August 3, 2011 • 22 mins
In 1913, 13-year-old Atlanta factory worker Mary Phagan stopped in for her pay -- and was never seen alive again. Authorities charged Jewish superintendent Leo M. Frank with murder. But did Frank kill Mary Phagan, or was he framed? Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling a chocolate boarding and I'm fair Dowdy
And the story we're about to tell happened in Atlanta,
actually kind of in our own backyards, but we don't
(00:21):
feel too self conscious about telling it because this topic
has been requested many times by listeners, and that's not surprising.
The Leo Frank trial has been called quote, one of
the most shocking frame ups ever perpetuated by American law
and order officials, and the story involves a Jewish man
named Leo Frank being convicted, many think wrongly convicted for
(00:42):
the murder of a young girl named Mary Fagin, and
a group of men taking the lawn into their own
hands and trying to make sure that basically he paid
the ultimate price for this. But there was much more
to this story than just these acts and who is
guilty or not guilty. This was a situation about industrialism
and the injustices associated with it, race relations, North South tension,
(01:06):
so a lot of things. So it's no wonder that
it caught the attention and kind of the emotions of
the entire nation. But it's still a mystery too in
a way. To this day, people still wonder what really
happened to Mary Fagan. So we're going to take a
look at the crime, the evidence, the trial that ensued.
But first we're gonna try to talk a little bit
about the man that ended up at the center of
(01:28):
all this controversy. Leo Frank. Leo Max Frank was born
in Paris, Texas, in eighty four, but his family moved
to Brooklyn, New York when he was very small, and
he grew up there. He went to public school, the
Pratt Institute, and since he was very mechanically minded, he
got an engineering degree from Cornell University. Now, he worked
for a brief time with a few different companies, but
(01:50):
eventually he joined the family business. He went to work
for his uncle, Moses Frank, who was the principal owner
of the National Pencil Company, and that company had a
actor in Atlanta, and in nineteen oh seven Frank was
made co owner and superintendent of that location of that
factory and moved down south. So in nineteen ten he
married a native Atlanta, Lucile Selig, who came from a
(02:13):
prominent Jewish family and by nineteen thirteen, he had been
honored by the local Jewish community as one of Atlanta's
most promising young businessman, so he looked like he had
a great future ahead of him. And Atlanta's Jewish community
wasn't as big as New York's, of course, but it
was still fairly significant, and it was significant enough that
Frank probably didn't feel very isolated. He probably didn't worry
(02:36):
that much about racism. He spent most of his time working,
so he seemed to be leading a fairly successful, definitely
peaceful life. Yes, but all of that changed April twenty six,
nineteen thirteen. That's when Mary Fagan, who was this strikingly
beautiful blonde thirteen year old girl from Marietta, Georgia, so
(02:57):
just outside the city, she stopped by the Fact Street
to get her pay on the way to a Confederate
Memorial Day parade. And around this time, the state's economy
was really undergoing a kind of change. It was going
from a more agrarian economy to more of an industrial economy.
So Frank's factory, like many others, employed women and children
to perform light labor tasks because they could be paid
(03:20):
lower wages than then, so we're talking like five or
six dollars a week is what they were taking home.
So it'd saved the factory some money. And and Mary
was of course one of these workers, and she was
even making less than that at the time because she
was part of the temporary layoffs, so she had only
worked one day for that entire week and was picking
up a dollar twenty. So Mary was of course one
(03:41):
of these low paid workers, and she was even making
less than five or six dollars a week at the
time because she was part of a temporary layoff, so
she had only worked one day that week and was
only picking up a dollar twenty. So she stopped by
Frank's office that Saturday, and according to his story, she
got her money, He paid the bill, and she left
(04:03):
and she was never seen alive again. Around three am
the next day, the night watchman new Lee was on
his way to the Negro toilet, which was located in
the factory basement, and that's where he found the body
of a girl near the bottom of an elevator shaft.
She was so completely covered and sawdust and grime that
at first it was hard to even tell if she
(04:25):
was white or black. Her skull was dented and caked
in blood. Her eyes were bruised, and her cheeks were cut,
and a cord was wrapped around her neck. So at
this point Lee calls the police. He's afraid they'll suspect him,
and they come in to inspect the scene, and with
the help of another worker, they identified the body as
Mary Fagan. They arrested Lee right away, so his worries
(04:46):
were correct, and incidentally, he was held without charges four
months after that. But then the police went to get Frank.
They wanted to take him along to see the body
and question him at the site, and it was an
experience that Frank didn't not handle smoothly, as we'll see later.
He was disturbed by the side of the body and
he seemed really nervous to them. So that was kind
of the beginning of his problems, and they questioned him
(05:08):
for a long time and then formally arrested him on
April nine. But things were moving along at at quite
a clip with this investigation because police were under a
lot of pressure to find and convict a killer, and
there had been a series of unsolved murders in Atlanta
during the previous year and a half, so the city
was really frustrated, frustrated with the police, and they wanted justice,
(05:31):
and Mary Fagan ended up becoming a kind of symbol
for them. Initial reports even said that she had been raped.
That made people even more outraged. So officials moved quickly
to assemble whatever clues they could that would prove Frank's guilt,
and this is what they came up with. At first,
they thought, well, he was really nervous the day after
(05:53):
the murder, and that seemed suspicious. They were also suspicious
by the fact that he had called Lee several times
that night to see if there was any trouble, and
that was something that he normally did not do. And
then finally the fact that several employees came forward and
said that Frank quote indulged in familiarities with a woman
in his employ and a woman who ran a boarding
(06:15):
house even claimed that Frank had called her the day
of the murder, trying to arrange a room for himself
and a young girl. So this is what police were
initially acting on. On that last point, in particular, many
of the witnesses, including the boarding house proprietress, they later
recanted their accusations, but these same accusations helped Hugh Dorsey,
who was a prosecutor with pretty big political ambitions, to
(06:39):
build a case around Frank as this Jewish man who
was praying on gentile girls for his own pleasure. Four
weeks later, a grand jury used this information to indict Frank.
But there were some more clues that came in, clues
let see him a little more promising than the ones
we already went over. Real clues that seemed to be
all but ignored ultimately were these two strange notes that
(07:02):
were scribbled on scraps of yellow paper, and they were
found near the body, and they're kind of tricky to
read here, but one of them said, ma'am, that negro
higher down here did this. I went to make water
and he pushed me down that whole a long tall
negro black that who it was, long, slim tall Negro,
I write while play with me. And the other note,
(07:23):
also written in this um kind of difficult to follow style,
said he said he would love me land dab and
play like the night. Which did it, but that long
tall black Negro did by hisself. So these unusual notes
found near the body seemed like a major, major new clue. Yeah,
(07:44):
and obviously they're confusing because they contained some bad spelling
and things like that and are hard to read, as
Sarah said, But they're also contradictory. I mean, the first
one sort of seems to identify the murderer, and the
second kind of suggests that the writer was saying he
was trying to throw some bishion elsewhere. So it was
very confusing that at least something that seems like it
(08:04):
should have been pursued. The next piece of evidence was
also found near the body at the bottom of the
elevator shaft. It was human excrement, and we're gonna get
into that a little more later because there are a
few other clues involving that. But the likely owner of
said human excrement was a black janitor named Jim Conley,
(08:25):
and he had been seen washing blood out of a
shirt at the factory after the murder. So WHOA, that
sounds like there is a whole another potential suspect involved here. Yes,
in fact, there was another suspect. Conny was working at
the factory the day of the murder and even admitted
to have written those two notes when police arrested and
(08:46):
questioned him on the matter. But he claimed that Frank
had dictated the notes to him, so throwing a wrench
in this whole thing, right, And according to Leonard Dinnerstein
in American Heritage, the grand jury wanted to reconvene and
actually charged Connolly instead. But perhaps because of these political
aspirations of Dorsey's and he actually became a governor later,
(09:07):
we should throw that in action. They did pay off,
but he wouldn't allow this. He wouldn't allow them to
reconsider this. We're not really sure how he talked them
out of it, but dinner Stein suggests that quote given
Southern values, they may have assumed that no attorney would
base his case on the word of a black man
unless the evidence was overwhelming. So basically, the grand jury
(09:27):
just felt persuaded by Dorothy's dedication to this case. He
was just so sure that leoh Frank was guilty that
he was willing to believe even Jim calmly. But regardless
of how he did it, Dorsey did win out and
the trial started July nine thirteen in Atlanta. A large
angry mob showed up in attendance, and they were shouting
things like hang the Jew, and they weren't just saying
(09:50):
that outside the doors of the courthouse. They were saying
things like that in the courtroom. So yeah, it was
a really intimidating atmosphere to be in. And you have
to wonder how in the environment they could have chosen
an unbiased jury, I mean they did choose a jury,
or how an unbiased jury would remain unbiased true, I mean,
there were so many tensions going on in this scenario
(10:11):
at the time. There were class tensions. It was working
class versus a factory owner race. You know, there was
anti Semitism going on North versus South since Frank was
technically a Yankee, and that rubbed people the wrong way.
So things seemed to be working in Dorsey's favor almost
and he presented his case. He proposed that Frank killed
Fagin in a work room outside his office on the
(10:33):
second floor, and that the body was dragged to an
elevator and taken to the basement. His argument included witness
testimony that there were blood spots on the floor there
and hair on a lathe. But it didn't really make sense.
There were a lot of holes in this approach. Um,
here's just an example of a few things. For example,
UH State biologists had concluded that the hair that was
(10:54):
found on that lathe wasn't actually Fagin's witnesses also said
that those blood spots found on the floor or could
have actually been paint, and the excrement that Sarah mentioned
earlier would have had to have been mashed when the
elevator went down. I mean, every time that the elevator
went down, it completely everything in the bottom right. But
apparently it wasn't until after the body was discovered that
(11:15):
that actually occurred, that the excrement was smashed and they
smelled that tell tale smell. However, Calmly had said that
he deposited said excrement there before the murder, so it
didn't add up. But the prosecution's case really revolved around
Connolly's testimony almost entirely. Interestingly, though he had changed his
(11:35):
story several times before the trial, he had even signed
four different affidavits, but once he got in there, once
he got up on the stand, he stuck to his account.
He didn't waiver. It's very likely that he was coached
to to give this strong story in front of the court.
But he claimed that Frank summoned him to his office
that day, and here's what he had to say his
(11:57):
eyes were large and they looked right fun and then
confessed the crime. And uh calmly said that Frank offered,
but never gave him money to dispose of the body
and asked Conny if he could write, and once Connley
city could, Frank dictated the murder notes. So Frank meanwhile
had two well known attorneys acting in his defense, Luther
(12:19):
Z Rosser and Reuben R. Arnold, and most feel that
what really hurt their defense is that they weren't able
to make a dent in Connley's testimony. He just they
couldn't shake him. He just completely stuck to that story,
even though he had changed it quite a bit before
getting into court. And even though Frank had strong character
witnesses too, and and alibis people to account for his
(12:43):
whereabouts before, during, and after the murder, the jury still
found him guilty on September nineteen thirteen, and they only
took they took less than four hours actually to deliberate
what had been one of the longest trials in Georgia history,
so it's not actually their minds were made up. And
as a result of that, Frank was sentenced to be
(13:04):
executed on October tenth of that year, but the execution
was stayed by several ultimately unsuccessful appeals on the part
of his lawyers, So they made a couple of appeals
to the Georgia Supreme Court. One upheld the conviction on
February seventeenth, nineteen fourteen, and another one did the same
on October fourteenth, nineteen fourteen. His defense lawyers then made
(13:26):
a habeas corpus petition to the U. S. Supreme Court,
but the court ended up denying that petition despite the
fact that there were some strong descents to it, I
mean Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles Evans among them.
So there were some people who who were in favor
of that petition. And while all this legal stuff was
going on, there were some kind of crazy developments, including
(13:47):
witnesses taking back those accusations we mentioned that earlier, the
accusations about Frank's alleged sexual deviations, and also Conny's girlfriend
came into the picture. She came to the picture and
gave some testimony about Conley's own sexual perversion so to speak.
And Connley's own lawyer told Judge Rone, who had been
the trial judge, that Conny had confessed the murder to him.
(14:10):
So that seems like a pretty damning new piece of evidence,
I would say if there's an actual confession. But but
that had actually come to light during the appeals process,
so we should mention that it didn't really make a
difference in his appeal. He would have had to get
a retrial or something for that to have an effect.
But the last few appeal, the final appeal was made
(14:31):
to Governor John M. Slayton, whose term was almost up
by this point, and he listened to both sides. He
studied the records, he visited the scene, and he also
considered all these new things that we we've mentioned. And
after struggling with it for twelve days and it wasn't
going to take him four hours twelve days of thinking
it over, Slayton commuted Frank sentence to life imprisonment on
(14:56):
June twenty one, nineteen fifteen. And he he knew how
how serious that decision was. He told his wife, it
made mean my death or worse. But I've ordered the
sentence commuted. And as he suspected, it was a very
unpopular decision. There were demonstrations about it, there were vandalism,
took place against Jewish homes and stores around the city
(15:18):
and uh Frank had then moved already by this point
to a prison at Millageville, which was supposedly more secure,
except that after Flayton's reversal of the decision, it it
didn't prove the cure at all. No, while he was there,
an inmate cut Frank's throat and they were able to
save him. But while he was recovering, on August sixteenth,
nineteen fifteen, a group of twenty five vigilantes from Marietta
(15:43):
drove out to the prison, overpowered the guards and took
Frank with them back to Marietta, which was a pretty
long drive. So they took him back to where Mary
Fagin was from, and there a lynch mob watched as
they hung him from an oak tree. And all this
time during the drive back and before they hung him,
they truly tried to get him to confess, but he
never did. He just asked for his wedding ring to
(16:05):
be sent to his wife. So after the lynching, locals
knew the identities of the men involved, but they were
never prosecuted, and the men who didn't even sort of
used it as a rallying cry as a point of pride.
They called themselves the Knights of Mary Fagin, and the
girl's name just alone became a rally and cry for
the resurgence of the ku Klux Klan in the area. Um.
(16:27):
It was something that that people still dwelled on even
even a few years after. Yeah, a few years after,
and some people still debate about this up until today.
I mean they still debate over whether Frank was actually
guilty or innocent. Many historians seem to believe in his
innocence and Frankly, I mean, if you look at a
lot of sources um for material about this case, they
(16:50):
seemed to lean that way that he was wrongly accused.
In two an old black man named Alonso Man, who
worked at Frank's factory as a child, came for word
and said that he'd seen Calmly drag Mary Fagan's corpse
to the basement. But he kept silent about it because
Calmly at the time had threatened to kill him. And
I think he even went to his mom and told
(17:10):
her what had happened, and she was like, don't get involved.
So this didn't come to light until the eighties. On
March eleven nine six, the Georgia State Board of Pardon
and Paroles posthumously pardoned Frank, But as dinner Stein's piece
points out, this doesn't exactly exonerate him for the crime.
It was granted quote in recognition of the state's failure
(17:30):
to protect the person of Leo Frank and thereby preserve
his opportunity of 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.
So it was basically to give him back his civil
rights in a sense. And I thought it was interesting
to talk about this case because I don't I mean,
(17:52):
it is so often suggested to us. I guess a
lot of people do know about it. But for a
podcast called stephy misson history class with something that I
have had in almost every history class, I mean, from
Georgia history in middle school to high school US history
to college. It's really heavily taught here in Georgia and see,
(18:15):
and I hadn't learned anything about it growing up, oh
in in another state. So maybe it is um something
that Georgia and Georgians are are especially concerned with with
studying and make sure we don't forget this. Um certainly
this crime against somebody's civil liberties. But I'm curious to
(18:35):
hear from some of you, um, whether it's something that
you learned, if you're from Georgia, whether you learned in history,
or if you are from another state or from another country,
whether you you got taught this case. Yeah, and I'm
interested to really hear what people think about whether Leo
Frank was in a center guilty. I know that some
people still have really passionate opinions about it. I was
(18:58):
looking up the recent film I think it was from
two thousand nine called The People Versus Leo Frank, and
if you just you know, do a regular search for it,
all these articles come up and just people really passionately
talking about how they think it might be slanted or
you know, just voicing their opinions on the matter. So
I'd be interested to hear what people think. And since
(19:18):
we'll hit the hundredth anniversary in just a few years,
I'm sure it's going to be in the news even more.
But since we are interested in what you think, We're
gonna go to some litheror mail. Now we have three
pieces of real mail today and um one. Since we're
talking about classes and what you actually learn in history class,
(19:41):
I thought I would mention this postcard. We got a
Lions New York the Peppermint Village from Eric, and he
wrote to tell us how much his sixth grade class
loves the show. So I was glad to hear that
and very cool. Maybe that's something that that they'll be
learning in a few years. We got another card of
some kiddies and Key West, and um a suggestion from
(20:04):
Sonia to cover the very unusual, kind of amazing history
of Qus. I don't know himing away, maybe that might
be fun. And finally we got a whole range of
items from listener Lauren. She had visited Kahokia Um after
hearing about the podcast. She and her boyfriend went by
there and picked up all sorts of stuff. So I
(20:25):
feel like I've kind of gone to Cooke and myself
now She's sent a postcard of Monks Mound. She sent
the tour guide the English version. Thanks for for for
including that one that's probably easiest so we can we
can learn a little more about Kahokia. And best of all,
she sent us a patch that has the little Kahokia figure, um,
(20:47):
the guy who's so associated with the mounds. It has
monks ma'am, and it has a few other symbols. And
this is the second history class patch we've gotten. We
got one for Takomsa too. Oh my gosh, you know
what this means like a badge time, Like we need
to get sashes and Sasha sashes. That's eating better idea
(21:08):
I was going to say. But yeah, oh yeah, that's well,
maybe Debiliina and I'll have to go visit like a
thrift store and look for some cast off girl scout
ware and applier patches and start wearing them proudly. In
the meantime, I can display it in my cube. Yeah,
maybe we'll take some photos for Facebook. So yeah, if
you if you have postcards, we love getting them. If
(21:31):
you have patches, we could try to start a collection here.
That's you don't have to send a patch, but we
do like them. And um, just a plain old email
is fine too. We're at history podcast at house to
works dot com. We're also on Twitter and mist in history,
and we are on Facebook, so you can let us
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(21:51):
or just right to say Hi. And if you were
intrigued by the content of this episode and you want
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an article on our website called ten Controversial court Cases
and you can look it up by visiting our homepage
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(22:16):
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Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling a chocolate boarding and I'm fair Dowdy
And the story we're about to tell happened in Atlanta,
actually kind of in our own backyards, but we don't
(00:21):
feel too self conscious about telling it because this topic
has been requested many times by listeners, and that's not surprising.
The Leo Frank trial has been called quote, one of
the most shocking frame ups ever perpetuated by American law
and order officials, and the story involves a Jewish man
named Leo Frank being convicted, many think wrongly convicted for
(00:42):
the murder of a young girl named Mary Fagin, and
a group of men taking the lawn into their own
hands and trying to make sure that basically he paid
the ultimate price for this. But there was much more
to this story than just these acts and who is
guilty or not guilty. This was a situation about industrialism
and the injustices associated with it, race relations, North South tension,
(01:06):
so a lot of things. So it's no wonder that
it caught the attention and kind of the emotions of
the entire nation. But it's still a mystery too in
a way. To this day, people still wonder what really
happened to Mary Fagan. So we're going to take a
look at the crime, the evidence, the trial that ensued.
But first we're gonna try to talk a little bit
about the man that ended up at the center of
(01:28):
all this controversy. Leo Frank. Leo Max Frank was born
in Paris, Texas, in eighty four, but his family moved
to Brooklyn, New York when he was very small, and
he grew up there. He went to public school, the
Pratt Institute, and since he was very mechanically minded, he
got an engineering degree from Cornell University. Now, he worked
for a brief time with a few different companies, but
(01:50):
eventually he joined the family business. He went to work
for his uncle, Moses Frank, who was the principal owner
of the National Pencil Company, and that company had a
actor in Atlanta, and in nineteen oh seven Frank was
made co owner and superintendent of that location of that
factory and moved down south. So in nineteen ten he
married a native Atlanta, Lucile Selig, who came from a
(02:13):
prominent Jewish family and by nineteen thirteen, he had been
honored by the local Jewish community as one of Atlanta's
most promising young businessman, so he looked like he had
a great future ahead of him. And Atlanta's Jewish community
wasn't as big as New York's, of course, but it
was still fairly significant, and it was significant enough that
Frank probably didn't feel very isolated. He probably didn't worry
(02:36):
that much about racism. He spent most of his time working,
so he seemed to be leading a fairly successful, definitely
peaceful life. Yes, but all of that changed April twenty six,
nineteen thirteen. That's when Mary Fagan, who was this strikingly
beautiful blonde thirteen year old girl from Marietta, Georgia, so
(02:57):
just outside the city, she stopped by the Fact Street
to get her pay on the way to a Confederate
Memorial Day parade. And around this time, the state's economy
was really undergoing a kind of change. It was going
from a more agrarian economy to more of an industrial economy.
So Frank's factory, like many others, employed women and children
to perform light labor tasks because they could be paid
(03:20):
lower wages than then, so we're talking like five or
six dollars a week is what they were taking home.
So it'd saved the factory some money. And and Mary
was of course one of these workers, and she was
even making less than that at the time because she
was part of the temporary layoffs, so she had only
worked one day for that entire week and was picking
up a dollar twenty. So Mary was of course one
(03:41):
of these low paid workers, and she was even making
less than five or six dollars a week at the
time because she was part of a temporary layoff, so
she had only worked one day that week and was
only picking up a dollar twenty. So she stopped by
Frank's office that Saturday, and according to his story, she
got her money, He paid the bill, and she left
(04:03):
and she was never seen alive again. Around three am
the next day, the night watchman new Lee was on
his way to the Negro toilet, which was located in
the factory basement, and that's where he found the body
of a girl near the bottom of an elevator shaft.
She was so completely covered and sawdust and grime that
at first it was hard to even tell if she
(04:25):
was white or black. Her skull was dented and caked
in blood. Her eyes were bruised, and her cheeks were cut,
and a cord was wrapped around her neck. So at
this point Lee calls the police. He's afraid they'll suspect him,
and they come in to inspect the scene, and with
the help of another worker, they identified the body as
Mary Fagan. They arrested Lee right away, so his worries
(04:46):
were correct, and incidentally, he was held without charges four
months after that. But then the police went to get Frank.
They wanted to take him along to see the body
and question him at the site, and it was an
experience that Frank didn't not handle smoothly, as we'll see later.
He was disturbed by the side of the body and
he seemed really nervous to them. So that was kind
of the beginning of his problems, and they questioned him
(05:08):
for a long time and then formally arrested him on
April nine. But things were moving along at at quite
a clip with this investigation because police were under a
lot of pressure to find and convict a killer, and
there had been a series of unsolved murders in Atlanta
during the previous year and a half, so the city
was really frustrated, frustrated with the police, and they wanted justice,
(05:31):
and Mary Fagan ended up becoming a kind of symbol
for them. Initial reports even said that she had been raped.
That made people even more outraged. So officials moved quickly
to assemble whatever clues they could that would prove Frank's guilt,
and this is what they came up with. At first,
they thought, well, he was really nervous the day after
(05:53):
the murder, and that seemed suspicious. They were also suspicious
by the fact that he had called Lee several times
that night to see if there was any trouble, and
that was something that he normally did not do. And
then finally the fact that several employees came forward and
said that Frank quote indulged in familiarities with a woman
in his employ and a woman who ran a boarding
(06:15):
house even claimed that Frank had called her the day
of the murder, trying to arrange a room for himself
and a young girl. So this is what police were
initially acting on. On that last point, in particular, many
of the witnesses, including the boarding house proprietress, they later
recanted their accusations, but these same accusations helped Hugh Dorsey,
who was a prosecutor with pretty big political ambitions, to
(06:39):
build a case around Frank as this Jewish man who
was praying on gentile girls for his own pleasure. Four
weeks later, a grand jury used this information to indict Frank.
But there were some more clues that came in, clues
let see him a little more promising than the ones
we already went over. Real clues that seemed to be
all but ignored ultimately were these two strange notes that
(07:02):
were scribbled on scraps of yellow paper, and they were
found near the body, and they're kind of tricky to
read here, but one of them said, ma'am, that negro
higher down here did this. I went to make water
and he pushed me down that whole a long tall
negro black that who it was, long, slim tall Negro,
I write while play with me. And the other note,
(07:23):
also written in this um kind of difficult to follow style,
said he said he would love me land dab and
play like the night. Which did it, but that long
tall black Negro did by hisself. So these unusual notes
found near the body seemed like a major, major new clue. Yeah,
(07:44):
and obviously they're confusing because they contained some bad spelling
and things like that and are hard to read, as
Sarah said, But they're also contradictory. I mean, the first
one sort of seems to identify the murderer, and the
second kind of suggests that the writer was saying he
was trying to throw some bishion elsewhere. So it was
very confusing that at least something that seems like it
(08:04):
should have been pursued. The next piece of evidence was
also found near the body at the bottom of the
elevator shaft. It was human excrement, and we're gonna get
into that a little more later because there are a
few other clues involving that. But the likely owner of
said human excrement was a black janitor named Jim Conley,
(08:25):
and he had been seen washing blood out of a
shirt at the factory after the murder. So WHOA, that
sounds like there is a whole another potential suspect involved here. Yes,
in fact, there was another suspect. Conny was working at
the factory the day of the murder and even admitted
to have written those two notes when police arrested and
(08:46):
questioned him on the matter. But he claimed that Frank
had dictated the notes to him, so throwing a wrench
in this whole thing, right, And according to Leonard Dinnerstein
in American Heritage, the grand jury wanted to reconvene and
actually charged Connolly instead. But perhaps because of these political
aspirations of Dorsey's and he actually became a governor later,
(09:07):
we should throw that in action. They did pay off,
but he wouldn't allow this. He wouldn't allow them to
reconsider this. We're not really sure how he talked them
out of it, but dinner Stein suggests that quote given
Southern values, they may have assumed that no attorney would
base his case on the word of a black man
unless the evidence was overwhelming. So basically, the grand jury
(09:27):
just felt persuaded by Dorothy's dedication to this case. He
was just so sure that leoh Frank was guilty that
he was willing to believe even Jim calmly. But regardless
of how he did it, Dorsey did win out and
the trial started July nine thirteen in Atlanta. A large
angry mob showed up in attendance, and they were shouting
things like hang the Jew, and they weren't just saying
(09:50):
that outside the doors of the courthouse. They were saying
things like that in the courtroom. So yeah, it was
a really intimidating atmosphere to be in. And you have
to wonder how in the environment they could have chosen
an unbiased jury, I mean they did choose a jury,
or how an unbiased jury would remain unbiased true, I mean,
there were so many tensions going on in this scenario
(10:11):
at the time. There were class tensions. It was working
class versus a factory owner race. You know, there was
anti Semitism going on North versus South since Frank was
technically a Yankee, and that rubbed people the wrong way.
So things seemed to be working in Dorsey's favor almost
and he presented his case. He proposed that Frank killed
Fagin in a work room outside his office on the
(10:33):
second floor, and that the body was dragged to an
elevator and taken to the basement. His argument included witness
testimony that there were blood spots on the floor there
and hair on a lathe. But it didn't really make sense.
There were a lot of holes in this approach. Um,
here's just an example of a few things. For example,
UH State biologists had concluded that the hair that was
(10:54):
found on that lathe wasn't actually Fagin's witnesses also said
that those blood spots found on the floor or could
have actually been paint, and the excrement that Sarah mentioned
earlier would have had to have been mashed when the
elevator went down. I mean, every time that the elevator
went down, it completely everything in the bottom right. But
apparently it wasn't until after the body was discovered that
(11:15):
that actually occurred, that the excrement was smashed and they
smelled that tell tale smell. However, Calmly had said that
he deposited said excrement there before the murder, so it
didn't add up. But the prosecution's case really revolved around
Connolly's testimony almost entirely. Interestingly, though he had changed his
(11:35):
story several times before the trial, he had even signed
four different affidavits, but once he got in there, once
he got up on the stand, he stuck to his account.
He didn't waiver. It's very likely that he was coached
to to give this strong story in front of the court.
But he claimed that Frank summoned him to his office
that day, and here's what he had to say his
(11:57):
eyes were large and they looked right fun and then
confessed the crime. And uh calmly said that Frank offered,
but never gave him money to dispose of the body
and asked Conny if he could write, and once Connley
city could, Frank dictated the murder notes. So Frank meanwhile
had two well known attorneys acting in his defense, Luther
(12:19):
Z Rosser and Reuben R. Arnold, and most feel that
what really hurt their defense is that they weren't able
to make a dent in Connley's testimony. He just they
couldn't shake him. He just completely stuck to that story,
even though he had changed it quite a bit before
getting into court. And even though Frank had strong character
witnesses too, and and alibis people to account for his
(12:43):
whereabouts before, during, and after the murder, the jury still
found him guilty on September nineteen thirteen, and they only
took they took less than four hours actually to deliberate
what had been one of the longest trials in Georgia history,
so it's not actually their minds were made up. And
as a result of that, Frank was sentenced to be
(13:04):
executed on October tenth of that year, but the execution
was stayed by several ultimately unsuccessful appeals on the part
of his lawyers, So they made a couple of appeals
to the Georgia Supreme Court. One upheld the conviction on
February seventeenth, nineteen fourteen, and another one did the same
on October fourteenth, nineteen fourteen. His defense lawyers then made
(13:26):
a habeas corpus petition to the U. S. Supreme Court,
but the court ended up denying that petition despite the
fact that there were some strong descents to it, I
mean Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles Evans among them.
So there were some people who who were in favor
of that petition. And while all this legal stuff was
going on, there were some kind of crazy developments, including
(13:47):
witnesses taking back those accusations we mentioned that earlier, the
accusations about Frank's alleged sexual deviations, and also Conny's girlfriend
came into the picture. She came to the picture and
gave some testimony about Conley's own sexual perversion so to speak.
And Connley's own lawyer told Judge Rone, who had been
the trial judge, that Conny had confessed the murder to him.
(14:10):
So that seems like a pretty damning new piece of evidence,
I would say if there's an actual confession. But but
that had actually come to light during the appeals process,
so we should mention that it didn't really make a
difference in his appeal. He would have had to get
a retrial or something for that to have an effect.
But the last few appeal, the final appeal was made
(14:31):
to Governor John M. Slayton, whose term was almost up
by this point, and he listened to both sides. He
studied the records, he visited the scene, and he also
considered all these new things that we we've mentioned. And
after struggling with it for twelve days and it wasn't
going to take him four hours twelve days of thinking
it over, Slayton commuted Frank sentence to life imprisonment on
(14:56):
June twenty one, nineteen fifteen. And he he knew how
how serious that decision was. He told his wife, it
made mean my death or worse. But I've ordered the
sentence commuted. And as he suspected, it was a very
unpopular decision. There were demonstrations about it, there were vandalism,
took place against Jewish homes and stores around the city
(15:18):
and uh Frank had then moved already by this point
to a prison at Millageville, which was supposedly more secure,
except that after Flayton's reversal of the decision, it it
didn't prove the cure at all. No, while he was there,
an inmate cut Frank's throat and they were able to
save him. But while he was recovering, on August sixteenth,
nineteen fifteen, a group of twenty five vigilantes from Marietta
(15:43):
drove out to the prison, overpowered the guards and took
Frank with them back to Marietta, which was a pretty
long drive. So they took him back to where Mary
Fagin was from, and there a lynch mob watched as
they hung him from an oak tree. And all this
time during the drive back and before they hung him,
they truly tried to get him to confess, but he
never did. He just asked for his wedding ring to
(16:05):
be sent to his wife. So after the lynching, locals
knew the identities of the men involved, but they were
never prosecuted, and the men who didn't even sort of
used it as a rallying cry as a point of pride.
They called themselves the Knights of Mary Fagin, and the
girl's name just alone became a rally and cry for
the resurgence of the ku Klux Klan in the area. Um.
(16:27):
It was something that that people still dwelled on even
even a few years after. Yeah, a few years after,
and some people still debate about this up until today.
I mean they still debate over whether Frank was actually
guilty or innocent. Many historians seem to believe in his
innocence and Frankly, I mean, if you look at a
lot of sources um for material about this case, they
(16:50):
seemed to lean that way that he was wrongly accused.
In two an old black man named Alonso Man, who
worked at Frank's factory as a child, came for word
and said that he'd seen Calmly drag Mary Fagan's corpse
to the basement. But he kept silent about it because
Calmly at the time had threatened to kill him. And
I think he even went to his mom and told
(17:10):
her what had happened, and she was like, don't get involved.
So this didn't come to light until the eighties. On
March eleven nine six, the Georgia State Board of Pardon
and Paroles posthumously pardoned Frank, But as dinner Stein's piece
points out, this doesn't exactly exonerate him for the crime.
It was granted quote in recognition of the state's failure
(17:30):
to protect the person of Leo Frank and thereby preserve
his opportunity of 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.
So it was basically to give him back his civil
rights in a sense. And I thought it was interesting
to talk about this case because I don't I mean,
(17:52):
it is so often suggested to us. I guess a
lot of people do know about it. But for a
podcast called stephy misson history class with something that I
have had in almost every history class, I mean, from
Georgia history in middle school to high school US history
to college. It's really heavily taught here in Georgia and see,
(18:15):
and I hadn't learned anything about it growing up, oh
in in another state. So maybe it is um something
that Georgia and Georgians are are especially concerned with with
studying and make sure we don't forget this. Um certainly
this crime against somebody's civil liberties. But I'm curious to
(18:35):
hear from some of you, um, whether it's something that
you learned, if you're from Georgia, whether you learned in history,
or if you are from another state or from another country,
whether you you got taught this case. Yeah, and I'm
interested to really hear what people think about whether Leo
Frank was in a center guilty. I know that some
people still have really passionate opinions about it. I was
(18:58):
looking up the recent film I think it was from
two thousand nine called The People Versus Leo Frank, and
if you just you know, do a regular search for it,
all these articles come up and just people really passionately
talking about how they think it might be slanted or
you know, just voicing their opinions on the matter. So
I'd be interested to hear what people think. And since
(19:18):
we'll hit the hundredth anniversary in just a few years,
I'm sure it's going to be in the news even more.
But since we are interested in what you think, We're
gonna go to some litheror mail. Now we have three
pieces of real mail today and um one. Since we're
talking about classes and what you actually learn in history class,
(19:41):
I thought I would mention this postcard. We got a
Lions New York the Peppermint Village from Eric, and he
wrote to tell us how much his sixth grade class
loves the show. So I was glad to hear that
and very cool. Maybe that's something that that they'll be
learning in a few years. We got another card of
some kiddies and Key West, and um a suggestion from
(20:04):
Sonia to cover the very unusual, kind of amazing history
of Qus. I don't know himing away, maybe that might
be fun. And finally we got a whole range of
items from listener Lauren. She had visited Kahokia Um after
hearing about the podcast. She and her boyfriend went by
there and picked up all sorts of stuff. So I
(20:25):
feel like I've kind of gone to Cooke and myself
now She's sent a postcard of Monks Mound. She sent
the tour guide the English version. Thanks for for for
including that one that's probably easiest so we can we
can learn a little more about Kahokia. And best of all,
she sent us a patch that has the little Kahokia figure, um,
(20:47):
the guy who's so associated with the mounds. It has
monks ma'am, and it has a few other symbols. And
this is the second history class patch we've gotten. We
got one for Takomsa too. Oh my gosh, you know
what this means like a badge time, Like we need
to get sashes and Sasha sashes. That's eating better idea
(21:08):
I was going to say. But yeah, oh yeah, that's well,
maybe Debiliina and I'll have to go visit like a
thrift store and look for some cast off girl scout
ware and applier patches and start wearing them proudly. In
the meantime, I can display it in my cube. Yeah,
maybe we'll take some photos for Facebook. So yeah, if
you if you have postcards, we love getting them. If
(21:31):
you have patches, we could try to start a collection here.
That's you don't have to send a patch, but we
do like them. And um, just a plain old email
is fine too. We're at history podcast at house to
works dot com. We're also on Twitter and mist in history,
and we are on Facebook, so you can let us
know about what you learned in history class, give us suggestions,
(21:51):
or just right to say Hi. And if you were
intrigued by the content of this episode and you want
to see a little more like it when, we have
an article on our website called ten Controversial court Cases
and you can look it up by visiting our homepage
and typing in controversial court cases at www dot how
stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our
(22:16):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how stuf
Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
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