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Leo Frank
Leo Frank
Born	Leo Max Frank (1884-04-17)April 17, 1884 Cuero, Texas
Died	August 17, 1915(1915-08-17) (aged 31) Marietta, Georgia
Cause of death	Lynching
Resting place	New Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens, New York 40°41′34″N 73°52′52″W / 40.69269°N 73.88115°W / 40.69269; -73.88115
Monuments	ADL monument 90th anniversary of founding, October 20, 2003, Mount Carmel Cemetery; Georgia historical marker, lynching site, 1200 Roswell Street, Marietta, GA 30060
Nationality	American
Education	Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering (1906), pencil manufacturing apprenticeship (1907)
Alma mater	Cornell University
Employer	National Pencil Company in Atlanta
Criminal charge	Convicted on August 25, 1913, for the murder of Mary Phagan.
Criminal penalty	Sentenced on August 26, 1913, to hang. Commuted to life in prison on June 21, 1915.
Spouse	Lucille Selig
Parent	Rudolph Frank & Rachel (Ray) Jacobs
Relatives	Marian J. Stern (sister), Moses Frank (uncle)

Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was a Jewish-American factory superintendent whose murder conviction and extrajudicial hanging in 1915 by a lynch mob planned and led by prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia, drew attention to questions of antisemitism in the United States. He was posthumously pardoned in 1986 on technical grounds, without addressing the question of guilt or innocence.

An engineer and superintendent of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Frank was convicted on August 25, 1913, for the murder of one of his factory workers, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. She had been strangled on April 26 and was found dead in the factory cellar the next morning. Frank was the last person known to have seen her alive, and there were allegations that he had flirted with her before. His trial became the focus of powerful class, regional, and political interests. Raised in New York, he was cast as a representative of Yankee capitalism, a rich northern Jew lording it over vulnerable working women, as the historian Albert Lindemann put it. Former U.S. Representative Thomas E. Watson later used sensational coverage of the appeal process, one year after the trial, in his own publications to push for a revival of the Ku Klux Klan, calling Frank a member of the Jewish aristocracy who had pursued "Our Little Girl" to a hideous death. During the trial, Frank and his lawyers resorted to stereotypes, accusing another suspect — Jim Conley, a black factory worker who testified against Frank — of being especially disposed to lying and murdering because of his race.

There was jubilation in the streets when Frank was convicted and sentenced to death. By June 1915, his appeals had failed. Governor John M. Slaton, stating there may have been a miscarriage of justice, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, to great local outrage. A crowd of 1,200 marched on his home in protest. Two months later, Frank was kidnapped from prison by a group of 25 armed men who called themselves "Knights of Mary Phagan". Frank was driven 170 miles to Frey's Gin, near Phagan's home in Marietta, and lynched. A crowd gathered after the hanging; one man repeatedly stomped on Frank's face, while others took photographs, pieces of his nightshirt, and bits of the rope to sell as souvenirs.

On March 11, 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Frank a pardon, citing the state's failure to protect him or prosecute his killers. The names of Frank's murderers were well-known locally but were not made public until January 2000, when Stephen Goldfarb, an Atlanta librarian and former history professor, published the Phagan-Kean list on his website. The Washington Post noted that the list includes several prominent citizens — a former governor, the son of a senator, a Methodist minister, a state legislator, and a former state Superior Court judge — their names matching those on Marietta's street signs, office buildings, shopping centers, and law offices today.

Background

Leo Frank

Frank was born in Cuero, Texas, to Rudolph (November 5, 1844 – January 22, 1922) and Rachel Jacobs Frank (April 16, 1859 – January 1, 1925). The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1884, when Frank was three months old. He attended New York City public schools, and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1902. He then attended Cornell University, where he studied mechanical engineering. After graduation, in 1906, Frank worked briefly as a draftsman and as a testing engineer, before accepting a position with a firm owned by a relative.

At the invitation of his uncle, Frank traveled to Atlanta for 2 weeks in late October 1907 to interview for a position with the National Pencil Company, a manufacturing plant in which the uncle was a major shareholder. Leo Frank accepted the position, and traveled to Germany to study pencil manufacturing at Eberhard Faber in Bavaria. After a 9-month apprenticeship, Frank returned to the United States and began working at the National Pencil Company in August, 1908. Leo Frank became superintendent of the factory in September, 1908.

Frank was introduced to Lucille Selig (February 29, 1888 – April 23, 1957) shortly after he arrived in Atlanta. She came from a prominent and upper middle class Jewish family of industrialists who two generations earlier had founded the first synagogue in Atlanta. Though she was very different from Frank, and laughed at the idea of speaking Yiddish, they were married in November, 1910, at the Selig residence in Atlanta.

Frank was elected president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith, a Jewish fraternal organization, in 1912. The Jewish community in Atlanta was the largest in the South, and the Franks moved in a cultured and philanthropic milieu whose leisure pursuits included opera and bridge. Although Frank was happy, he was not popular. He was a Yankee and an industrialist. Alphin writes that although the Old South was not known for its antisemitism, his being a Jew was enough to add to the sense that he was different.

Mary Phagan

Mary Phagan (June 1, 1899 – April 26, 1913) was born of Francis (Fannie) Phagan in Florence, Alabama, four months after her father, William Joshua Phagan, died of measles. The youngest of five children, she was born into a family of tenant farmers who had farmed in Alabama and Georgia for generations. After her father died, Phagan's mother moved her family to East Point, Georgia, where she opened a boarding house. The children took jobs in the local mills. Phagan left school at the age of 10 to work part-time in a textile mill. In 1911, a paper manufacturing plant owned by Sigmund Montag, treasurer of the National Pencil Company, hired her. In 1912, her mother, Frances Phagan, married John William Coleman, and she and the children moved into the city. Phagan took a job with the National Pencil Company in the spring of 1912, where she ran a knurling machine that inserted rubber erasers into pencils' metal bands. Alphin writes that wages were low for everyone — 10 to 15 cents an hour, one-third of the average wage in the North, and most of the production-line workers were teenagers, an issue that fueled resentment against the factory owners. Mary Phagan earned $4.05 per week or 7 and 4/11 cents an hour, for 55 hours. Leo Frank earned $180.00 per month, plus a portion of the profits. At the time, industrialists were regularly attacked in print by The Atlanta Georgian.

E.F. Holloway, timekeeper for the pencil factory, said of Mary Phagan, "She was a quiet, and modest little girl. I never noticed her talking with any of the employees. She was invariably polite, as though she had been carefully reared in her home. She paid attention strictly to her work, and never was seen conversing with any of the men, so far as I know. In fact, I don't know that she even had any acquaintances with any of the men except in cases where it was necessary as a part of her work. The only man she ever was friendly with is not here now. He was discharged three weeks ago."

Holloway was referring to James M. Gantt as Mary's only male friend. Often called "John M. Gant", because that is how Leo Frank referred to him, Gantt corrected that error in an April 28th interview he gave to The Atlanta Georgian. Even so, he continued to be misnamed in headlines, stories, and other references.

It was often claimed that Gantt was enamoured with, or closer to Mary than he actually was, and Leo Frank told a detective that Gantt had been "intimate" with her, which directly led to Gantt's accusation and arrest for her murder. Though Gantt admitted that he had known Mary since she was a little girl, he denied that he was her beau.

Mary Phagan was very active in the First Christian Church. In early April, 1913, Mary was playing the lead in the play, "Sleeping Beauty", presented by the school there, and was very well received by the community in that role.

Her Last Day

Saturday, April 26, 1913 was Confederate Memorial Day, a state holiday. A parade was to be held in downtown Atlanta to commemorate the occasion. Mary had plans to go downtown, in order to collect her pay from the National Pencil Factory, and then watch the Memorial Day parade. Her regular pay day at the factory was on Saturday. She had been laid off from work on Monday, April 21, due to a shortage of brass sheet metal, so she was unaware of an announcement made later in the week that because of the holiday, the employees could pick up their pay a day earlier, on Friday.

On the Saturday of her murder, the last chore Mary Phagan performed before getting ready to pick up her pay and see the Memorial Day parade was to iron the white dress she planned to wear to the First Christian Bible School on Sunday evening, where she had hoped to win a school contest. Instead, that dress came to be the one she was buried in.

The outfit she wore to attend the parade consisted of her special lace-trimmed lavender dress that her Aunt Lizzie had made for her. Underneath she wore a corset with a cover and hose supporters, an undershirt, knitted underwear, drawers, silk garters, and hose. Her shoes were low-heeled. She also wore a felt hat trimmed with ribbons, and carried a hankerchief, a German silver mesh bag, and a new parasol.

Before leaving to go downtown, Mary ate a meager lunch of cabbage and bread, then left the house sometime after 11:30 am. It was the last time her family would see her alive. When she failed to return home by sunset, her mother became very concerned, and her stepfather, J.W. Coleman, went into town to look for her.

His first thought was that she may have gone to see a show at the Bijou Theater, so he went there and waited for the audience to exit. When he could not find Mary in the crowd, he searched the crowds from other theaters before returning home. He suggested to her mother that Mary may have met up with one of her aunts, Lizzie, Ruth, or Mattie, at the parade, and then gone with them to Marietta, to visit her cousins and her beloved grandfather, W.J. Phagan, for the holiday. This was plausible, because it was something Mary loved to do, and she had also planned to do so that Sunday, but since the Colemans had no telephone, it could not be confirmed, so Fannie Coleman endured a restless night, worrying about what had actually become of her daughter.

Phagan Family Reacts To Her Murder

On the morning of April 27th, Mary's close friend and neighbor, Helen Ferguson, came to the Coleman's house to inform them that she had received a telephone call from Miss Grace Hicks regarding Mary. When she arrived at the door, Mary's mother initially thought it was her daughter returning home, and excitedly ran to greet her, but found Miss Ferguson instead, who delivered the news that Mary's body had been found in the basement of the pencil factory, and had been identified by Miss Hicks at the coroner's office. Mrs. Coleman was deeply shocked, and following a short denial, fell into a profound state of melancholy from which she never recovered.

Mary's mother was clearly the most affected by her daughter's death, yet in the midst of her grief, she issued a warning to all mothers of working children to guard their welfare as she lay prostrate in bed in her little Marietta home. "There are so many unscrupulous men in the world." she cried, "It's so dangerous for young girls working out (of the home). Their every step should be watched. Mothers should question them and ask them about their work and associates and surroundings. They should continually tell them what they ought to do, and how they ought to act under certain circumstances...Oh, the poor baby! I did tell her what to do! I was always telling her! And she took my advice, I know, because she was always so sensible about everything. Besides, she never was a child to flirt or act silly. That's why I know that when she went away with this man who killed her she was either overpowered or he threatened her."

In the presence of reporter for The Atlanta Georgian, W.J. Phagan "cried to Heaven for vengeance for the murder of his granddaughter." Standing in the doorway of his home in Marietta, he was quoted as saying, "By the power of the living God, I hope the murderer will be dealt with as he dealt with that innocent child! I hope his heart is torn with remorse in the measure that his victim suffered pain and shame; that he suffers as we who loved the child are suffering. No punishment is too great for the brute who foully murdered the sweetest and purest thing on earth--a young girl. Hanging cannot atone for the crime he has committed and the suffering he has caused."

Mary was one of five children in her family of three boys and two girls. She and her only sister, Ollie Mae Phagan, were constant companions. Shortly after the murder, Ollie Phagan was interviewed in the family home on Lindsey Street by the Atlanta Georgian, saying, "Mary and I were always together and we always told each other everything. We slept in the same bed at night; we had since we were little bit o' kids, and we always talked after the lights were out. There wasn't a thing that Mary wouldn't tell me, and I would always advise her and tell her what I thought was right if little questions would come up between us. She was always such a good little thing, nobody could help loving her! I don't know what I'm going to do- I haven't got anybody now. I never had but one sister, and she's gone."

Following her own account of Mary's disappearance and her family's discovery of the murder, Ollie stated, "If they get him they ought to treat him just like he treated her. Oh my poor little sister! He had no pity for her, and they oughn't to have any for him. Oh God, I just feel as if I could die."

Little Mary's Funeral

Mary Phagan's funeral was held on April 29, 1913. She was buried in the special white dress she had planned to wear to a Sunday school contest, in which she was to have taken part the day following her murder, as well as a solid white casket, both seen as symbols of her purity.

Hundreds of mourners attended her funeral service and burial, so many in fact that there was not room for all of them in the little church where services were held. The Atlanta Constitution reported that, "Within five minutes every pew had been taken, every available inch of standing room was occupied and hundreds, who could not get in, were standing on their tiptoes on the steps, trying to catch a word of the services."

The choir sang "Rock of Ages" with cracking voices as they choked back their own tears. They were interrupted many times by the wailings of Mary's grieving mother. No one tried to stop her, although some came forward to offer her words of encouragement. Mainly sobbing incoherently, she was heard to exclaim, "The light of my life has been taken! Oh, God, and her soul was as pure and white as her body!"

The services were given by Rev. T.T.G. Linkous, pastor of the Christian church at East Point. His tear-filled prayer before the crowd of mourners seemed to reverberate with all present when he said, "The occasion is so sad to me — when she was but a baby, I taught her to fear God and love Him — that I don't know what to do. We pray for the police and the detectives of the city of Atlanta. We pray that they may perform their duty and bring the wretch that committed this act to justice. We pray that we may not hold too much rancor in our hearts — we do not want vengeance — yet we pray that the authorities apprehend the guilty party or parties and punish them to the full extent of the law. Even that is too good for the imp of satan that did this. Oh, God, I cannot see how even the devil himself could do such a thing."

At this point, Mary Phagan's mother stopped crying for a moment, and her grandfather exclaimed, "Amen!"

The pastor continued, "I believe in the law of forgiveness. Yet I do not see how it can be applied in this case. I pray that this wretch, this devil, be caught and punished according to the man-made, God-sanctioned laws of Georgia. And I pray, oh God, that the innocent ones may be freed and cleared of all suspicion."

Mary's Aunt Lizzie was then overcome. She shrieked loudly, and fainted out of her seat. She was carried from the church, and taken home.

The pastor then offered a brief warning to other parents to watch their children closely, even those who were as clean and pure as Mary was. He concluded his sermon by saying, "Little Mary's purity, and the hope of the world above the sky is the only consolation I can offer you. Had she been snatched from our midst in a natural way, by disease, we could bear up more easily. Now we can only thank God that though she was dishonored, she fought back the fiend with all the strength of her fine young body, even unto death. All I can say is God bless you. You have my heartfelt sympathy. That is all that I can do, for my heart, too, is full to overflowing."

At this, Mary's casket was opened, and nearly the entire crowd filed by to take their last look at her face. After the casket was taken to the cemetery, Rev. Linkous spoke only briefly. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." was all he could say before breaking off his prayer.

When the burial commenced, Mary Phagan's mother "broke down completely", and cried at the edge of Mary's grave, "She was taken away when the spring was coming — the spring that was so much like her. Oh, and she wanted to see the spring. She loved it — it was a sister to her almost. Goodbye, Mary. Goodbye. It's too big a hole to put you in though. It's big — BIG — and you were so little — my own little Mary!"

Murder

Discovery of the body

Phagan worked in the metal room on the second floor of the factory in a section called the tipping department, down the hall from Frank's office. Phagan had been laid off on Monday, April 21, due to a shortage of brass sheet metal. About noon on Saturday, April 26, she went to the factory to claim her pay of $1.20. At about 3:17 a.m. on Sunday, April 27, the factory's night watchman, Newt Lee, went to the factory basement to use the Negro toilet. Lee said he discovered the body of a dead girl, and called the police, meeting them at the front door and leading them to the body. Mary Phagan's body was found dumped in the rear of the basement near an incinerator. Her dress was hiked up around her waist and a strip from her petticoat was torn off and wrapped around her neck. Her face was blackened and scratched. Her head was bruised and battered. A 7-ft strip of quarter-inch wrapping cord tied into a loop was around her neck buried 0.25 in deep. Initially, there was an appearance of rape. Based on the ashes and dirt from the floor that were stuck to her skin, it appeared that she and her assailant had struggled in the basement.

A service ramp at the rear of the basement led to a sliding door that opened into the alley; the police found it had been tampered with so it could be opened without unlocking it. Later examination found bloody fingerprints on the door, as well as a metal pipe that had been used as a crowbar. Some evidence at the crime scene was improperly handled by the police investigators. The boards from the door with the bloody prints were removed and subsequently lost before any analysis could be done. Bloody fingerprints were found on the victim's jacket, but there is no indication that they were ever analyzed. A trail in the dirt along which police believed Phagan had been dragged was trampled and no footprints were ever identified.

Two notes were found in a pile of rubbish by Phagan's head, and became known as the "murder notes". One said: "he said he wood love me land down play like the night witch did it but that long tall black negro did boy his slef." The other said, "mam that negro hire down here did this i went to make water and he push me down that hole a long tall negro black that hoo it wase long sleam tall negro i write while play with me." The effect of the discovery was to cast suspicion on Newt Lee. During the trial, "night witch" was interpreted to mean "night watch"; when he read the note, night watchman Newt Lee said, "Boss, that's me." An undisturbed fresh mound of human excrement was found at the bottom of the elevator shaft, though the significance was not recognized until after the trial during the Leo M. Frank clemency hearings of 1915.

Two Autopsies

An initial autopsy of the body of Mary Phagan was performed by Dr. J.W. Hurt on Sunday morning, April 27, 1913, the day the body was found. Dr. Hurt testified:

"She had a scalp wound on the left side of her head about 2 1/2 inches long, about 4 inches from the top to the left ear through the scalp to the skull. She had a black contused eye. A number of small minor scratches on the face. The tongue was protruding about a half an inch through the teeth. There was a wound on the left knee, about 2 inches below the knee. There were some superficial scratches on the left and right elbow. There was a cord around the neck and this cord was imbedded into the skin and in my opinion she died from strangulation. This cord (Exhibit "C" for State) looks like the cord that was around her neck. There was swelling on the neck. In my opinion the cord was put on before death. The wound on the back of the head seemed to have been made with a blunt-edged instrument and the blow from down upward. The scalp wound was made before death. It was calculated to produce unconsciousness. The black eye appeared to have been made by some soft instrument in that the skin was not broken. I think the scratches on the face were made after death. I examined the hymen. It was not intact. There was blood on the drawers. I discovered no violence to the parts. There was blood on the parts. I didn't know whether it was fresh blood or menstrual blood. The vagina was a little larger than the normal size of a girl of that age. It is my opinion that this enlargement of the vagina could have been produced by penetration immediately preceding death. She had a normal virgin uterus. She was not pregnant. I made no examination of the blood vessels of the uterus or womb."

A subsequent autopsy was performed 8 days later by Dr. H.F. Harris, after an exhumation of Mary Phagan's body was requested by Solicitor Dorsey in order to acquire further forensic evidence. His testimony was as follows:

"I am a practicing physician. I made an examination of the body of Mary Phagan on May 5th. On removing the skull I found there was no actual break of the skull, but a little hemorrhage under the skull, corresponding to (the) point where (the) 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. I think beyond any question she came to her death from strangulation from this cord being wound around her neck. The bruise around the 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 eye and scalp were caused before death. 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 within a half hour after she finished her meal. I have some cabbage here from two normal persons. Here was (the) 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. 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 epitheleum 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 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. I could not state from the examination how long Mary Phagan was dying. It is my opinion that she lived from a half to three-quarters of an hour after she ate her meal. The evidence of violence in the vagina had evidently been done just before death. 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. 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 (Exhibit 48 of Defendant). 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."

Police investigation

On Sunday, April 27, Frank said that Lee's time card was complete. It was supposed to be punched every half hour during the watchman's rounds. On Monday, April 28, Frank said Lee had not punched the card at three or four intervals. The police investigated a variety of suspects, and arrested both Lee and a young friend of Phagan's for the crime. Gradually they became convinced that they were not the culprits. A detective sneaked into Lee's apartment and found a blood-smeared shirt at the bottom of a burn barrel. The blood was smeared high up on the armpits and the shirt smelled unused. The prosecution later claimed that the shirt had been planted by Frank in order to incriminate Lee. The Atlanta Constitution broke the story of the murder and was soon in a frenzied competition with the Georgian for readers. The latter was a formerly sedate local paper bought by the William Randolph Hearst syndicate in 1912 and revamped using his standard formula of yellow journalism. As many as 40 extra editions came out the day Phagan's murder was reported. The Georgian published a doctored morgue photo of Phagan, in which her head was shown spliced onto the body of another girl. Some evidence went missing when it was 'borrowed' from the police by reporters. The two papers offered a total of $1,800 in reward money for information leading to the apprehension of the murderer.

Suspicion falls on Frank

As Leo Frank was the superintendant of the pencil factory, he was initially questioned by the Atlanta police as a matter of course, before any suspicion was raised against him.

Suspicion against Frank was subsequently aroused by a string of circumstances and events which came to light during, and following the time of his initial questioning, and was further strengthened by elements of his own testimony, as well as that of a number of witnesses examined at the Coroner's Inquest.

Evidence Implicating Frank

Frank Denies Knowing Mary Phagan

Leo Frank initially told the police that he didn't know Mary Phagan, and that he would have to look through his payroll records to confirm whether a girl by that name worked at the factory. However, two days after the murder he informed Harry Scott, the Superintendant of the Pinkerton detectives, that an ex-employee of his, James M. Gantt, "knew Mary Phagan very well, that he was familiar and intimate with her. He seemed to lay special stress on it at the time. He said that Gantt paid a good deal of attention to her."

In his own statements to investigators, Gantt, who had known Mary Phagan since childhood, stated that although he knew her, he was not intimate with her. He later testified that Frank did indeed know who Mary Phagan was, and revealed on the witness stand that on at least one occasion Frank had commented upon Gantt's relationship with her, calling her by name, saying, "You seem to know Mary pretty well."

Phagan's friend and neighbor, 15-year-old pencil factory worker George Epps, stated at the Coroner's Inquest that Frank had flirted with Mary Phagan and had frightened her. Epps testified that Mary told him that on some occasions when she was leaving the factory, that "Frank would rush out in front of her and try to flirt with her as she passed." Epps also stated that she told him that Frank had often "winked at her, tried to pay her attention, would look hard and straight at her, and smile."

Another witness, pencil factory worker W.E. Turner, testified that in the middle of March 1913, he personally saw Frank approach, harrass, and frighten Mary Phagan, using his position as factory superintendent to pressure her into talking with him.

A number of other witnesses testified that Frank either knew, or flirted with Mary Phagan. One witness, Miss Dewey Hewell, claimed to have seen him standing next to, and talking to Mary on various occasions while she was working, sometimes putting his hand on her shoulder and leaning in close as he spoke to her.

Frank Behaves Strangely

Newt Lee testified to the police, as well as the Coroner's Inquest, that on Friday, the 25th of April, Leo Frank told him to report to work an hour early, at 4:00 pm, on Saturday, the day of the murder, but when he arrived to work early that day, Frank told him to go out and have a good time for two hours, and then clock in an hour late, at 6:00 pm. Lee said he asked Frank if it would be alright for him to take a nap in the factory instead, because he had missed an hour's sleep by having to report early, but Frank insisted that he leave the building. Lee further testified that when he arrived to work at 6:00 pm, Frank was acting strangely, trembling, and rubbing his hands, and had some unusual difficulty loading Lee's punch slip into the time clock for him.

Lee also gave his account of a situation where James Gantt arrived at the pencil factory a short time after 6:00 pm on the day of the murder to retrieve a pair of shoes he had left there. Lee said that when he was talking to Gantt about the shoes, Leo Frank exited the building, and upon seeing Gantt at the factory entrance, that Frank "jumped back" as if he were afraid of him.

Lee further told investigators that Frank called him on the phone at the factory that night, something he had never done before, to ask Lee if everything was all right. After his discovery of Mary Phagan's body, however, he continuously rang Leo Frank's phone for at least eight minutes, but received no answer.

The police later noted that Frank had not answered the phone when they too called his house at 4 am, and that he seemed extremely nervous when they took him to the undertaker at P.J. Bloomfield's Mortuary, and to the factory. They considered his detailed answers on minor points as suspect and noted his trembling in their presence.

Blood And Hair In The Metal Room

The day after Mary Phagan's body was found in the basement was Monday, April 28, 1913, which was the beginning of a new work week following the holiday weekend. When the factory workers arrived to work, a machinist, R.P. Barrett, discovered a number of long strands of a woman's hair on a crank handle of his bench lathe in the second floor metal room. Barrett had left a piece of uncompleted work in his machine at the end of the day on Friday, which was undisturbed, and he swore that the hair was not there when left for the weekend. Upon close examination, it was agreed by all of the workers present that the hair must have belonged to Mary Phagan, since no other girl in the factory had hair of that particular type and color, and no other girl came forward to claim that it was their own. There were also apparent blood spots on the floor opposite Barrett's machine which had obviously been swept over with a white lubricant the workers used, called "Haskoline". It appeared to have been purposely smeared on the floor to cover the spots.

Yet another spot of blood was found by police officer J.N. Starnes on the head of a nail on the second floor about midway between the metal room and the elevator door.

The presence of the hair and blood spots in the metal room gave rise to the theory that the murder had been committed on the second floor, and that the body was moved to the basement. As Frank's office was also on the second floor, the suspicion of him having something to do with it was aroused.

Defense Attempts to Direct The Investigation

Apparently, Frank had engaged the services of top Atlanta lawyers as early as Sunday, April 27, 1913, the day the body was discovered, before any suspicion against him had been raised, as Attorneys Luther Rosser and Herbert Haas were reported to be on hand to represent him when he was questioned on April 28th.

At the behest of the factory owners, Frank hired two Pinkerton detectives to investigate the crime. Frank's attorneys made an attempt to have the detectives deliver the evidence produced by their investigation to them before sharing it with the police. Harry Scott, the Superintendant of the Pinkerton detectives, felt this was an improper request, and refused. Scott testified that, "It was the first week in May when Mr. Pierce and I went to Mr. Herbert J. Haas' office in the 4th National Bank Building and had a conference with him as to the Pinkerton Agency's position in the matter. Mr. Haas stated that he would rather we would submit our reports to him first before we turned it over to the public and let them know what evidence we had gathered. We told him we would withdraw before we would adopt any practice of that sort, that it was our intention to work in hearty co-operation with the police."

Monteen Stover

Frank provided the police with an alibi of his whereabouts for the entire time during which the crime was believed to have been committed, repeatedly telling both Atlanta police and Pinkerton detectives that he had continually remained in his second floor office from 12:00 noon until about 12:50 pm, when he went up to the fourth floor to check on the progress of two men doing some maintenance work.

On Sunday, April 27, 1913, Frank originally told the police detectives that Mary Phagan arrived in his second floor office very shortly after his stenographer left at 12:00 noon on April 26, 1913.

In a written statement Frank made on Monday, April 28, 1913, to N. A. Lanford, Chief of Detectives, Leo Frank said that Mary Phagan came to his office "between 12:05 and 12:10, maybe 12:07", but he didn't know her name at that time. He simply says he paid her and she left his office.

On the afternoon of April 28th, Frank told Harry Scott, the Superintendent of the local Pinkerton Detective Agency, that when Mary Phagan came in to the factory to draw her pay, that he paid her off in his inside office, and as she was leaving, she turned around and asked if the metal had come yet. Frank replied that he didn't know.

A chance encounter by detectives with a Miss Monteen Stover and her mother, who went to the factory together on May 3, 1913, the next Saturday following the murder, to indignantly inquire about Monteen's overdue pay, raised more suspicion against Frank. Miss Stover had also worked at the pencil factory, and had come to receive her pay the same Saturday that Mary Phagan did, but found Frank's office vacant. Miss Stover testified that she arrived on the second floor of the factory that day at 12:05 pm, according to the large time clocks adjacent to Frank's office on the second floor. After searching both the outer office, and the inner office as well, she went back to the rear of the second floor, and found the door to the metal room locked. Assuming the building to be deserted, she then left the factory at 12:10 pm, and returned home to inform her mother that she was unable to get her money.

Frank, as well as the public, was kept unaware of the appearance of Monteen Stover during the period of his original examinations by the police, and continued to assert his claim to have remained in his office on the day of the murder from 12:00 noon until 12:50 pm. Frank pointed out at his trial that the police had refused to tell him the nature of their investigation.

In his unsworn statement to the jury at the trial, Frank explained the conflict between his earlier statements and his absence from his office during the visit of Monteen Stover by claiming to have made an unconscious visit to the toilet in order to answer a call of nature. As the only toilet on his office floor was in the metal room, where the investigators and prosecution maintained the crime was committed, this statement placed him at the scene of the crime at the very time the crime was believed to have occurred.

Minola McKnight

Minola McKnight came to the attention of the police after her husband, Albert, had related to his fellow workers a story he claimed his wife had told him concerning the behavior of Leo Frank on the Saturday night of Mary Phagan's murder. He said Minola had told him that on the Sunday morning after the murder she overheard Frank's wife telling her mother that Frank had gotten very drunk the night before; that he had refused to sleep with her, and made her sleep on the floor beside their bed; that Mrs. Frank went on to say that Frank was extremely upset, told her he was in trouble, said something to the effect of "Why should I murder?", then told his wife to bring him his pistol so that he might kill himself. Albert McKnight also claimed that Minola told him the Franks had given her a new hat and extra wages. She said it was her understanding that they did this to keep her quiet about what she had overheard.

When McKnight's co-workers informed the Atlanta police, Minola McKnight was brought into police headquarters and held under suspicion for questioning. She was grilled for many hours, and finally signed an affidavit, in the presence of the detectives, other witnesses, her husband, and her lawyer, attesting to the story her husband said she told him. Her affidavit was marked and entered into the trial of Leo Frank as "State's Exhibit J".

Nina Formby

Nina Formby provided a sworn affidavit to detectives in the early stages of their investigation of Mary Phagan's murder. In that statement, Formby told detectives that on the night of the murder, April 26, 1913, Leo Frank had called her repeatedly between the hours of 6:30 and 10:00 pm, asking her to provide him with a rented room or apartment where he could "bring a girl". She said that Frank called her six separate times, told her that it was "a matter of life and death", and that he threatened her own life when she would not rent him a room. She stated that she "was rid of him" only after telling him that she was leaving to go for an automobile ride.

After giving her sworn statement to the police, Mrs. Formby disappeared from Atlanta for several weeks, prompting both the police and the Solicitor General to carry out a widespread search for her. Police departments in several different cities were told to be on the lookout for her, as the Atlanta authorities comed the city in an effort to find her. Following her return to Atlanta, she stated that she had left town on her own accord in order to avoid the notoriety that her affidavit had created for her. Formby's testimony was not brought into the trial, however, because of her questionable reputation.

Lemmie Quinn

Frank waited a week to bring forward one crucial witness, Lemmie Quinn, the foreman of the metal department, who, after Frank's arrest, testified that he had visited Frank in his office from 12:20 to 12:25, thereby bolstering Frank's alibi, and shortening the time period that Frank would have had available to commit the crime. In an earlier statement given to Solicitor Dorsey, Quinn claimed to have gone to a pool hall that day between 12:20 and 12:30 pm. Under intense interrogation by the police, Quinn "stuck to his story", and continued to claim he had been in Frank's office during that time. After acknowledging his visit by Quinn, Frank claimed that he had forgotten, and that Quinn had refreshed his memory.

Lemmie Quinn was later criminally impeached during the course of Frank's appeals when it was revealed that he was coercing, and offering bribes to witnesses to change their stories in order to aid the defense.

James "Jim" Conley

Jim Conley, the factory's janitor, is believed by many historians to be the real murderer. On May 1, the police arrested Conley after he was seen by the plant's day watchman, E.F. Holloway, washing a dirty blue work shirt. Conley tried to hide the shirt, then said the stains were rust from the overhead pipe on which he had hung it. Detectives examined it for blood, found none, and returned it. Conley was still in police custody two weeks later when he gave his first formal statement. He said that, on the day of the murder, he had been visiting saloons, shooting dice, and drinking at home. He offered some details, such as 40 cents spent on a bottle of rye, 90 cents won at dice, and 15 cents for beer, twice. His story was called into question when a witness told detectives that "a black negro . . . dressed in dark blue clothing and hat" had been seen in the lobby of the factory on the day of the murder. Further investigation also determined that Conley could read and write, something he had initially denied.

After initially sticking to his claim that he could not write, he was threatened with perjury charges, and eventually told police, "White folks, I'm a liar." He was asked to write portions of the murder notes, and although the police found similarities in the spelling, he continued to deny having written them. The interview ended and Conley was placed in a basement isolation cell. A week later, on May 24, he called for a detective and admitted he had written the notes. In a sworn statement, he said Frank had called him to his office the day before the murder; he claimed Frank said he had some wealthy people in Brooklyn, and asked: "Why should I hang?"

e asked me could I write and I told him yes I could write a little bit, and he gave me a scratch pad and ... told me to put on there "dear mother, a long, tall, black negro did this by himself," and he told me to write it two or three times on there. I wrote it on a white scratch pad, single ruled. He went to his desk and pulled out another scratch pad, a brownish looking scratch pad, and looked at my writing and wrote on that himself.

After testing Conley again on his spelling—he spelled "night watchman" as "night witch"—the police were convinced he had written the notes. They were skeptical about the rest of his story, not only because it implied premeditation by Frank, but also because it suggested that Frank had confessed to Conley and involved him. For the next three days, two detectives played good cop/bad cop with Conley, one accusing him of the murder, the other offering him food and consolation.

On May 28, the Georgian said that E.F. Holloway, the plant day watchman, believed Conley had strangled Phagan when he was drunk. In a new affidavit (his second affidavit and third statement), Conley admitted he had lied about his Friday meeting with Frank. He said he had met Frank on the street on Saturday, and was told to follow him to the factory. Frank told him to hide in a wardrobe to avoid being seen by two women who were visiting Frank in his office. He said Frank dictated the murder notes for him to write, gave him cigarettes, and told him to leave the factory. Afterward, Conley said he went out drinking and saw a movie. He said he did not learn of the murder until he went to work on Monday.

The police were satisfied with the new story, and both The Atlanta Journal and the Georgian gave the story front-page coverage. Three officials of the pencil company were not convinced and said so to the Journal. They contended Conley had followed another employee into the building intending to rob her, but instead found Phagan was a more ready target. The police placed little credence in the employees' theory, but had no explanation for the failure to locate the purse, and were concerned that Conley had made no mention that he was aware that a crime had been committed when he wrote the notes. To resolve their doubts, the police attempted on May 28 to arrange a confrontation between Frank and Conley. Frank exercised his right not to meet without his attorney, who was out of town. The police announced this refusal was an indication of Frank's guilt, and the meeting never took place.

On May 29, Conley was interviewed for four hours. His new affidavit said that Frank told him, "he had picked up a girl back there and let her fall and that her head hit against something." Conley said he and Frank took the body to the basement via the elevator, then returned to Frank's office where the murder notes were dictated. Conley then hid in the wardrobe after the two had returned to the office. He said Frank gave him two hundred dollars, but took it back, saying, “Let me have that and I will make it all right with you Monday if I live and nothing happens." Conley's affidavit concluded, "The reason I have not told this before is I thought Mr. Frank would get out and help me out and I decided to tell the whole truth about this matter." At trial, Conley changed his story concerning the $200. He said the money was withheld until Conley had burned Phagan's body in the basement furnace.

The Georgian hired William Manning Smith to represent Conley for $40. Smith was known for specializing in representing black clients, and had successfully defended a black man against an accusation of rape by a white woman. He had also taken an elderly black woman's civil case as far as the Georgia Supreme Court. Although Smith believed Conley had told the truth in his final affidavit, he became concerned that Conley was giving long jailhouse interviews with crowds of reporters. Smith was also concerned about reporters from the Hearst papers, who had taken Frank's side. He arranged for Conley to be moved to a different jail, and severed his own relationship with the Georgian.

Hearings, sentencing, and clemency

Coroner's Inquest

From Wednesday, April 30, 1913 to Thursday, May 8, 1913, the Fulton County Georgia Coroner, Paul Donehoo, presided over an official inquest into the matter of Mary Phagan's murder.

Over 200 witnesses were called to be examined at the Coroner's Inquest, which, by order of the Coroner, included every employee of the National Pencil Factory.

Witnesses examined in the Coroner's Inquest provided testimony which compelled the Coroner and his 6 man jury to unanimously vote 7-0 to recommend Leo Frank to be held under charges of murder.

Much of this testimony came from a number of female witnesses who alleged that Frank had engaged in conduct of "undue familiarity" with certain female employees of the pencil factory. The Atlanta Constitution reported that: "The boldest statement of this character was made by Nellie Pettis, a young sister-in-law of Mrs. Lillie Mae Pettis, an employee of the factory. She declared that on one occasion, four weeks prior, when she had gone to Frank's office to obtain her sister's pay envelope, the superintendent had made an open proposal, and had even intimated the offer of money."

The conclusion of the Coroner's Jury was stated thus:

“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”

Grand Jury

On May 24, 1913, a unanimous murder indictment was returned against Frank by a grand jury, voting 21-0. The grand jury included five Jews. Historian Albert Lindemann suggests, "they were persuaded by the concrete evidence that Dorsey presented." Lindemann notes that none of Conley's testimony was presented to the grand jury and that at criminal trial, Dorsey "explicitly denounced racial anti-Semitism" and "indulged in ... philo-Semitic rhetoric."

Trial

The trial began on July 28 at the Fulton County Superior Court (old city hall building). The courtroom was on the first floor and the windows were left open because of the heat. In addition to the hundreds of spectators inside, a large crowd gathered outside to watch the trial through the windows. Afterward the defense cited the crowds as factors in intimidation of the witnesses and jury in their legal appeals. The State's prosecution team was made up of the Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey, Assistant Solicitor General Frank Arthur Hooper and E. A. Stevens. Frank was represented by eight lawyers (some of them jury selection specialists), led by Luther Z. Rosser. The defense used peremptory challenges to eliminate the only two black jurors. The prosecution's theory was that Conley's last affidavit was true, Frank was the murderer, and the murder notes had been dictated by Frank in an effort to pin the crime on Lee. The defense's theory was that Conley was the murderer, and that Lee helped Conley write the notes. The defense brought numerous witnesses who attested to Frank's alibi, which did not leave him enough time to have committed the crime.

Conley reiterated his testimony from his final affidavit. He added to it by describing Frank as regularly having sex with women in his upstairs office on Saturdays while Conley kept a lookout on the first floor lobby. Another witness C. Brutus Dalton who, like Conley, had a criminal record, corroborated Conley. Although Conley admitted that he had changed his story and lied repeatedly, this did not damage the prosecution's case as much as might have been expected, as he admitted to being an accessory.

Many white observers did not believe that a black man could have been intelligent enough to make up such a complicated story. The Georgian wrote, "Many people are arguing to themselves that the Negro, no matter how hard he tried or how generously he was coached, still never could have framed up a story like the one he told unless there was some foundation in fact." Defense witnesses testified that there were too many people in the factory on Saturdays for Frank to have had trysts there. They pointed out that the windows of Frank's second floor office lacked curtains. Though numerous girls testified to Frank having a bad character for lasciviousness, a larger number of female factory workers testified for the defense of Frank's good character when it came to women.

Frank spoke on his own behalf, making an unsworn statement as allowed by Georgia law; it did not permit any cross-examination without his consent, and none occurred. Most of his four-hour speech consisted of a mind-numbing, detailed analysis of the accounting work he had done the day of the murder. However, in the midst of his his unsworn statement, Frank inadvertently incriminated himself when he explained the conflict between his earlier statements and his absence from his office during the visit of Monteen Stover, by claiming to have made an unconscious visit to the toilet in order to answer a call of nature. As the only toilet on his office floor was in the metal room, where the investigators and prosecution maintained the crime was committed, this statement placed him at the scene of the crime at the very time the crime was believed to have occurred. He ended with a description of how he viewed the crime, along with an explanation of his nervousness: "Gentlemen, I was nervous. I was completely unstrung. Imagine yourself called from sound slumber in the early hours of the morning ... To see that little girl on the dawn of womanhood so cruelly murdered—it was a scene that would have melted stone." In its closing statements, the defense attempted to divert suspicion from Frank to Conley. Lead defense attorney Luther Rosser, said to the jury: "Who is Conley? He is a dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying, nigger." Frank had issued a widely publicized statement questioning how the "perjured vaporizings of a black brute" could be accepted in testimony against him.

The prosecutor compared Frank to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He said that Frank had killed Phagan to keep her from talking. With the sensational coverage, public sentiment in Atlanta turned strongly against Frank. The defense requested a mistrial because it felt the jurors had been intimidated, but the motion was denied. In case of an acquittal, the judge feared for the safety of Frank and his lawyers, so he brokered a deal in which they would not be present when the verdict was read. On August 25, Frank was convicted of murder, as crowds outside the courtroom chanted "Hang the Jew!". The Constitution described the scene as Dorsey emerged from the steps of city hall: "The solicitor reached no farther than the sidewalk. While mounted men rode like Cossacks through the human swarm, three muscular men slung Mr. Dorsey on their shoulders and passed him over the heads of the crowd across the street." Lindemann suggests "the powerless experienced a moment of exhilaration in seeing the defeat and humiliation of a normally powerful and inaccessible oppressor".

Appeals

Frank's appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court failed in November. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a writ of habeas corpus sought by Frank's lawyers. The Supreme Court's summation of that decision appears as follows:

"Taking appellant's petition as a whole, and not regarding any particular portion of it to the exclusion of the rest,-dealing with its true and substantial meaning, and not merely with its superficial import,-it shows that Frank, having been formally accused of a grave crime, was placed on trial before a court of competent jurisdiction, with a jury lawfully constituted; he had a public trial, deliberately conducted, with the benefit of counsel for his defense; he was found guilty and sentenced pursuant to the laws of the state; twice he has moved the trial court to grant a new trial, and once to set aside the verdict as a nullity; three times he has been heard upon appeal before the court of last resort of that state, and in every instance the adverse action of the trial court has been affirmed; his allegations of hostile public sentiment and disorder in and about the court room, improperly influencing the trial court and the jury against him, have been rejected because found untrue in point of fact upon evidence presumably justifying that finding, and which he has not produced in the present proceeding; his contention that his lawful rights were infringed because he was not permitted to be present when the jury rendered its verdict has been set aside because it was waived by his failure to raise the objection in due season when fully cognizant of the facts. In all of these proceedings the state, through its courts, has retained jurisdiction over him, has accorded to him the fullest right and opportunity to be heard according to the established modes of procedure, and now holds him in custody to pay the penalty of the crime of which he has been adjudged guilty. In our opinion, he is not shown to have been deprived of any right guaranteed to him by the 14th Amendment or any other provision of the Constitution or laws of the United States; on the contrary, he has been convicted, and is now held in custody, under ‘due process of law’ within the meaning of the Constitution.

The final order of the District Court, refusing the application for a writ of habeas corpus, is affirmed."

In a dissenting opinion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "I very seriously doubt if the petitioner ... has had due process of law ... because of the trial taking place in the presence of a hostile demonstration and seemingly dangerous crowd, thought by the presiding Judge to be ready for violence unless a verdict of guilty was rendered." In October 1914, William Smith, Jim Conley's own lawyer, announced that he believed Conley had murdered Phagan, but neither the state nor the police pursued this. A writ of error was issued allowing Frank to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard the appeal in April 1915. On April 19, in the case of Frank v. Mangum, the appeal was denied on a 7-2 vote. Holmes and Justice Charles Evans Hughes dissented, with Holmes writing, "It is our duty ... to declare lynch law as little valid when practiced by a regularly drawn jury as when administered by one elected by a mob intent on death."

Commutation of sentence

On May 31, 1915, Frank pleaded to the Georgia State Prison Commission that his sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. On June 9, the Commission submitted a divided report, two against and one in support, to the departing Governor of Georgia, John M. Slaton. The incoming governor, Nathaniel Harris, was a close ally of Tom Watson, who was against Frank, whereas Slaton had a law partnership with Luther Rosser, who was Frank's defense attorney during the trial.

Slaton reviewed more than 10,000 pages of documents, visited the pencil factory, and examined new evidence, including studies comparing Conley's speech patterns to the language of the murder notes. He told reporters: "some of the most powerful evidence in Frank's behalf was not presented to the jury which found him guilty." During the hearing, former Governor Brown warned Slaton, "In all frankness, if Your Excellency wishes to invoke lynch law in Georgia and destroy trial by jury, the way to do it is by retrying this case and reversing all the courts."

On June 21, five days before Slaton's term as governor ended and one day before Frank was scheduled to hang, Slaton commuted Frank's sentence to life in prison. "I can endure misconstruction, abuse and condemnation," Slaton said, "but I cannot stand the constant companionship of an accusing conscience which would remind me that I, as governor of Georgia, failed to do what I thought to be right.... Feeling as I do about this case I would be a murderer if I allowed this man to hang. It may mean that I must live in obscurity the rest of my days, but I would rather be plowing in a field for the rest of my life than to feel that I had that blood on my hands."

The Atlanta area public was outraged. A mob threatened to attack the governor at his home. A detachment of the Georgia National Guard, along with county policemen and a group of Slaton's friends who were sworn in as deputies, dispersed the mob. Slaton had been a popular governor, but he and his wife left Georgia immediately thereafter.

Frank was taken to the Milledgeville State Penitentiary, a minimum-security work farm, which officials thought would be more secure. About a month after he was transferred there, on July 17, a fellow inmate William Creen tried to kill him, slashing his throat with a seven-inch butcher knife and severing his jugular vein, according to The New York Times. The attacker told the authorities he wanted to keep the other inmates safe from mob violence, Frank's presence was a disgrace to the prison, and he was sure he would be pardoned if he killed Frank.

Charges of Perjury, Forgery, Bribery, and Witness Tampering

Charges Against The Prosecution

Charges were made by the defense that the police had attempted to intimidate and influence witnesses, such as the Seligs' cook Minola McKnight, and Nina Formby, the madame of a bordello. Both Formby and McKnight later recanted statements they had originally made to the police.

Mrs. McKnight had given a sworn affidavit to the effect that on the Sunday morning after the murder she overheard Frank's wife telling her mother that Frank had gotten very drunk the night before; that he had refused to sleep with her, and made her sleep on the floor beside their bed; that Mrs. Frank went on to say that Frank was extremely upset, told her he was in trouble, said something to the effect of "Why should I murder?", then told his wife to bring him his pistol so that he might kill himself.

She later recanted her statement on the witness stand, claiming to have made it only under duress, as a way to regain her freedom from custody by the police.

Nina Formby had provided a sworn affidavit to detectives in the early stages of their investigation of Mary Phagan's murder. In that statement, Formby told detectives that on the night of the murder, April 26, 1913, Leo Frank had called her repeatedly between the hours of 6:30 and 10:00 pm, asking her to provide him with a rented room or apartment where he could "bring a girl". Her affidavit was not used in the Frank's trial, however, due to her questionable reputation.

Following Frank's conviction, and during his later appeals, Nina Formby provided an affidavit for the benefit of the defense, claiming that detectives had contacted her about a week following the murder, on a tip from an unnamed source, then hounded her, and "plied her with whisky until she was on the verge of delerium tremens" in order to coerce her into making her original affidavit.

Thomas B. Felder charged the Atlanta police and Solicitor Dorsey with concocting a plot to discredit himself and W.J. Burns, claiming they were shielding the "real criminal" in order to build a case against "an innocent negro", referring to Newt Lee.

Charges Against The Defense

On April 7, 1914, Monteen Stover was taken to the office of Frank's appeal attorney Samuel Boorstein to reiterate her testimony given at Frank's trial so it could be given to defense investigator William J. Burns. She was accompanied by her mother and her stepfather, Homer Edmondson. During a certain line of questioning raised some excitement, and Monteen's parents got up to leave. Burns confronted Mr. Edmondson in the hallway as they were making their way out, and asked him, "Did you think Monteen actually went to the pencil factory the day Mary Phagan was murdered?" The stepfather replied, "I don't think anything about it, I know she did." Burns then said to him, "But she didn't go to the factory that day, I know she didn't." Edmonson replied with "some heated words" before stepping into an elevator to leave. Burns had told a newspaper reporter that he had evidence that proved Miss Stover never gone to the factory as she had testified, but he was never able to produce it.

On May 1, 1914, prior to the service of a number of subpoenas by Solicitor Dorsey, William J. Burns and Dan Lehon were run out of the town of Marietta by an angry mob, who demanded that they leave Cobb County at once, then pelted their limousine with eggs.

On May 2, 1914, concurrent with the hearing of Frank's motion to set aside the guilty verdict in the Fulton County Superior Court, subpoenas were served by Solicitor Dorsey upon William J. Burns, Dan Lehon, and others to secure their appearance for examination regarding charges of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery, and the forgery of affidavits to the benefit of the defense in Leo Frank's appeals. Lemmie Quinn, who had previously offered testimony to buttress Frank's alibi, was also criminally implicated, with charges that he was coercing, and offering bribes to witnesses to change their stories. Numerous charges were made based upon the testimony introduced at the hearing by a number of female employees of the pencil factory saying that Frank's defense team had forged affidavits in their names which allegedly repudiated testimony they had previously given for the state at Frank's original trial. Many of the forged repudiations concerned the girls' testimony as to incidents of immorality committed by Frank towards a number of the female employees of the factory, including indecent liberties, indecent proposals, and offers of money for secret liaisons.

Many charges of attempted bribery were alleged. One came from R.P. Barrett, the factory worker who discovered strands of Mary Phagan's hair on his bench lathe, and spots of blood in the metal room. Barrett claimed that C.W. Burke, and Jimmie Wrenn, associates of Frank's defense team, told him that he could make "a barrel of money" if he would change the testimony he gave at Frank's original trial. Another such charge was made by Mrs. J.B. Simmons, who was promised "a reward" by Burke if she would sign a pre-prepared false statement against Solicitor Dorsey.

Another bribery charge against the defense involved a dictaphone recording secretly made which contained a conversation about an offer by Thomas B. Felder of a sum of $1,000 to police stenographer G.C. February if he would steal from police records an affidavit by J.W. Coleman, Mary Phagan's stepfather, which expressed his satisfaction with the police investigation, along with his denial that he had given any consent for Felder to represent him in the investigation of his stepdaughter's murder.

On June 18, 1914, a grand jury indicted C.W. Burke, special investigator for Leo Frank's defense team, as a result of testimony offered by Helen Ferguson, a prosecution witness in the Frank trial, who alleged that Burke attempted to convince her to change her original testimony in the office of Frank's attorney, Luther Z. Rosser.

Lynching

Knights of Mary Phagan

The June 21, 1915, commutation drove Tom Watson to new heights of ferocity. He wrote in the pages of The Jeffersonian and Watson's Magazine: "This country has nothing to fear from its rural communities. Lynch law is a good sign; it shows that a sense of justice lives among the people." A group of prominent men organized themselves into the "Knights of Mary Phagan," openly planning to kidnap Frank from prison. They recruited men with the necessary skills for a total of 28, including themselves; an electrician was to cut the prison wires, car mechanics were to keep the cars running, and there was a locksmith, a telephone man, a medic, a hangman, and a lay preacher. The ringleaders were well-known locally, but were not named publicly until June 2000, when a local librarian posted a list on the Web, based on information compiled by Mary Phagan's great-niece Mary Phagan Kean (b. 1953). The list included:

• Joseph Mackey Brown, former governor of Georgia
• Emmet Burton, police officer
• Eugene Herbert Clay, former mayor of Marietta, son of Senator Alexander S. Clay
• E. P. Dobbs, mayor of Marietta at the time
• William J. Frey, former Cobb County sheriff
• George Hicks, Cobb County deputy sheriff
• William McKinney, Cobb County deputy sheriff
• Newton Augustus Morris, twice a superior court judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit
• Newton Mayes Morris, in charge of the Cobb County chain gang
• Fred Morris, general assemblyman who later organized Marietta's first Boy Scout troop
• George Swanson, Cobb County sheriff
• John Augustus Benson, merchant
• D.R. Benton, Mary Phagan's uncle
• "Yellow Jacket" Brown, electrician
• Bolan Glover Brumby, manufacturer, owner of the Marietta Chair Company

Hanging

On the afternoon of August 16, the eight cars of the lynch mob left Marietta separately for Milledgeville. They arrived at the prison at around 10:00 pm, and the electrician cut the telephone wires, members of the group emptied the gas from the prison's automobiles, handcuffed the warden, seized Frank, and drove away. The 175 miles (282 km) trip took about seven hours at a top speed of 18 miles per hour (29 km/h) through small towns on back roads. Lookouts in the towns telephoned ahead to the next town as soon as they saw the line of open cars pass by. A site at Frey's Gin, two miles (3 km) east of Marietta, had been prepared, complete with a rope and table supplied by former Sheriff William Frey.

The New York Times reported Frank was wearing a nightshirt and undershirt, and the lynchers had tied a piece of brown canvas around his waist like a skirt. He was handcuffed, and his legs were tied at the ankles. They placed a new 3/4-in manila rope over his head, tied in a hangman's knot so it would force his head backwards and break his neck, and threw it over a branch of a tree. He was turned to face the direction of the house where Phagan had lived, and was hanged at around 7:00 am. The Atlanta Journal wrote that the wound on his throat, caused when it was slashed in jail by another inmate, had reopened. A crowd of men, women, and children arrived on foot, in cars, and on horses, and souvenir hunters cut away parts of his shirt sleeves to take away. According to The New York Times, one of the onlookers, Robert E. Lee Howell — related to Clark Howell, editor of The Atlanta Constitution — wanted to have the body cut into pieces and burned, and began to run around, screaming, whipping up the mob. Judge Newt Morris tried to restore order, and asked for a vote on whether the body should be returned to the parents intact; only Howell disagreed. When the body was cut down, Howell started stamping on Frank's face and chest; Morris quickly placed the body in a basket, and he and his driver John Stephens Wood drove it out of Marietta.

In Atlanta, thousands besieged the undertaker's parlor, demanding to see the body; after they began throwing bricks, they were allowed to file past the corpse. Frank was buried in the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, Queens, New York on August 20, 1915. The New York Times wrote that the vast majority of Cobb County believed he had received his "just desserts," and that the lynch party had simply stepped in to uphold the law after Governor Slaton arbitrarily set it aside. A Cobb County grand jury was convened to indict the lynchers; although they were well-known locally, none was identified.

Several photographs were taken of the lynching, which were published and sold as postcards in local stores for 25 cents each, a common practice after lynchings, along with pieces of the rope, Frank's nightshirt, and branches from the tree. According to Elaine Marie Alphin, they were selling so fast, the police announced that sellers required a city license. Members of the lynch party or crowd can be seen in the postcards posing in front of the body, one of them holding a portable camera. Historian Amy Louise Wood writes that the local newspapers did not publish the photographs: it would have been too controversial, given that the lynch party can be seen clearly and that the lynching was being condemned around the country. The Columbia State, which opposed lynching, wrote: "The heroic Marietta lynchers are too modest to give their photographs to the newspapers." Wood also writes that a news film of the lynching was released, which included the photographs, though it focused on the crowds without showing Frank's body; its broadcast was prevented by censorship boards around the U.S., though according to Wood there is no evidence that it was stopped in Atlanta.

Aftermath

Immediate aftermath

After Frank's lynching, around half of Georgia's 3,000 Jews left the state. According to Frank scholar Steve Oney, “What it did to Southern Jews can’t be discounted.... It drove them into a state of denial about their Judaism. They became even more assimilated, anti-Israel, Episcopalian. The Temple did away with chupahs at weddings — anything that would draw attention.” Many American Jews saw Frank as an American Alfred Dreyfus. In part because Frank was the president of the B'nai B'rith chapter in Atlanta, Georgia, Adolph Kraus, president of B'nai B'rith, invited 15 prominent members in Chicago to form the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in September 1913, one month after Frank's conviction. Two weeks after the lynching, in the September 2, 1915, issue of The Jeffersonian, Watson wrote, "the voice of the people is the voice of God." He had capitalized on his sensational coverage of a controversial trial; in 1914, when Watson began reporting his anti-Frank message, The Jeffersonian's circulation had been 25,000; by September 2, 1915, its circulation was 87,000. On November 25, 1915, months after Frank was taken from the Milledgeville prison, members of the Knights of Mary Phagan burned a gigantic cross on top of Stone Mountain, reportedly inaugurating a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The group was led by William J. Simmons and attended by 15 charter members and a few aging survivors of the original Klan.

Frank's widow, Lucille, did not remarry. She worked at the glove counter of the J.P. Allen store, and died April 23, 1957, of heart disease. In her 1954 will, she had requested to be cremated. Before her death, Lucille requested to family members that her ashes be spread in a local Atlanta park, but a local ordinance forbade it. Atlanta magazine reported in 2003 that her ashes were stored for seven years in a local funeral home, until her family buried them secretly in a shoebox between the headstones of her parents in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery, apparently worried that a funeral would stir up antisemitic action from the local Ku Klux Klan.

(1982–1986) Alonzo Mann's affidavit, pardon

In 1982, Alonzo Mann, who had been Frank's office boy for three weeks at the time of Phagan's murder, told a journalist for the Tennessean newspaper, nearly 69 years after the trial ended, that he had seen Jim Conley alone at 12:05 pm in the factory carrying Phagan's body at the lobby toward the ladder descending to the basement. This contradicted Conley's testimony that he moved Phagan's dead body to the basement by the elevator. Mann swore in an affidavit in the 1980s that Conley had threatened to kill him if he reported what he had seen. At the time of the events Mann was 14 years old. After telling his family what he had seen, Mann claimed his parents made him swear not to tell anyone else. Mann explained that his statement was made in an effort to die in peace. He passed a lie detector test, and died three years later in March, 1985, at the age of 86.

Mann's deposition was the basis of an attempt to obtain a posthumous pardon for Frank from the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. The effort was led by Charles Wittenstein, southern counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, and Dale Schwartz, an Atlanta lawyer, though Mann's testimony was not sufficient to settle the issue. The board also reviewed the files from Slaton's commutation decision. It denied the pardon in 1983, hindered in its investigation by the lack of available records. Conley is alleged to have died in the early 1950s or 1962. The state's files on the case were lost and with them the opportunity to apply modern forensic techniques. It concluded that, "After exhaustive review and many hours of deliberation, it is impossible to decide conclusively the guilt or innocence of Leo M. Frank. For the board to grant a pardon, the innocence of the subject must be shown conclusively." At the time, the lead editorial in the Atlanta Constitution began, 'Leo Frank has been lynched a second time'.

Frank supporters submitted a second application for pardon in 1986, asking the state only to recognize its culpability over his death. The board granted the pardon on March 11, 1986. It 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 State Board of Pardons and Paroles, in compliance with its Constitutional and statutory authority, hereby grants to Leo M. Frank a Pardon.

Memorials and Historical Markers

Leo Frank

In 1995, on the 80th anniversary of the lynching, a private plaque was placed on a building near the site of the hanging; it read "Wrongly accused. Falsely convicted. Wantonly murdered." In 2008, a state historical marker was erected by the Georgia Historical Society, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, and Temple Kol Emeth, near the building at 1200 Roswell Road, Marietta. The marker reads:

Near this location on August 17, 1915, Leo M. Frank, the Jewish superintendent of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, was lynched for the murder of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory employee. A highly controversial trial fueled by societal tensions and anti-Semitism resulted in a guilty verdict in 1913. After Governor John M. Slaton commuted his sentence from death to life in prison, Frank was kidnapped from the state prison in Milledgeville and taken to Phagan's hometown of Marietta where he was hanged before a local crowd. Without addressing guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the state's failure to either protect Frank or bring his killers to justice, he was granted a posthumous pardon in 1986.

In 2003, the 90th anniversary of Anti-Defamation League's founding, a monument dedicated by ADL was placed near the inside entrance of the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, NY.

Leo Frank: The trial of Leo Frank in 1913 was motivated by the rampant antisemitism of the time. The founding of the Anti-Defamation League that same year was motivated by a passion to eradicate such injustice and bigotry. Despite his innocence, Frank was abducted from jail in 1915 and lynched. ADL remembers the victim Leo Frank and rededicates itself to ensuring there will be no more victims of injustice and intolerance.

Mary Phagan

Mary Phagan's grave was that of a poor working girl. A local Confederate veteran's group stepped up to provide a suitable marker to serve as her headstone. Thomas E. Watson also contributed, by providing a full length memorial slab which was laid over her plot. It bears the dates of her birth and death, as well as an inscription in tribute to her memory composed by Watson which reads as follows:

IN THIS DAY OF FADING IDEALS AND DISAPPEARING LANDMARKS, LITTLE MARY PHAGAN'S HEROISM IS AN HEIRLOOM, THAN WHICH THERE IS NOTHING MORE PRECIOUS AMONG THE OLD RED HILLS OF GEORGIA. SLEEP, LITTLE GIRL; SLEEP IN YOUR HUMBLE GRAVE BUT IF THE ANGELS ARE GOOD TO YOU IN THE REALMS BEYOND THE TROUBLED SUNSET AND THE CLOUDED STARS, THEY WILL LET YOU KNOW THAT MANY AN ACHING HEART IN GEORGIA BEATS FOR YOU, AND MANY A TEAR, FROM EYES UNUSED TO WEEP, HAS PAID YOU A TRIBUTE TOO SACRED FOR WORDS.

An official historical marker was erected in the old Marietta Cemetery in Marietta, containing the following text:

Celebrated in song as "Little Mary Phagan" after her murder at age 13 on April 26, 1913 in Atlanta. The trial and conviction of Leo Frank were controversial, as was the commutation of his death sentence four days before Confederate Veterans marked her grave on June 25, 1915. He was abducted from prison & lynched Aug. 17, 1915. In 1986 he was issued a pardon.

This unnumbered, and undated marker has the seal of the city of Marietta at the top.

See also

• The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921)
• Murder in Harlem (1935)

About the Frank case

• They Won't Forget (1937), film
• The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988), miniseries
• Parade (1998), musical
• The People v. Leo Frank (2009), docudrama by Ben Loeterman, starring Will Janowitz, Seth Gilliam, Jayson Warner Smith; Music composed by Jocelyn Pook

Notes

1. Rosen, Fred (2005). The Historical Atlas of American Crime. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc. p. 193. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
2. Klapper, Melissa, R., PhD. "20th-Century Jewish Immigration." Teachinghistory.org, accessed February 6, 2012.
3. For basic details of the murder, see Steinberg-Brent, pp. 95–100, 106; see p. 99 for the flirting allegation.
   • For Lindeman's comment, see Lindemann 1991, p. 239.
   • For the various interests at stake, see Ravitz, November 2, 2009.
   • For the Tom Watson quote, see Wade 1987, p. 143.
   • For the stereotyping of Conley by Frank's defense team, see Lindeman 1991, p. 245.
4. For Slaton's role, see Dinnerstein 1987, pp. 123–134.

   • Also see Time, January 24, 1955.

   • For details of the lynching, see Coleman 1991, p. 292.

   • Also see Associated Press, August 17, 1915.

   • For the souvenirs and violence, see Alphin 2010, p. 122.
5. Emory University, Leo Frank Collection, Mary Phagan Kean's list of vigilance committee's members, Folder 16
6. ^ Sawyer, June 20, 2000.
   • For the list of alleged lynchers, see Goldfarb 2000.
7. Leo Frank trial statement, Brief of Evidence, Monday, August 18, 1913, 2:00PM, Fulton County Superior Courthouse, Atlanta, GA.
8. The Selig Company Building - Pioneer Neon Company. Marietta Street ARTery Association; Levi Cohen from her maternal lineage had participated in founding the first Synagogue in Atlanta.
9. Oney, 2003, p. 84.
10. Oney, 2003, p. 11.
11. Lawson pp. 211, 250; Phagan p. 111.
12. Alphin 2010, p. 21ff, 25ff.
13. Oney 2003, pp. 4–7.
14. John Milton Gantt, former NPCo paymaster, testifying at the Coroner's Inquest, Atlanta Constitution, May 1913.
15. ^ Lindemann, Albert S. (1991). The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank), 1894-1915. Cambridge University Press. p. 251. ISBN 0-521-44761-5.
16. Alphin 2010, p. 26.
17. "Slain Girl Modest And Quiet, He Says", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, p. p. 1, April 28, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
18. "JOHN M. GANT ACCUSED OF THE CRIME; FORMER BOOKEEPER TAKEN BY POLICE", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, p. p. 1, April 28, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
19. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 23
20. ""I AM NOT GUILTY," SAYS JOHN M. GANT (sic)", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, April 29, 1913
21. The Murder of Little Mary Phagan By Mary Phagan-Kean - 1987
22. The Murder of Little Mary Phagan By Mary Phagan-Kean - 1987
23. "'I Feel As Though I Could Die,' Sobs Mary Phagan's Grief-Stricken Sister", Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, April 29, 1913
24. The Murder of Little Mary Phagan By Mary Phagan-Kean - 1987
25. "'I Feel As Though I Could Die,' Sobs Mary Phagan's Grief-Stricken Sister", Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, April 29, 1913
26. "MRS. COLEMAN PROSTRATED BY CHILD'S DEATH", Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, p. p. 3, April 28, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
27. "GIRL'S GRANDFATHER VOWS VENGEANCE", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, p. p. 3, April 28, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
28. "'I Feel As Though I Could Die,' Sobs Mary Phagan's Grief-Stricken Sister", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, April 29, 1913
29. The Murder of Little Mary Phagan By Mary Phagan-Kean - 1987
30. "WHILE HUNDREDS SOB BODY OF MARY PHAGAN LOWERED INTO GRAVE", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. p. 2, April 29, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
31. Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 1968.
32. Dinnerstein |1987, p. 1. *Oney 2003, pp. 9, 18–19.
33. Oney 2003, pp. 20–22.
34. Dinnerstein 1987, p. 4.
35. ^ Oney 2003, pp. 30–31.
36. Oney 2003, pp. 20–21, 379.
37. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" pp.46-47
38. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" pp.48-49
39. Oney 2003, p.6
40. Oney 2003, pp. 36,60
41. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 17
42. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 23
43. ""I AM NOT GUILTY," SAYS JOHN M. GANT (sic)", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, April 29, 1913
44. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 20
45. "Frank Tried to Flirt with Murdered Girl Says Her Boy Chum", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. Front page, May 1, 1913
46. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 223-224
47. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 223
48. "NEWT LEE TELLS HIS STORY DURING MORNING SESSION", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 01, 1913 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
49. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 03
50. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" pp. 3-4
51. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" pp. 10; 17; 32-33; 40
52. "Finding of Hair and Envelope Described by Factory Machinist", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, Aug 1, 1913
53. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p.10
54. "Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey - Solicitor General, Atlanta Judicial Circuit At The Trial of Leo M. Frank - Charged with the murder of Mary Phagan Published by Nicholas Christophulos (1914), pp. 83-85
55. "JOHN M. GANT (sic) ACCUSED OF THE CRIME", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, April 28, 1913
56. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 23
57. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence; STATE'S EXHIBIT B." p. 243
58. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 22
59. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 187
60. "POLICE STILL WITHOLD EVIDENCE - Frank To Be Examined on New Lines", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, May 8, 1913
61. "Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey - Solicitor General, Atlanta Judicial Circuit At The Trial of Leo M. Frank - Charged with the murder of Mary Phagan Published by Nicholas Christophulos (1914), pp. 119-120
62. "FRANK WANTED GUN TO TAKE HIS LIFE", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, June 05, 1913 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
63. "LEO FRANK'S COOK PUT UNDER ARREST", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, June 03, 1913 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
64. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" pp. 226-229; 246-247
65. "MRS. FORMBY HERE FOR PHAGAN TRIAL", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. p.1, June 19, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
66. "Quinn, Foreman Over Slain Girl, Tells of Seeing Frank", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, p. Home Edition, p. 2, May 26, 1913
67. "W. J. Burns and Dan Lehon Summoned by Solicitor Dorsey To the Frank Retrial Hearing", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 02, 1914 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
68. For example:
    • Lindemann 1992, p. 254: "The best evidence now available indicates that the real murderer of Mary Phagan was Jim Conley, perhaps because she, encountering him after she left Frank's office, refused to give him her pay envelope, and he, in a drunken stupor, killed her to get it.
    • Woodward 1963, p. 435: "The city police, publicly committed to the theory of Frank's guilt, and hounded by the demand for a conviction, resorted to the basest methods in collecting evidence. A Negro suspect , later implicated by evidence overwhelmingly more incriminating than any produced against Frank, was thrust aside by the cry for the blood of the 'Jew Pervert.'"
69. Oney 2003, pp. 118–119.
70. Oney 2003, p. 128–129.
71. Oney 2003, pp. 129–132.
72. Oney 2003, p.131.
73. ^ Oney 2003, pp.133–134.
74. Dinnerstein 1987, pp. 114–115: "The new development which stirred Atlanta and those working to save Frank was the announcement, made on October 2, 1914, by William M. Smith, lawyer for Jim Conley, the state's key witness at the trial, that his own client had murdered Mary Phagan."
75. Oney 2003, pp. 134–136.
76. Oney 2003, pp. 137–138.
77. Oney 2003, p. 138, and Dinnerstein 1987, p. 24.
78. Oney 2003, pp. 139–140.
79. Oney 2003, p. 242.
80. Oney 2003, pp. 147–148.
81. "FRANK AND LEE HELD IN TOWER; OTHERS RELEASED", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 02, 1913 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
82. "FRANK AND LEE ORDERED HELD BY CORONER'S JURY FOR MARY PHAGAN MURDER", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 09, 1913 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
83. Knight 1996, p. 1996.
84. Phagan, p. 105.
85. Oney 2003, p. 297.
86. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" pp. 174-220
87. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence" p. 187
88. "Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey - Solicitor General, Atlanta Judicial Circuit At The Trial of Leo M. Frank - Charged with the murder of Mary Phagan Published by Nicholas Christophulos (1914), pp. 119-120
89. Oney 2003, p. 303.
90. Levy, 2000.
91. Dinnerstein 1987 p. 60. Dinnerstein quotes from the statement of an unnamed "Atlantan", reported two years after the event, by the New Castle (Pennsylvania) Herald, "A mob as infuriated and unworthy of credence as that which clamored for the crucifiction of Jesus Christ ... was in Atlanta during the Leo M. Frank trial and all hands were crying 'Hang the Jew!'"
92. The New York Times, December 14, 1914.
93. ^ Woodward 1963, p. 439.
94. 237 U.S. 309; 35 S.Ct. 582; 59 L.Ed. 969
95. Dinnerstein 1987, pp. 114–115.
96. Time, January 24, 1955.
    • Also see Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309 (1915)', U.S. Supreme Court Center.
97. Dinnerstein, Leonard (1998). The Leo Frank Case. University of Georgia Press. pp. 123–4. ISBN 978-0-8203-2145-5.
98. "Slaton Here; Glad He Saved Frank", The New York Times, June 30, 1915.
    • "Begin Last Frank Appeal to Governor", The New York Times, June 13, 1915.
    • The Leo Frank Case, The New Georgia Encyclopedia.
99. ^ "Slaton Here; Glad He Saved Frank", The New York Times, June 30, 1915.
100. "Begin Last Frank Appeal to Governor", The New York Times, June 13, 1915.
101. Phagan, p. 168.
102. "A Political Suicide", Time magazine, January 24, 1955.
103. John M. Slaton (1866-1955), The New Georgia Encyclopedia.
104. For stories about the attack, see:
     • "Leo Frank's Throat Cut by Convict", The New York Times, July 17, 1915.
     • "Frank Survives Assassin's Knife", The New York Times, July 19, 1915.
     • "Frank's Assailant Before Governor", The New York Times, July 25, 1915.
     • "Frank's Head in Braces; Excessive Heat Delaying Recovery from Wound in Throat", The New York Times, August 2, 1915.
105. "FRANK WANTED GUN TO TAKE HIS LIFE", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, June 05, 1913 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
106. "Leo M. Frank - Brief Of The Evidence; State's Exhibit J" pp.110-111/226-229; 246-247
107. Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey - Solicitor General, Atlanta Judicial Circuit At The Trial of Leo M. Frank - Charged with the murder of Mary Phagan" Published by Nicholas Christophulos (1914) - pp. 91-95
108. "MRS. FORMBY HERE FOR PHAGAN TRIAL", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. p.1, June 19, 1913 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
109. "MRS. NINA FORMBY MAKES AFFIDAVIT TO ASSIST FRANK", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. pg. 1, Feb 23, 1914 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
110. "PLIED WITH WHISKY SHE LIED IN STORY TOLD ABOUT FRANK SAYS MRS. FORMBY", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. p. 1, Feb 26, 1914 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
111. "Felder Charges Police Plot To Shield Slayer", The Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta, GA, p. Extra, p. 2, May 26, 1913
112. "DID STOVER GIRL GO TO FACTORY?", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, p. p.14, April 8, 1914 {{citation}}: |page= has extra text (help)
113. "WILLIAM J. BURNS DRIVEN OUT OF MARIETTA", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 02, 1914 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
114. "W. J. Burns and Dan Lehon Summoned by Solicitor Dorsey To the Frank Retrial Hearing", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 02, 1914 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
115. "W. J. Burns and Dan Lehon Summoned by Solicitor Dorsey To the Frank Retrial Hearing", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 02, 1914 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
116. "Dorsey Calls C.W. Burke And Other Investigators For Leo Frank To Court", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 03, 1914 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
117. "LEADING FIGURES IN CHARGES OF BRIBERY IN PHAGAN CASE", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, May 24, 1914
118. "BURKE INDICTED FOR PERJURY SUBORNATION", The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, June 09, 1914 p.10 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
119. Woodward 1963, p. 432.
     • About two dozen people were lynched each year in Georgia; in 1915 the number was 22; see Oney 2003, p. 122.
120. Phagan, p. 223.
121. Alphin 2010, p. 117.
122. Superior Court
123. "The lynching of Leo Frank", leofranklynchers.com, accessed August 22, 2010.
     • The New York Times wrote at the time that, after the lynching, it was Morris who got the crowd under control; see The New York Times, August 19, 1915. Years later, he was identified as one of the ringleaders; see Alphin 2009, p. 117.
124. Wood 2009, p. 77, and figure 3.3.
125. "Parties Unknown.", Boston Evening Transcript, August 24, 1915.
126. ^ The New York Times, August 18, 1915.
127. The Atlanta Journal, August 17, 1915.
128. Alphin 2010, p. 123.
129. Alphin 2010, p. 122.
130. Wood 2009, pp. 77, 106, 148. Wood writes that Kenneth Rogers, the head of photography at the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution between 1924 and 1972, had access to at least one of the photographs, leaving it in the Kenneth Rogers Papers at the Atlanta History Center. She assumes he got it from the newspapers' archives, though the newspapers did not publish it; they accompanied their stories instead with images of the woods near the hanging, and of the crowds who viewed Frank's body later in the funeral parlor; see Wood, pp. 106, 288, footnote 59. See Alphin 2010, p. 122 for details of the souvenir sales.
131. Theoharis and Cox 1988, p. 45.
132. The Jewish Daily Forward May 13, 2009.
133. Blakeslee 2000, p. 81.
134. Woodward 1963, p. 446.
135. Woodward 1963, p. 442.
136. Oney, 2003.
137. Freeman, October 2003, p. 98ff.
138. Oney, pp. 683–684.
139. Oney 2003, p. 684.
140. John M. Slaton Memorandum on the Frank Case, 1955
141. Harry Golden, A little girl is dead, 1964
142. In 1947 shortly before his death, prosecutor Hugh Dorsey said he had the records in his possession. Seventeen years later, Dorsey's son James wrote in a private communication, "During the years since my father's death I am afraid that any old papers which he might have preserved have been lost or destroyed." Oney 2003, p. 647.
143. A journalist Pierre van Paassens, states in his 1964 memoirs that he saw courthouse records in 1922, containing evidence relating to teeth marks on Mary Phagan's body. "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." Van Paassen, Pierre (1964). To Number Our Days. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 237–8. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
144. Oney, pp. 647–648.
145. Dinnerstein, Leonard (October 1996). "The Fate Of Leo Frank", American Heritage (magazine), Vol. 47, Issue 6, accessed May 15, 2011.
146. Oney, pp. 647–648.
     • Time, March 24, 1986.
147. Dinnerstein 2009.
148. Historical Marker Dedication: Leo Frank Lynching, The Georgia Historical Society, accessed August 22, 2010.

References

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• Anti-Defamation League. "Hang the Jew, Hang the Jew", 2001, accessed December 16, 2010.
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• Dillard, Phillip D., and Randall Hall (eds.) The Southern Albatross: Race and Ethnicity in the American South. Mercer University Press, 1999.
• Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Leo Frank Case. University of Georgia Press, 1987.
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• Dinnerstein, Leonard. "Leo Frank Case", New Georgia Encyclopedia. University of Georgia, August 3, 2009.
• Harris, Nathaniel E. The Story of an Old Man's Life". The J.W. Burke Company, 1925.
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• Golden, Harry. A Little Girl is Dead. Account of Leo Frank case, 1965. Accessed June 25, 2011.
• Golden, Harry. The Lynching of Leo Frank. Cassell & Co, 1966, UK version of A Little Girl is Dead, 8MB in PDF, accessed January 3, 2012.
• Goldfarb, Stephen. "Leo Frank Lynchers", leofranklynchers.com, January 1, 2000, accessed August 22, 2010.
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• Knight, Alfred H. The Life of the Law. Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Levy, Eugene. "Is the Jew a White Man?" in Maurianne Adams and John H. Bracey. Strangers & Neighbors: Relations Between Blacks & Jews in the United States. University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.
• Lindemann, Albert S. The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank), 1894-1915. Cambridge University Press, 1991. Google Books, abridged version, accessed June 11, 2011.
• Melnick, Jeffrey Paul. Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.
• Oney, Steve. And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. Pantheon Books, 2003.
• Phagan, Mary. The Murder of Little Mary Phagan.. Horizon Press, 1987.
• Ravitz, Jessica. "Murder case, Leo Frank lynching live on", CNN, November 2, 2009.
• Sawyer, Kathy. "A Lynching, a List and Reopened Wounds; Jewish Businessman's Murder Still Haunts Georgia Town", The Washington Post, June 20, 2000.
• Scott, Thomas Allan. Cornerstones of Georgia History: Documents that Formed the State. University of Georgia Press, 1995.
• Steinberg-Brent, Sally. "The Leo Frank Murder Case," in Bruce Afran, Robert A. Garber, Jews on trial. KTAV Publishing House Inc, 2005.
• Stokes, Melvyn. D.W. Griffith's the Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time. Oxford University Press, 2007.
• The Atlanta Journal. "Leo Frank Forcibly Taken from Prison", August 17, 1915.
• The New York Times. "Full Inquiry Is Ordered; Body Saved from Burning at Hands of an Angry Throng", August 18, 1915.
• Theoharis, Athan, and John Stuart Cox . The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press, 1988.
• Time magazine. "Georgia: A Political Suicide", January 24, 1955.
• Time magazine. "American Notes", March 24, 1986.
• United States Supreme Court Center. Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309 (1915), accessed December 16, 2010.
• Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America. Simon and Schuster, 1987.
• Wood, Amy Louise. Lynching and Spectacle. The University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
• Woodward, Comer Vann. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel. Oxford University Press, 1938.

Further reading

Books, Booklets and Reviews

• Atlanta Publishing Company "The Frank Case" The Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery, published anonymously, 1913.
• Alphin, Elaine (2010). An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank by Elaine Marie Alphin, Carolrhoda Books.
• Burton, Rascoe, The Case of Leo Frank: A Factual Review of One of the Most Sensational Murder Cases in Court Annals, Girard, KS, Haldemann-Julius, 1947, accessed September 11, 2011.
• Busch, Francis Xavier Guilt or Not Guilty An account of the trials of the Leo Frank case, 1952, accessed June 16, 2011.
• Connolly, Christopher Powell (1915). The Truth About the Leo Frank Case. Reprinted in part from Collier's Weekly. New York Vail-Ballou Company Publishers. Copyright 1915 by C.P. Connolly. Binghamton and New York. Accessed May 5, 2012.
• Egelman, Sarah Rachel. Review of David Mamet, The Old Religion, accessed August 23, 2010.
• Gaines, Luan. Review of Stephen Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and Lynching of Leo Frank, curledup.com, 2003, accessed August 23, 2010.
• Lawson, John Davison (ed.). American State Trials Volume X (1918), contains the abridged trial testimony and closing arguments starting on p. 182, accessed August 23, 2010.
• Lindemann, Albert. The Jew Accused, Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank) 1894-1915. Cambridge University Press (1991). Accessed June 14, 2012.
• Mamat, David. The Old Religion. The Overlook Press, 2002.
• Melnick, Jeffrey. Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.
• Paassen, Pierre van. To Number Our Days. Origin of bite mark photographic evidence on Mary Phagan's neck and shoulder that did not match Leo Frank's teeth, see pages 237 and 238. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, 1964. Accessed February 13, 2012.

Internet Digital Media and Analysis

• Allen, James (ed.), Hilton Als, Jon Lewis, and Leon F. Litwack. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. Twin Palms Publishers, 2000.

• Also see Allen, James. "Without sanctuary", accessed December 15, 2010.

• Apel, Dora, and Smith, Shawn Michelle. Lynching Photographs. University of California Press, 2007.
• Brown, Tom W. Notes on the Case of Leo Max Frank and Its Aftermath, Emory University, Georgia, 1982. Accessed April 17, 2002.
• Freedman, Samuel J. "Never Forget", Salon, January 12, 1999.
• Linder, Douglas O. "Famous Trials: The Leo Frank Trial, 1913", University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law, 2008, accessed December 16, 2010.
• Mann, Alonzo, A few seconds of Alonzo Mann, Posthumous pardon to Leo Frank denied (1984) YouTube
• Ravitz, Jessica. "Murder case, Leo Frank lynching live on", CNN, November 2, 2009.
• Donald E. Wilkes Jr, "Politics, Prejudice, and Perjury", University of Georgia School of Law; also see "Wrongly Accused, Falsely Convicted, Wantonly Murdered", University of Georgia School of Law, accessed August 23, 2010.

Newspapers, Magazines, Periodicals, Journals

• Atlanta Journal Constitution(1913 to 1915, to 1986). Atlanta, Georgia. Accessed April 17, 2012.
• Atlanta Nation "Marietta's Shame: The Lynching of Leo Frank." Atlanta Nation
• Benson, Berry (1914). Five Arguments in the Leo Frank Case, PDF. Includes the "murder notes" dictated by police to Jim Conley after his arrest May 1, 1913. Accessed February 25, 2012.
• Berger, Paul. Leo Frank Case Stirs Debate 100 Years After Jewish Lynch Victim's Conviction. Notorious Case Raises Thorny Questions of Race and Hate. Jewish Daily Forward, August 19, 2013.
• Cavendish, Marshall (1991). Murder Casebook, Investigation into the Ultimate Crime. The Atlanta Lynching. Leo Frank: The scapegoat for a crime that outraged the state of Georgia. Accessed May 2, 2012.
• Cincinnati Post, The Cincinnati Post. "Letters probe killer's mind: Frank pleads his innocence", August 5, 2002.
• Dinnerstein, Leonard. "The Fate of Leo Frank", American Heritage, 47, October 1996, pp. 98–109.
• Dinnerstein, Leonard. Leo M. Frank and the American Jewish Community. American Jewish Archive Journal (1968) Volume 20, Number 2. Accessed May 7, 2012.
• Glover, James Bolan, V, and Joe McTyre and Rebecca Nash Paden. Marietta, 1833-2000. Arcadia Publishing, 1999.
• Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. Rutgers University Press, 1988.
• Hardwich, Richard. The Lynching of Leo Frank, Man's Magazine, November, 1963. Accessed April 17, 2002.
• Hertzberg, Steven. Strangers Within the Gate City: The Jews of Atlanta, 1845-1915. The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1978.
• Library of Congress Leo M. Frank Newspaper Archive. Containing some, but not all newspaper articles on Leo M. Frank from 1913 to 1922, accessed August 20, 2011.
• The New York Times. "Leo Frank Wrote His Own Alibi"", August 22, 1915.
• MacLean, Nancy. "The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered: Gender and Sexual Politics in the Making of Reactionary Populism." The Journal of American History Vol. 78, No. 3, December 1991, pp. 917–948
• Maclean, Nancy. Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Oney, Steve. The Lynching of Leo Frank, Esquire Magazine, September 1985, pages 90 to 104. Accessed July 15, 2012.
• Rodriguez, Yolanda. "Story of Jewish businessman's lynching gets new attention", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 14, 2005.
• Sutherland, Sidney (1929) Mystery of the Pencil Factory. The Knickerbocker Press (from Ten real murder mysteries–never solved!), accessed February 23, 2012.
• Union Recorder (Milledgeville). "Leo. M. Frank Taken from State Farm and Lynched", August 17, 1915.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Senator Tom E. Watson papers Jeffersonian newspaper archive on Leo M. Frank from 1914 to 1917, accessed August 20, 2011.

Legal Documents

• Arnold, Reuben. The Trial of Leo M. Frank, Reuben Rose Arnold's Full Address to the Court in his Behalf, Classic Publishing Co., 1915, accessed October 31, 2010.
• Dorsey, Hugh. "Arguments of Hugh M. Dorsey in the Leo Frank Murder Trial", N. Christophulos, August 1913, accessed October 31, 2010.
• Leo M. Frank, Plaintiff in Error, vs. State of Georgia, Defendant in Error. In Error from Fulton Superior Court at the July Term 1913. Brief of Evidence 1913. Affidavits, Exhibits and Trial Testimony, July 28 to August 25, 1913.
• Leo Frank Clemency File, images of original documents related to the clemency petition, including Gov. Slaton's notes, accessed October 31, 2010.
• Georgia's Virtual Vault. Georgia Archives releases high resolution color digital scans of the Georgia Supreme Court Leo Frank case file, Brief of Evidence (1913), Georgia appeals (1914), prison commission (1915), letters of support and executive clemency. Accessed June 23, 2011.
• Leo M. Frank Georgia Supreme Court collection. Archive of 1,818 slides from the Georgia Supreme Court records department (1913 - 1914) of Leo Max Frank's appeals.

Historical Archives

• American Jewish Archive. Leo M. Frank Collection 1913-1965.
• Brandeis University Leo Frank Trial Collection, 1909-1961
• Emory University Leo Frank Collection, 1915–1986
• Georgia Historical Society, Steve Oney papers, 1896–2009, MS 2361, Savannah, Ga. Accessed June 11, 2011.
• Jewish Virtual Library, Leo Frank, accessed June 11, 2011.
• New South and Leo Frank, digital archive of original images and documents about the Leo M. Frank Case c. 1905 to 1986.
• New York Public Library. Digital gallery of original Leo M. Frank Case photographs. Leo M. Frank Case defense theory on the stages of the murder of Mary Phagan commissioned by New York Times owner Adolph Ochs.
• William Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum of The Atlanta Jewish Federation. Leo M. Frank Collection 1878 to 1983.

Dissertation Thesis

• Dinnerstein, Leonard (1966). The Leo Frank Case (1966), Ph.D., Dissertation delivered by Leonard Dinnerstein (b. 1934) for the Political Science Department at Columbia University, 11MB in PDF, accessed January 3, 2012.
• Frey, Robert Seitz (June 1986). The Case of Leo M. Frank in the Continuum of American History: An Assessment of Christian Responses, Masters of Arts Degree in History, Baltimore Hebrew College, accessed July 8, 2012.
• Brown, Stephen A. (August 20, 1999). When Middle Class Ambition Met Southern Honor: A Cultural History of the Leo Frank Case., Ph.D., Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago, accessed July 9, 2012.

Dramatizations

• The Murder of Mary Phagan (1987), IMDb.com, accessed August 23, 2010. The film stars Jack Lemmon, Peter Gallagher, and Kevin Spacey, and won an Emmy in 1988.

• The New York Times. "The Murder of Mary Phagan (1987)", accessed August 23, 2010.

• Following Frank's trial and conviction, an Atlanta musician and millworker, Fiddlin' John Carson, gained notoriety by performing a murder ballad, "Little Mary Phagan." During the mill strikes of 1914 Carson sang "Little Mary Phagan" to crowds from the Fulton County courthouse steps. An unrecorded Carson song, "Dear Old Oak in Georgia," sentimentalizes the tree from which Leo Frank was hanged.
• The 1964 television series "Profiles in Courage" dramatized Governor John M. Slaton's decision to commute Frank's sentence, The episode starred Walter Matthau as Governor Slaton and Michael Constantine as Tom Watson.
• People v. Leo Frank (2009), information about this film that was previously shown on PBS.
• Jamie Saft wrote a song, The Ballad of Leo Frank. The story of Frank's trial and eventual lynching is included in the liner notes of Saft's album entitled Black Shabbis.

College Year Book

• Leo Frank entry in the Cornell University Senior Class Book, 1906, page 79, 281, 344, 345. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. 18 MB, The Internet Archive. Accessed January 28, 2012.

Template:Persondata

• 1884 births
• 1915 deaths
• Cornell University alumni
• Jewish-American history
• Antisemitic attacks and incidents in the United States
• Victims of antisemitic violence
• Victims of religiously motivated violence in the United States
• People from DeWitt County, Texas
• People from Brooklyn
• People from Atlanta, Georgia
• People convicted of murder by Georgia (U.S. state)
• Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Georgia (U.S. state)
• People murdered in Georgia (U.S. state)
• Lynching deaths in Georgia (U.S. state)
• Recipients of American pardons
• Burials in Queens, New York
• American murder victims
• American Jews