office.

So Frank had helped him get it on the elevator, which they then took to the basement, where Conley dragged the body into a corner. They then returned to Frank's office, where Frank indicated there would be money waiting for Conley if he "kept his mouth shut." Here Conley said Frank uttered the ominous phrase "Why should I hang?" Frank then had Conley write the notes found near the body, apparently in an attempt to incriminate Newt Lee.

John Starnes

The back of the head was covered in blood.  He had called Leo Frank to inform him of the murder, and said Frank appeared extremely nervous when he arrived at the factory. .

Harry Scott

Scott then angered defense attorneys when he asserted one of them had asked him to forward all police evidence to the defense. Also testifying was former factory employee Monteen Stover, who said she had arrived at the factory at 12:05 PM to receive her pay, had waited in Frank's office for him for five minutes, then left. This contradicted Frank's statement that he had been in his office the entire time in which the murder took place.

August 6, 1913 - this was the ninth day of the trial of Leo Frank. Judge L.S. Roan ruled that testimony that Jim Conley had acted as a lookout for Leo Frank was admissible.

Applause broke out in the courtroom; Frank's attorneys immediately contended that any further such actions would be cause for a mistrial; Judge roan threatened to clear the courtroom if order was not maintained.

Frank's mother

Mrs. Rae Frank, Leo Frank's mother, leapt to her feet and shouted at Dorsey "No, nor you either, you dog."

One of the defense attorneys escorted Mrs. Frank out of the courtroom.

. He said Mary came in for her pay soon after 12:00 noon on April 26th, returned a few minutes later to ask if the shipment of metal had arrived (Phagan's job was putting metal tips on pencils), then left his office and he never saw her alive again.

The verdict

Jury decides

Both sides have admitted that the charge was impartial and fair.

To avoid a riot, at Roan's suggestion neither Frank nor his lawyers were in court when the jury retired. It remained secluded for forty minutes.

Georgia State Militia was called out in case Leo Franks was acquitted

At 4:55 they returned with their decision; Leo Frank was declared guilty. Neither Frank nor his family or lead attorneys were present in the courtroom when the verdict was announced.

Reportedly Judge Roan feared mob violence should Frank have been acquitted.

Leo Frank sentenced

Governor commutes sentence

Governor flees for his life

In his last day in office, Georgia governor John Slaton commuted the sentence of Leo Frank, from death to life in prison.

Governor Slaton announced the commutation from hanging to life imprisonment --and hell broke loose in Atlanta.

   The militia was called out and thrown around the governor's mansion, seven miles from the heart of the city, and martial law was declared. Hundreds of automobile loads of armed men raced through the streets to the executive home, where the mob trampled the grounds, screamed at the curtained windows, and hurled itself vainly against the militia's bayonets

The issue was now "Georgia's traitor governor who sold out to sheeny gold." Slaton was hanged in effigy; and the rumor that he and Mrs. Slaton were leaving at once for New York caused the throng to scream imprecations.

June 21, 1915 - Leo Frank, in the middle of the night,  was transferred from the Fulton County Prison to the Georgia State Penitentiary in Milledgeville

July 18, 1915 - Prisoner J. William Creen slashed Leo Frank's throat at the Georgia State Prison Farm in Milledgeville. Only the quick actions of two other prisoners, both doctors, who stopped the flow of blood and stitched the wound, saved Frank's life.

August 16, 1915 - A caravan of eight vehicles bearing 25 armed men from the Atlanta area arrived at the Georgia StatePrison at Milledgeville around 10 p.m.

Leo Frank lynched

The next morning, a farmer driving his team and wagon of produce into Marietta, 170 miles away, saw a man dangling from a tree near the roadway.  He recognized Leo Frank, hanging in his silk nightgown, a hangman's noose beside his tilted jaw. He had been dead for several hours.

The farmer whipped up his horses and a little later a mob of 6,000 men and boys was crowding the highway for a look as the famous prisoner

A few in the crowd threatened, and even began to inflict, violence to Frank's body, before former judge Newt Morris convinced them to stop.

Under police supervision, thousands ofcurious Atlanta-area residents filed by single file to view Frank's body -- including the city detective whohad arrested Frank. That night Frank's body was quickly embalmed and placed on a train for New York.

August 18, 1915 - Leo Frank's body, accompanied by his wife, departed Atlanta on a train bound for Brooklyn, NY.

August 20, 1915 - Leo Frank was buried in Brooklyn, NY.

* As a footnote to the lynching, no one was ever prosecuted for the murder of Leo Frank.