392. Leo Frank and the Murder of Mary Phagan Part 1 of 3 -- The Devil Went Down to Georgia

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Today on The Prosecutors. Every murder is consequential, but few change the history of America. This is the story of one of them, the murder of Mary Fagan. ♪♪ Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of The Prosecutors. I'm Brett. And I'm joined, as always, by my toll co-host, Alice. Toll? Toll. Like, for whom the bell tolls? Something like that. I'm told that in German, toll means awesome. Oh. I will take that. I don't think you've called me that. For some reason, the non-English words I really remember, because you usually pronounce them so greatly. That one was easy. That one was easy. And they said it's pronounced just like that. Toll. Toll. Toll. Well, it's a beautiful way of saying it. And also, for whom the bell tolls is a beautiful poem. Hey, it's a great book. If you haven't read it, it's fantastic. It's about the Spanish Civil War. It's probably my favorite Ernest Hemingway novel, actually. I'm not a huge fan of Ernest Hemingway. Not gonna lie. Not my favorite author. I thought The Fisherman in the Sea was stupid. It took me decades to get it. And even once I got it, I wasn't like, it's not my cup of tea. You know what I mean? But for whom the bell tolls. Fantastic. Good book. Fantastic. Check it out. Not as good as The Great Gatsby. But really good. We all know. We all know about you and The Great Gatsby. But maybe not as good as the case we're going to cover tonight. That's right. Which was going on before The Great Gatsby was written. This is an old case. But it is one of the most famous cases in American history. Even if you haven't heard of it, you should have. When it happened, it was the case of the century. It was a case that everyone was talking about, even though this goes all the way back to 1913. This is in the teens. There's no television. There's no internet. Nobody's tweeting. But this was a story that captivated the entire nation. It really divided the nation. And it became one of the most historically significant cases that you're going to find. And what's wild about it is recently it's become a bit of a hot topic, strangely. This is one of the original innocence cases we're going to talk about. It is Leo Frank and the murder of Mary Fagan. And I don't know. I guess there's nothing new under the sun. I've noticed lately people have been arguing about this case online. And I thought, hey, we should cover it. So we're going to cover it. We're going to talk about the trial, about the murder. We're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about the person who was eventually convicted of this crime, whether they did it, whether they were innocent, whether there was an injustice, who actually committed this crime. If they didn't, we're going to just solve all your centuries old questions. Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to talk a lot about history because this is a very historically, not only historically significant case, but it's steeped in a lot of things that happened and inadvertently changed the course of America, as you're going to see. So really big one. If you haven't heard about it, you're going to enjoy it. So I think that's probably enough prologue. Let's dive in. Mary Ann Fagan was born on June 1st, 1899 in Florence, Alabama. Roll Tud, Mary Ann. The youngest child of William Joseph Fagan and Francis Fanny Benton Fagan. Unfortunately, her father died when Mary was very young. And her mother later moved the family to Georgia. There was a lot of opportunity in the Atlanta area. And Mary would spend much of her childhood in and around Marietta, East Point and Atlanta. A place where I, too, grew up. But a hundred years later. So Mary grew up in a working class family at a time when child labor was common, especially in the industrializing cities of the South. Like many children of poor families, she went to work. Early. And by the age of 13, she was employed at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, where she operated a machine that inserted erasers into metal pencil tips. Things that you see today, in fact. Now, she earned only a small wage, but her work helped support her family, which is why she and many thousands of children worked. Yeah. And this really is a glimpse into the past because Mary's only 13. Going on 14 years old when the events that we're going to talk about happen. But a lot of it centers around her job at this pencil factory. So just a different time. And on April 26th, 1913, it was Confederate Memorial Day. Now, Confederate Memorial Day used to be a big holiday in the South, particularly around this time. In 1913, that's only what? Let's see, 35 plus 13. 48 years after the end of the Civil War. So a lot of the people would have had family members who had died in the Civil War. And Memorial Day was something that was created in both the North and the South to commemorate people who had lost their lives in the war. So it was a big deal at the time. People often, they would decorate graves like they do now, but there would also be parades. It was a day off. And you might not believe it, but it's true. But here in Alabama, Confederate Memorial Day is still a state holiday. So you get that day off. When I worked for the state, there are two Confederate holidays, Confederate Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis's birthday. So I would usually work both those days because if you worked them, you could bank them and you could use them anytime you wanted to. And then people who lived in Mobile also got Mardi Gras off, which I always thought was interesting. Only people who lived in Mobile got Mardi Gras. To be fair, it's because all the roads would get blocked off and you couldn't get into the office. That's true. And people in Mobile take Mardi Gras very seriously. They will tell you they invented Mardi Gras. It wasn't New Orleans. I'll let the people from New Orleans and Mobile, they can fight it out. But yeah, this was a big deal at the time. When I was growing up, we also had King Lee Day, which was Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and Robert E. Lee's birthday, which I guess are the same day. They were celebrated on the same day. Now, I think they've just changed it to Martin Luther King's birthday. But there used to be a lot of Confederate holidays in the South, and this was a big deal. And it's a day off. And so on this day, Mary's going to go down and see the parade. But first, she's going to stop by the National Pencil Factory to collect her pay. She had been laid off because of that. because of a shortage of metal but the company still owed her wages i think she'd only worked like one or two days in the last shift but they owed her a couple bucks and she was going to take that money she was going to go down to the parade you know buy some cotton candy whatever it is you did in 1913 and have a good time so she enters the factory right around noon it's a little unclear exactly when she gets there but it's about midday and she receives her pay from leo frank leo frank is the factory superintendent she intended to collect her money and then go down to the parade celebrate this holiday to honor the confederate dead which i think really was more of just a fun day especially for someone who's only 13 years old but she never came home and so what was supposed to be a joyous day turnly quick to horror because early the next morning mary's body was found in the basement of the factory by the night watchers watchmen she had been strangled and horrifically appeared to have been assaulted now this murder horrified atlanta mary was just a young girl from a poor family and her death quickly became a symbol of the vulnerability of working girls in the city's factories newspapers seized on the story and public outrage grew rapidly you can see how this becomes a flashpoint right the big city all the dangers of the city and young girl has to go work to support her family and to her peril she you her life ends there so this investigation soon focused on none other than leo frank the superintendent who had paid mary shortly before her death what happened next would change the course of the nation insurance isn't one size fits all and shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit that's why drivers have enjoyed progressives name your price tool for years with the name your price tool you tell them what you want to pay and they show you options that fit your budget enough hunting for 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number one rating based on 2024 filings with state departments of insurance so let's talk about leo frank leo frank was born april 17th 1884 in cuero texas to parents rudolph and rachel frank his parents both of whom were german jews were from new york and despite moving to cuero for a few years for rudolph's work they had then moved back to brooklyn new york shortly after leo was born he had one sibling a younger sister named marion and of course the fact that leo frank is jewish this is the south it's 1913 that's going to come to play a big role in this case and how it progresses so leo he was a smart boy he completed middle school in the new york public school system before being accepted into the pratt institute in 1906 he earned a bs in engineering from cornell university he then completed an apprenticeship in germany with the pencil manufacturer eberhard faber after college he briefly worked as a draftsman for the bf sturdivant company in hyde park massachusetts but that didn't last long because in 1907 he moved to atlanta georgia to work as superintendent for the national pencil company his uncle moses was part owner of the company so it was the next logical step for leo's career so in 1910 leo married lucille selig a young woman from a prominent jewish family in 1912 he became president of the local chapter by all accounts leo and lucille were living a happily married life together until 1913 it was then that leo's life took a drastic turn when mary fagan that 13 year old employee of leo's was found brutally murdered in the basement of the factory that he managed so i know we've let up saying that all of this is going to lead to drastic changes that really set the course of our history of our history of our history of our history of the country that we just celebrated the 250th anniversary of but how so let's go back in time april 26 1913 confederate memorial day in atlanta georgia around noon that day mary fagan stopped at the national pencil company on her way to atlanta's confederate memorial day parade to collect her one dollar and 20 cent paycheck frank who was the supervisor gave her that paycheck mary worked at the factory earning just a little bit of money and she was able to get a job at the confederate 10 cents an hour to help support her widowed mother who ran a boarding house okay so that's april 26 april 27 1913 so she's gone off to do this but she never comes home then at 3 30 a.m it's the next morning in the factory's night watchman newt lee finds mary's body in the she's 13 something horrible has happened he immediately reports his findings to the police and the police when they come back they arrive to a brutal scene 13 year old mary has been beaten raped and ultimately strangled with a cord and a pair of blood-soaked underwear two of the strangest notes in true crime history were found with her body they read i'm gonna do the best i can because these are as you'll see basically unintelligible so i'm going to go ahead and okay once again so mary is dead she's been beaten she has a severe head wound she's been strangled she's been raped horrific things have happened to her and then there are these pieces of paper next to her they have writing on them the first one says he said he would love me and land down play like night witch did it but that long tall black negro did boy himself so that's what one of the notes says the other one says ma'am that that Negro hire down here did this, I went to water and he pushed me down that hole a long tall Negro black that who it was long slim tall Negro I write while play with me so apparently the notes are intended to appear to come from Mary and that she is writing these notes apparently while she's being beaten while she's being raped while she's being strangled these are her this is who did it notes and she's accusing someone apparently a black employee of the factory or someone associated with a factory she's accusing this person in these notes that are obviously very poorly written very difficult to read and it's very strange that these two notes are found with her body if you look at the notes obvious no punctuation obvious spelling errors and not to mention it would have been just about impossible for her to have written this based on the brutally beaten state that she was found in so that very same day police arrested both Newt Lee and a man named Arthur Mullinax on suspicion of the murder Lee was arrested and questioned as he was the one who found the body we've always said if you find a body you're gonna be a suspect one of the main suspects until you're cleared back then I guess instead of just being a suspect they immediately arrested him so Newt Lee is questioned now Mullinax was an ex streetcar driver who was known to drive Mary to and from work a witness came forward and said that she had seen him with Mary the day she had died and that Mary looked dazed or drugged but both men were adamant that they were innocent in this case is another great example of how witness testimony is problematic because they're gonna be a lot of witnesses who come forward and say they saw Mary there's gonna be witnesses who come forward and say that they heard various things a lot of them are contradictory a lot of them are later proved incorrect and I I just always think it's worth mentioning this and talking about these cases these historical cases where this kind of thing happens because a lot of times people they grab on to whatever they want and we see this all the time and I'm sure we do this sometimes too and we try to avoid it but you know you see a case and you really feel like someone's guilty and there's a witness who says they did it you're like well there's a witness and that witness said they saw him so therefore it must have happened just the way that witness said and as we've talked about eyewitness testimony is so problematic and so here you already have a witness who's coming forward who's saying saw Mullinax and this is pretty good right Mullinax is a streetcar driver he was known to drive her to and from work and remember it's 1913 so we're having to do real detective work here this is gonna be like Sherlock Holmes stuff there's not gonna be any DNA leading us to who did it it's not gonna be any videotape showing us who did it so we got the guy who found her as Alice said always gonna be somebody to look at then we got Mullinax who's the guy who's been driving her to and from work would have known she was there and then a witness comes forward and says that she seems like she's dazed or she's drugged and okay now we really got something here I mean he's done something to her he's taken to the factory he's murdered her and now he's going to be arrested it's April 28th 1913 the investigations moving quickly and there's a lot of pressure on the police in this case because as we said it very quickly became a major case not only in Atlanta but across the country people really wanted to know who did this to this young girl two minutes later Mullinax is one of the two men who are arrested and questioning connection with Mary's murder one of them is John Gant who was a former bookkeeper in the National Pencil factory who had known Mary well and was very friendly with her so now we're looking at you know close associates people who knew her the second individual arrested that day was an unnamed black man remember the note is indicating that it was a black man who did this and so that's one of the things the police are looking at Leo Frank is also a black man who did this and so that's one of the things the police are looking at Leo Frank is also a question for the first time on the 28th he is after all the last person who saw her he is the one who gave her her pay that day and he acknowledges yeah I saw her I paid her and then she was gone and he expressed his frustration with the investigation and his dissatisfaction that the killer hadn't been caught yet and the police would later say that they found Frank's demeanor to be unusual in this first encounter maybe it was because he was critical of them but they would later say he was emotional and he was nervous and that that made them look scant at him and think maybe he knew more than he was letting on see the Atlantic Constitution put up a thousand dollar reward which was a lot of money back then for anyone who had seen Mary after 12 p.m that day because Leo sees her around 12 p.m anyone who's seen her after that may have real information and you can imagine that's going to drive a lot of tips particularly at the time this is only a day after the body had been found but tensions with the public were already running high rumor spreads that the police have arrested a black man and a lynch mob gathers of white people from Atlanta to Lynch Newt Lee who was the night Watchman the person who found the body and the person they assumed was the black man who had been arrested so things are already rushing towards violence and we are very early on in this investigation so on April 29th 1913 Mary Fagan's funeral occurred that same day Leo Frank the superintendent was arrested and brought in for further questioning and remember emotions are running high Lynch mobs are being formed people are demanding answers so the reward for information was raised to 2200 dollars so that was a thousand dollars from the Atlanta Constitution a thousand dollars from the city of Atlanta and two hundred dollars from the state a lot of money that is a lot of money remember she was collecting a one dollar paycheck right and now this is more than doubled and it's from the journal in town the state the city now the next day April 30th there was an inquest into the death of Mary Fagan and more suspicion began to fall now again on the last person to have seen her Leo Frank George Epps was a 15 year old friend of Mary Fagan's he testified at this inquest that Fagan was afraid of Leo Frank because he had winked flirted and made inappropriate sexual advances toward her so as a reminder Mary is 13 at the time Leo Frank was 31 at the time Newt Lee the Watchman testified that Frank was nervous the day of the murder and had telephoned to see if everything was okay at the factory which was not something he usually did but two mechanics who had worked on the top floor of the factory that morning disputed Newt Lee's story saying Frank was completely normal that day okay so what do we have going on here so first of all we've got some pretty damning testimony from George Epps you know you think about entry crime today who is it who did it it's the boyfriend it's the husband it's the male in the person's life who acted inappropriately and for a lot of people when they start hearing that kind of stuff if they hear that someone was violent in their past or did inappropriate things in the past it doesn't take much else for them to think yeah they did it you know you think of the Leo Schofield case we talk about a lot you know Leo Schofield he has this very violent volatile relationship with his wife she is eventually brutally murdered and for a lot of people that's enough you know there's really damning testimony and trial about violence between them so therefore he must have done it same thing here you have Mary's been raped brutally it's happened in the factory and what are we hearing we're hearing that Leo Frank had been inappropriate with her and this would have been something that really would have resonated with people at the time I don't think you need a degree in history to know that there was the time not too long ago and some would say even today where if you had women in the workforce sexual harassment sexual Advances sexual demands would have been something that happened so often is to almost not even be commented upon and this is a very young girl she's very vulnerable Frank's in a position of power and authority she needs the money it would not have been surprising to anyone in Atlanta at the time to hear that her supervisor was doing things like this so automatically this testimony would have a lot of credibility to it so you got that going on then you got Newt Lee now Newt Lee he's in tough position he's been questioned himself right he's been arrested there was a lynch mob forming to kill him Newt Lee is really eager to point the finger at somebody I mean say what you will about George Epps and whether or not he can be believed Newt Lee of all the people has the most reason to lie innocent or guilty because he's trying to save his own life and he's like yeah he was nervous that day and the telephone call is interesting because it's out of the ordinary it's something that Leo Frank did that day that he didn't normally do he didn't normally call to see if everything was okay and this feels like the kind of thing someone who had committed a murder is waiting on the body to be found wants the body to be found is ready for that to happen so they can move forward would do is everything look okay in fact maybe you should take a look around right that kind of thing so you have this testimony but it's already being disputed by other people who work at the factory and are saying well we didn't notice that at all even if you made that call there was nothing to indicate he was incredibly nervous but you've already got sort of this is starting to build against leo frank okay so on may 1st author mullinax and john gantt remember they'd been arrested a while ago on suspicion a lot of people have been arrested in this case they are released meanwhile frank and lee continue to be held though both remain adamant that they are innocent it was at this point that a man named jim conley comes on the scene now jim conley he was a janitor he swept up at the national pencil factory he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder and he was arrested in question about mary's murder he was found trying to clean a shirt that had dark colored stains on it and police initially suspected the stains were blood but they turned out to be from a rusty pipe at least that's what jim said the police were sort of skeptical of this and they continued questioning conley and in fact they would hold him for two weeks questioning him about the day of the murder questioning him about whether he had any involvement in the murder and eventually after two weeks of questioning they would appear to have coaxed a confession out of conley but it's at this point that things go in an unexpected direction conley will make four sworn statements essentially give four different affidavits about what happened that day and towards the end in the third and the third and the third and the fourth and the fourth and the fourth and the fifth and he will say that leo frank committed the murder and that he had conley dispose of the body and in fact he had directed conley to write the notes that were found with mary fagan that was why they were so poorly written conley was barely literate he could barely write and the idea was they would pin the crime either on newt lee the night watchman or the boy operator william noel thinking either one of them would match the description of the man in the notes so that is the position that jim conley is taking that is the story he is telling and that is the story that the police are going to begin to believe so things are not looking good for leo frank right no conley was questioned for two weeks and after multiple affidavits he lands on this version of events so leo frank has to do something he's been arrested he's been questioned he's had many fingers pointed at him and now the most recent and apparent accomplice that he directed to dispose of the body so leo frank brings forward a new witness on may 5th lemmy quinn so lemmy quinn also worked at the national pencil factory lemmy was a foreman of mary fagan's work area on the second floor of the factory and lemmy testified that he saw leo frank the saturday of the murder for just a couple of minutes after 12 20. he also knew frank well and he was certain that frank wasn't guilty of the murder but detectives accused lemmy of accepting a bribe from leo frank cronies to make those statements an accusation that quinn not unsurprisingly firmly denied he says nope didn't take any money this is my testimony saw him after 12 20 for a few minutes when i suppose that's the end of the story so let's get back to the that's when the murder should have been happening although of course we know that mary's body wasn't found for more than 12 hours after that now there are several other witnesses who come forward to say that they had seen a girl who resembled fagan at the confederate memorial day parade that saturday afternoon and that she appeared to be drugged so a lot of accusations here we know that mary had intended to go to the parade but now we have additional witnesses saying there was some girl that we saw at the confederate memorial day parade now i wasn't around in 1913 in atlanta but you can imagine a parade probably had a lot of people and we've always said that eyewitness testimony can be faulty but they make a very serious allegation here not only was mary at the parade but she appeared to be drugged so the decision was made to exhume mary's body and search her stomach for signs of drugs the exhumation happened and unsurprisingly no drugs were found and her body was redone you know this is all very interesting because there's a couple things going on here that i think are worth pointing out number one you're starting to see something that it's a through line in this entire case leo frank is jewish and there was this notion that leo frank was tapping into a jewish network to support him both in atlanta you know he's a member of this organization atlanta and also in brooklyn in new york in the north where he was from this case like basically everything that happened for the first well to this day really becomes a proxy for the civil war there's going to be a big division between north and south between people in the north who think what's going on in the south is terrible people in the south who think people in the north are interfering and there's this whole anti-semitic thing going on as well leo frank has all this money he's tapping into he has these shadowy associates who are probably going to be the ones who are going to be the ones who are paying off people who are bribing people so anything that anyone who comes forward any testimony in his defense must be the result of bribery and the police are tapping into that when they accuse someone of being bribed by leo frank's associates everyone in atlanta nods along goes oh yeah makes sense yeah totally see that right it's another one of those things that fits with what people's common understanding of the world would be the second thing that's going on here the police are tapping into that and they're tapping into that and they're tapping the police don't believe any of this drug stuff but they have to follow up on it and it's interesting because this is another example clearly of unreliable witnesses these people are seeing someone who looks like mary fagan who appears to be drugged the police are almost certain that she was dead by then whether leo frank did it or not she never made it to the parade she was never drugged if she had made it to the parade and if she had been drugged then it's probably not leo frank and this story they have from jim conley is completely false and so they need to prove this wrong so they're exhuming her body to test for drugs to see if there's any drugs in her system and they're not finding anything and that helps solidify for them that's a confirmation okay those statements are false so she was dead earlier when we thought she was that puts her right back in leo frank's possible orbit she wasn't the girl out there being drugged by somebody and then she just happened to be taken back to the very place she worked and killed right i mean this is the kind of conspiracy that people often come up with this thing happened somewhere else and then inexplicably she's brought back to the place that she probably never left we see this in so many cases the police are able to rule that out but they exhume her body they take all these tests to see about drugs they rebury her but then they realize actually we should have done a few other things so the police are able to rule that out again this time to look for fingerprints and to take a strand of her hair for comparison and it's really the hair that's most important by this point her body's been handled by so many people the fingerprints probably aren't that important but they had found hair on a lathe which is like a machine that does something with wood that i'm not really familiar with they had found some hair on this machinery and it had been identified by some other girls who worked there as mary's hair which seems like a stretch to me but this was important because they're trying to figure out where was she attacked where was she killed this hair was up on the second floor it was near leo frank's office so if she's attacked there on the second floor where this lathe is that means it's more likely it was leo frank because he's closer to this so they're exhuming her to get this hair to compare it now look if you're looking for what's the definitive answer about whether or not this was her hair or not you're not going to get it we can't even do that now they certainly couldn't do it in 1913 there will be testimony that the hair is too similar to exclude but it's not definitively identifiable but nevertheless the hair at a time when you don't have a lot of fingerprints is not definitively identifiable but nevertheless the hair at a time is going to be a piece of physical evidence that the police and the prosecution are going to point to to anchor the jury in their theory that leo frank did it guys after a steamy summer it is finally starting to cool down and i cannot wait for the fall because i just love blankets specifically you know it lola blankets it's the first thing i reach for whenever i'm relaxing at home the first time i felt my lola blanket i thought Is it possible that a blanket can really be this life-changing? 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Upgrade your kitchen with OurPlace today. Visit FromOurPlace.com slash prosecute and use code prosecute for 10% off site-wide. That's F-R-O-M-O-U-R-P-L-A-C-E dot com slash P-R-O-S-E-C-U-T-E and use code prosecute for 10% off site-wide. With a 100-day trial, you can try it completely risk-free. Okay, so that was May 6th. On May 7th, so they find this shirt of Newt Lee's. It's given to them by a witness. It has blood on it. And they're thinking, okay, maybe Newt Lee did it. But it has blood on both sides and the shirt appears to be new. And this leads detectives to conclude that this evidence had been manufactured and planted in an effort to frame Newt. Lee, this fits into that larger theory. The theory that Leo Frank has these sort of sophisticated, well-funded associates who are attempting to get him out of trouble. And they have done something like this. Whether or not this was a new shirt that had blood smeared on it, or whether or not Newt Lee just had a new shirt that he got some blood on, or maybe he killed Mary Fagan, impossible to say. But the police's position is. This is planted evidence. This is yet more attempts by Leo Frank to do exactly what Jim Conley said he was going to do, which was frame Newt Lee for this murder. So this is a situation where the police, every piece of evidence they see is confirming it's Leo Frank. It's not somebody else. So on May 8th, 1913, the next day, the coroner's inquest jury orders Leo Frank to be held under the charge of murder of Mary Fagan. This is essentially grand jury back in the day. And Newt Lee, he's not let go. He is held as a material witness. Because at this point, the thought is, Newt Lee's got some involvement in this. We're not sure what it is, but he's got some involvement. And he probably is a material witness to what happened. So sorry, Newt. We think that it was Leo Frank. But you're staying in jail until this is all dealt with. If Newt did do it. Is what he's thinking. Like, man, you found my shirt with blood on it. But thankfully, it's fitting into your story of how that means actually Leo Frank did it. Whatever it is, remember, Mary was murdered April 26th. May 21st, less than a month later, solicitor Hugh Dorsey announced that he'd be seeking indictments against both Newt Lee and Leo Frank. Now, on May 23rd, a grand jury, because we have grand jury system, took just 10 minutes to hand down. A murder indictment against Leo Frank. But no action was taken or requested against Newt Lee. Now, no evidence was presented to the grand jury about Jim Conley, the one whose version of events is the story that prosecutors are going with. It's really fascinating to just how this case, the turns it's taking. Initially, Newt Lee, there's a lot of focus on him. He found the body. And then you got this random tram operation. We let that guy go, because we don't think she was drugged. He probably didn't do it. Still focusing on Newt Lee. Think he could have been involved. Okay, we found his shirt. Has some blood on it. It's Newt Lee's. But we think, actually, that was planted on him. He was framed. We really started to think it's Leo Frank. The freight train is building against him. Jim Conley is giving these statements. We get to the grand jury, and we're indicting Leo Frank. We're letting Newt Lee go. So now Leo Frank is indicted, and this is now a. nationwide story. The press is all over this, both local and from out of state. You have a lot of nationwide, worldwide press agencies that are coming down to Atlanta to cover this. As I said, there's a lot of criticism of this prosecution from northern press, which is only making it worse. You know, Leo Frank gets caught in this maelstrom that has nothing to do with him. Sort of this regional, intersectional, racial dislike, where anything one side does is wrong. And so you start to see that. And of course, the reaction from people in Atlanta is even more like, we can take care of ourselves. We're going to handle this. We're going to have this trial, and we're going to figure out what happened. So, yes, Fulton County. And those of you who got a little confused earlier, I am a Texan. I will always claim Texas. But I spent my elementary school years in none other than Fulton County. So Leo Frank's trial began at the Fulton Superior Courthouse on July 28th. This is moving fast. We said, you know, speedy trial. Here you go. Hugh Dorsey served as the lead prosecutor, and the presiding judge was Leonard Rowan. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of, of course, Jim Conley, because he's the one who gave them the blueprint of the prosecution's theory. So what is their theory? The prosecution says that Leo Frank was the murderer and that these murder notes found next to Mary had been dictated by Leo Frank to Conley in an effort to pin these crimes on Newt Lee. Now, Dorsey planned to establish that Frank often used Conley in concealing his pursuit of young women in his employment. So this was not the first time. Conley and Frank often worked together with Frank being the master puppeteer and Conley doing Frank's bidding. Now, the defense's theory was that Conley was the murderer, not Frank. And the defense team hoped to prove that Frank's schedule the day of the murder made it impossible for him to commit the murder, that he had no relationship with Mary, and that he did not pursue girls in his employment at all. He was happily married at home. He didn't need to hit on these young girls. Most importantly, they sought to discredit the main witness for the prosecution, Jim Conley. It's just fascinating, the theory of the prosecution. And once again, I think when you look at cases, there's nothing new under the sun. And we've talked about this before, whenever you're looking at innocence claims and whether or not they have validity, are there some hallmarks that you can look for? And one of the things that I think is a potential hallmark of an innocent claim is when you have a lot of what we now call 404B evidence. When you have a lot of evidence of prior bad behavior, when there's a real focus on how this is a bad guy who does us bad things who we shouldn't like a real jerk a real predator and he probably killed this person and that should be good enough for all of us right because he's a terrible person we should get him off the street now one reason i think you probably see that in a lot of innocence claims is because you also see it in a lot of guilty cases it is very natural for us to use sort of our daily experience you see a guy that you wouldn't want your daughter dating who's a jerk who doesn't like women who takes advantage of women who's abusive who's maybe sexually aggressive who does horrible things and then someone in his orbit dies of course he's your first suspect and he should be and he probably did it right that's a natural thing to think and it may even be a good place to start but the problem is once you get into a jury when you get into a trial you got to have more than that that is a great launching point but we really need evidence that the person did it and when you have someone who maybe didn't do it telling that same story whether true or not can be really valuable because what do you want the jury at some point is going to have to do things like judge credibility they're going to have to do things like decide whether this eyewitness is credible whether or not this potential accomplice is telling the truth they're going to have to make those decisions and if you've already got them primed to not like the defendant they're going to be inclined to believe the evidence against them just like we all are whenever you don't like the person your natural inclination is to think they probably did it and it's going to take a lot to convince you that they didn't you know i found myself in this place in the west memphis street case i don't like amy nichols i think he's a scumbag i think he was a scumbag at the time i don't know him now but i mean i've read his file and everything else i just don't think he was a very good person at the time and so it took a lot to get me off of he probably did it and at the end of the day i just didn't see the evidence but the problem is that's not how you're actually supposed to look at it when you're in a trial because you're supposed to start with the presumption that they didn't do it and then prove that they did it not the other way around but the fact of the matter is people are human and if they're hearing this story that this is a bad guy who preys on the girls in his employ and here's a girl in his employ who is dead your presumption is going to be that he did it so the defense they got a pretty big hill to climb and they really need to discredit jim conley they really kind of need to prove he did it because i just go ahead and tell you having a really good alibi is not going to do it you know like if you've gone a long way to convincing the jury that the person in front of you is a really bad guy the strength of his alibi it's going to be really easy for the jury to be like yeah i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't those witnesses were probably wrong they probably had their times wrong or maybe he did have time or you know maybe during those five minutes when nobody saw him that's when he committed the crime jury is going to be really open to that so the defense really needs to go after connelly and as you're going to see that ends up being the focus of their case so let's talk about the trial we're obviously not going to get through the entire trial today or this entire case today when i'm doing at least a couple episodes on this but i think it's certainly worth it fascinating trial fascinating case and i'll say it's going to be a lot of fun because i'm going to be doing a lot of this leo frank is as we said one of the first innocence cases often held up as being innocent without any real examination that's not what we're doing here we're going to take a look at the evidence if we think leo frank did it at the end we're going to tell you that he did it but we want you guys to actually know the evidence that was presented in this case against him because i do think the police obviously became pretty convinced he did it fairly early on and you can see true tunnel vision in this case and what i mean by that is that the evidence that was presented in this case is that tunnel vision is not well they just focused on one guy and they spent their whole time on him well yeah if all the evidence points to him that's what they're going to do that's that's good investigation following the evidence but true tunnel vision is when you see things like the shirt with the blood on it and rather than think well this could be conflicting evidence it actually becomes confirmation oh there's a shirt with blood on it that's unrelated to him well there you go he's framing somebody that just helps convince that other guy who said you know he had to be held by he obviously was paid too like that kind of thing but that doesn't mean leo frank's innocent you know just because the police jumped to conclusions doesn't mean their conclusion wasn't correct so let's go through the evidence that was presented at the trial so the first witness and this is really smart is fanny coleman who is mary's mother so we're going to start with some real emotional heft in this case remember a widow with her youngest child who's lost her husband when this youngest child was just very very young a single mother in atlanta trying to make ends meet having to send her 13 year old daughter into the factories in the city to be able to help support the family not someone who's well to do or has resources gonna be so sympathetic already priming the jury to want to find someone who did this and she gives as one would expect incredibly emotional opening testimony she describes mary as getting up late on saturday she ate cabbage and bread for breakfast or a brunch i guess if we're gonna be fancy and she left home around 11 45 a.m her plan was to go to the pencil factory to get her pay and then head down to the parade she identified the clothing that mary was wearing that day and obviously the point was not just to establish a timeline it's also to humanize mary and to fix the state's digestion evidence which is going to be really important remember she's cabbage and bread this was something that doctors later used to estimate her time of death and based on the state of digestion doctors as we'll see will testify that mary had died within an hour after she ate that's not a lot of time for her to eat leave go to the pencil factory see leo frank get the money get away from him run into someone else be grabbed by that person and murdered by that person and left in the basement it seems like all that had to happen really fast so this digestion evidence is really important so remember george epps the 15 year old friend of mary so epps also testified and he said that he rode the street car with mary on the day of the murder and that she got off near the factory around 12 0 7 p.m he also claimed mary had expressed concern about leo frank's behavior towards mary and he said that mary was concerned about leo frank's behavior remember the winking the flirtatious behavior now on cross-examination the defense tried to undercut epps as this young impressionable witness and they later attacked the reliability of his claim that mary had complained about leo frank after trial epps reportedly recanted or at least said investigators pushed him to say that mary feared frank but under oath he said that mary was concerned about leo frank's behavior and i mean this is he's important for a couple reasons he says she gets off around 12 0 7 remember she ate the cabbage and bread sometime before she left 11 45 she's getting there in 12 0 7 the timing is is tight even if you think the other stuff is a lie even if you think she never said that to him and you know look we can never know because this case like so many cases it becomes famous and there becomes a lot of pressure on the witnesses to say the thing that they the people who are asking them the questions want to hear and you see that in a lot of these cases recantations are not uncommon and they're not under oath they usually go something like this an investigator shows up they're trying to prove somebody's innocent they find the person who gave some sort of statement they tell them you know there's a lot of people who think they're innocent a lot of people think this is a wrongful conviction that they were convicted wrongly and you know what you testified to is really important you know the statute of limitations has passed on perjury so you can tell the truth now nobody can do anything to you and there's a lot of people who would really like to hear the truth and then the person tells them what they want to hear and of course that is the god's truth what they said then is absolutely unimpeachable not under oath not under penalty of perjury not at trial can you believe that sometimes you can't but it's just once again surprising to me how often people just assume the recantation is true and not the initial testimony i will say this a lot of evidence the police are putting a lot of pressure on people in this case to say the right thing so it does fit with what was probably happening at the time right i mean we see this often with jurors after the fact if there's like media attention or having to answer to people out in society it's easier to be able to do this is why you have standing there on oath and you're not allowed to talk to witnesses in between their testimony if they're still under oath this is why jurors are you know sequestered from everybody else while they deliberate because pressure on people you imagine that you may say something out publicly that you may not believe in your heart of hearts when you have to make a real decision so recantations are fraught to say the least my favorite tactic with jurors is to show them some piece of evidence that didn't come in because it wasn't allowed in because it would prejudice the jury and then they change their mind and it's like see even the juror now thinks x is true and it's like yeah it's because you showed them something that they shouldn't have seen that was the whole reason that that was kept out we have rules of evidence for a reason because we wanted them to decide on things that matter not the prejudicial thing that you put in front of their face but alice is right i mean it's they're always fraught and it's just something to remember it's not you shouldn't ignore the fact that he later recants that's important doesn't necessarily mean it's true so after he testifies we have newt lee and once again newt lee of all the people in in the trial i don't really fault him if he's lying because i don't think newt lee did this but newt lee was one step away from either being convicted for this or just being murdered for this and i think everything he says you have to view through the lens of he's really happy he's not on trial for his life he's a crucial witness he's the one who found mary's body in the basement and he testified about discovering the body summoning the police and most importantly he testified about his interactions with leo frank the most damaging part of his testimony was that frank had called him earlier in the evening before mary's body was found to ask if everything was all right at the factory lee thought this was incredibly strange it was just a strange thing to ask of course everything's all right at the factory and he said this was out of character for the fact that he had found mary's body in the basement he did not typically call the factory he didn't typically ask if everything was okay so this was something that stuck with newt lee and became significant to him after mary's body was found he also recounted a statement by frank during questioning by police so you know he and lee are both being questioned by the police and apparently leo didn't think that newt lee was doing a very good job because he said if you keep this up we'll both go to hell which i guess was newt lee interpreted as essentially so he testifies to that as well cross-examination obviously is pretty important with this witness and the defense did have two competing goals with lee first they wanted to show that he had been the initial suspect they want to cast doubt on what he's saying they want the jury to know this guy has a reason to lie and that the police had heavily focused on him before eventually shifting their suspicions to frank and they wanted to neutralize this supposedly strange behavior by frank and i think the cross-examination the general reporting on this is that it was helpful and it did show that newt lee was the focus initially by the police and probably did cast some real doubt on his testimony though it's hard to totally discount the phone call now before you ask no it's 1913 we don't have any records of whether or not this phone call was actually made we have to just go on newt lee's recollection but i will say this this is something that newt lee was consistent on from the very beginning that this phone call happened so i don't know that this phone call is really in doubt it's just that from leo frank's perspective he's the supervisor he called for whatever reason to make sure everything was okay having no idea that one of his workers was dead in the basement guys i can't help it i just love a good deal maybe it's because my mom taught me that there's really nothing better than finding a good deal on something that you love but i thought it was only for garage sales or clearance racks it wasn't until i found whatnot that i realized my love of deals and the reality of having to shop online was matched in one amazing way app on whatnot i can find things that are literally half of what it's 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the factory layout they said that there were red spots on the second floor near the alleged murder site hair was found near the metal room or the lathe area and cords were available in the building remember a cord was used to strangle her to death and the theory that mary's body was moved by elevator to the basement now black testified that frank was incredibly nervous the day of the murders to be fair if my building where i was the superintendent had a murdered girl who'd also been raped i'd be nervous too but he testifies that leo frank was very nervous the day of the murders to the point that he could barely button his collar and the defense would counter that frank was of course nervous by nature pointing to multiple instances where frank was rendered incapable of working by various unfortunate occurrences he had nothing to do with he was just a nervous guy who couldn't handle his nerves yeah i think frank like one day he was looking out the window and he saw somebody get run over by a cart and he had to go home because he just couldn't handle that which doesn't seem that unusual to me if i saw someone get run over by a cart i might want to go home too but they had they had real examples of this is just how he is he's you know he's not the kind of guy who something like this is going to happen and he's just going to brush it off he was a very emotional guy and as alice said some young girl just died in his factory now the police won't talk to him about it of course he's gonna be nervous but you know there's two ways to look at that where he's nervous because the police are on to him so the cross-examination for the defense pretty good the defense attorney was able to get concessions that the supposed blood spots probably weren't actually blood at all they also noted that similar cord could be found in many places in the factory including in the basement and they noted that the basement door had been forced and could be opened from the outside which supported a basement crime theory that this didn't happen on the second floor and the body wasn't transported down but actually mary might have been murdered in the basement itself now there was one area that the defense failed to exploit and it could be because it is one of the more bizarre evidentiary questions that i have seen in a true crime case it involves poop i'm gonna be talking about poop here so just prepare yourself for this okay so jim connelly the story he told was that when he got to work that day he really had to go to the bathroom and i guess there was no bathroom in the basement or he couldn't make it to the basement so he actually goes over to the elevator shaft you know pops a squat and takes a poop is that something right there apparently i mean i guess he'd sweep it up later that is his job right just right in the elevator shaft that's what he tells the police he did and in fact of all the things he tells this is true because they found it it is there in the factory in the elevator shaft but the weird thing just to be clear this is not in the elevator it's in like in the elevator shaft not in the elevator in the elevator shaft does his business comes out of the elevator shaft now here's the thing though if mary had been killed on the second floor and if she had been transported by elevator which jim connelly will say happened and which was the police's theory and was the theory that was presented to the jury the elevator when it went to the bottom it went all the way down this is not a fancy elevator this is an elevator that stops when it hits the bottom so it goes down until it hits the floor and then it stops it would have squished the excrement it would have flattened it now this may be the weirdest piece of evidence in true crime history But according to the case file, we know exactly when the excrement was crushed. We know when it happened because it happened after the detectives had already found Mary's body. They actually were down in the basement. They see the excrement unsquished. Somebody rides down the elevator to join them in the basement, squishes the excrement. Then elevator goes up. Excrement is squished. So what that tells you is that was the first time the elevator had gone down in the basement that day. And it didn't go down the basement until Mary was dead and until her body was already in the basement. And that means the police's theory and the prosecution theory that she was transported in the elevator must be false. Or the timing of the poop. Timing of the poop could be different. But this is a big exploitation if you're the defense. Right. That you need to point out. You don't have to prove when the poop went there. All you have to prove is that it wasn't squished until later. And their evidence so far is the poop was there earlier before Mary was killed. And you got Jim Connolly, their star witness, who is going to testify and is already included in multiple affidavits when the poop happened. And then it happened much earlier in the day. This is something he says it happened right when he got there. So maybe it didn't. Maybe it happened after the murder. Which is absolutely possible. And maybe he lied about when it happened because he thought it incriminates him somehow. But whether he's lying or whether it happened before, it seems the one thing we can be sure of is the body wasn't transported in the elevator. The defense raises this, but they don't really press on it. They don't exploit it as much as they should have. This modern criticism of the defense. This is the biggest criticism. As you had this key point. And. You didn't hammer on it. Should have hammered on this. Really should have gone after it to try and lessen Jim Connolly's credibility. Last person we talk about today. And then we're going to start the next episode with Jim Connolly. Talk about his testimony. Talk about the various affidavits and what they said. Last person we talk about is the medical examiner, Dr. Harris. He testified that Mary died by strangulation and she also had severe went to her head, which would have bled. This was important. Because we have the quote unquote blood spots on the second floor. And the idea was these blood spots are from Mary. This is where she was struck on the head by Leo Frank. Structure on the head. He strangles her. Then he transports her body to the basement. That's why her blood's up there. So we have the testimony about the blood and the strangulation. And most importantly, he testifies about the stomach contents. Nearly intact cabbage. And he used this. To estimate that the time of death was roughly 30 to 45 minutes after Mary ate. And once again, this ties back into Mary's mother's testimony. Supports the state's timeline placing death soon after Mary arrived at the factory. And he also would testify about signs of sexual injury. This is a really good witness placement by the defense because they start with mom who tells a story that really gets people emotional to start the case. And then you bring the medical examiner in to bring back mom's testimony to support mom's testimony to talk about how violent this was to talk about the sexual injury. And then you're going to go right into Jim Connolly. You're getting the jury primed to want to believe. Now, this jury wants to deliver justice for this girl. So they want to believe the most important witness who's coming up next, which is going to be Jim Connolly. All right. So I think you can already see this is an interesting case. We're going to continue it next week. We're going to talk a lot about Jim Connolly. We're going to talk a lot about his testimony, about what he says, about his various different affidavits that he gives, whether he can be believed. We'll talk about the defense and the case that they put on. And eventually we'll get to the conclusion of this case and the aftermath of this case, which is as important as the case itself. Interested to hear what you think about. This shoot us an email prosecutors pod at gmail.com at prosecutors pod for all your social media. If you want to discuss this on the gallery, join us on Facebook. The gallery is our fan created fan run Facebook page. We have a lot of fun on there discussing these cases. You know, I'm interested if you guys have heard of this case. This case was as famous as it could possibly be 100 years ago. I'm interested if people have heard about it. I'm interested if people have heard about it lately because I know I've been seeing it lately. It's one of the reasons. We wanted to cover the case. I'm just curious about your exposure to this case in the past. If you want to get these episodes early and ad free, you can join Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you want to see us record these, Patreon obviously allows you to do that. Also, though, we've been putting these episodes on our sub stack, the true crime times. If you Google the prosecutor sub stack, true crime times, you'll find us. So if you want to watch these videos. If that's how you want to consume our episodes, feel free to subscribe there as well. And as always, they will be available and supported for free to everyone when they are released. Alice, you have any thoughts on this case before we move on so far? Oh, there's a lot. We haven't even gotten to like the historical implications yet. So far, this is just a case with an investigation and a trial. It's really interesting to see how far we've come, honestly, in investigative tactics. Like not arresting every single person we're going to question, for example, and holding them for days at a time from 100 years ago. So not a perfect system, but good to see some progress. Things have definitely changed. I mean, this is these old cases are a real window into how things used to work. That's right. No, I'm excited to come back and talk about this, because even though I grew up in Fulton County 100 plus years later, I didn't know about this case before I started hearing about it online. I was like, why are we talking about this 100 year old case? And then I started looking into it. And well, the rest is history. It is history. Is literally. Literally history. You know what? I was going to say, it's nice to finally cover a case where a child isn't killed, but you forget how young she was. She was working at the factory. Although in her picture, I was saying this to Brett before we started, like she could be 13 or 30 in the picture. You know, people are just very, very put together. People back then aged a lot faster. He also only often lived for. I mean, she's already working at a factory. When she's 13. So, but yeah. Okay. Let's answer a question. Have I asked you what your favorite comfort food and drink is? No, we've done last meal. Food ones, but not. Okay. This is from Burdum. Want to know what is your favorite comfort food and drink comfort food and drink? I think it depends. There's like hot and cold. So, like, I don't know if it's a comfort, but like it's a luxury. A luxury that I don't often allow myself is if there's like, it'll usually be like at a conference or something, because I don't make this at home. But I really like making hot chocolate in my coffee, like pouring a hot chocolate mix into my coffee. Just feels luxurious. I wouldn't call that a comfort food, but I do enjoy doing that. And I don't do it on the regular. Comfort food. That's my comfort drink. What is comfort food? What does that mean? I hear people say that all the time. I guess if you're really sad and you wanted to just like plop down the glass. On the couch and eat something to make you feel better. So like ice cream and pizza are classic comfort foods, because if you're just like, I'm so sad today, I just have to have a big bowl of Mac and cheese or something like that. So, I mean, for me, it would be something warm, but I also like love grapes and cherries, which are in season right now. Cherries, but I don't know that that's a comfort food, but I would like reach for those if it made me feel better. So I'm not going to answer the question as it's asked because comfort food, I don't really, if I'm sad, I don't really want. Food. I don't really think. Oh, you don't. I definitely do. I'm definitely a comfort food eater. Maybe some chocolate. I would say, okay, I'll say probably something with melted cheese. Like it could just be a tortilla that I put cheese on and I melt it, obviously. I remember when I was in law school, Alabama was really bad at football. We'd lose every week. And so we had this really good store that had really good, nice stuff across the street from where I lived. And so when we'd lose, I'd go across the street and I would buy a loaf of bread. And like a thing of like nice butter. And I would just sit with the bread and like run it through the butter and eat the bread and the butter. That made me feel better. So maybe that's comfort food. I love those lines. One thing I love, I don't know if it's comfort food, but just like I love one of the things I just love. The simple food is bread, which is the best, like a nice piece of bread and just oil and vinegar. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I do olive oil and salt and pepper. Put a little salt in there. Yep. So good. So good. I make sourdough bread. Just tear the bread off. I mean, it's like a luxury. No, that is. That is. I totally agree with that. But it has to be homemade. Oh, yeah. My wife and I, when we were younger, more adventurous and had fewer children. I've talked about this before. The trip around the world where we literally flew around the world and we stopped all these different places. One of the places we stopped was Venice. But we came from Beijing. to venice and we had no conception we had never looked at a map or a globe i guess of how far it is from beijing to venice it's a really long way it's basically halfway around the world so we get on this flight from beijing to venice not realizing about to be on the plane for like 12 hours right so by the time we get to venice we're completely messed up time-wise so we're in venice it's in the off season which was awesome city's completely deserted we would wake up when the sun rose sun's rising over the canals we're up walking around venice got the whole city of ourselves you'd walk around venice and it's about six this little store would open on the corner where they had fresh bread fresh cheese fresh butter meat cured meat meat that had been fresh a year ago and been cured for that long right and we would go and we would buy like a loaf of bread and a block of cheese and some butter and some prosciutto or whatever and just sit on the canal and eat that that sounds nothing better than that that sounds money can't buy anything better that's basically all i ate in paris because paris is so expensive was a baguette and a block of cheese yeah you ate better than you did when you went back with money absolutely i mean so some things sometimes that's the simplest thing in life is the best thing hard to beat a fresh baked loaf of bread and some cheese and some butter and some olive oil and some prosciutto hard to beat it hard to beat it so that's what i'll say for that one great question if you want to ask us a question leave a five-star review now say this reviews aren't showing up on apple i'm pretty sure people have left reviews in the last two months they're not showing up so if you've left a review send us the question email us the question people email us a question all the time feel free to do that happy to answer it we won't necessarily wait but we got a ton anyways if you leave a five-star review i only see them from a month ago i know it's weird right and this happens sometimes basically and then like it doesn't upload 57 reviews will show up all at the same time so that's probably what's gonna happen all right guys well this has been fun i hope you've enjoyed it i hope you're enjoying this case if there are cases you want us to cover email is a way to do it shoot us an email prosecutors pod and as this shows we we are not a podcast it only covers what's hot and in the news we're not interested in doing that i mean we're interested in covering that and we will but we also want to cover these classic cases so if there's any case you want to hear it doesn't matter when it's from how old it is let us know and we will add it to the list we will finish the list in about 137 years from now so if we don't get to your case immediately just know it's there somewhere all right guys well this has been fun we'll see you next week for more on the leo frank case but until then i'm brett and i'm alice and we are the prosecutors they testified about the factory layout red spots on the second floor do you hear that what is that it's the mosquito machine oh they're like spraying outside yeah that's pretty loud it's real loud hold on let me let that go by that's why we all have cancer probably there you go can't sue for it though yeah you can't because it's what's like public like you you give up whatever even though like do i do my taxes pay for this do i vote on this okay anyways that's i don't know if you guys have this in the north but the mosquitoes are so bad in the south We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.