The Murders of Mary Phagan and Leo Frank

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alena and this is morbid. Yes it is. This is going to be very morbid. Yeah this is a, I mean again they're all rough cases but this is just brutal in every sense and it could be really it hit and it pissed me off. Yeah this is definitely one of those that you say what the fuck? Yeah the police were not doing their jobs here. We're police and I can see that because it's from a long time ago. It was but it's it's an interesting case nonetheless. Would you say we can always say that? Yeah I can say whatever one. It's inappropriate. Exactly. Yeah but yeah interesting case nonetheless. Yeah this is an older one but it's definitely crazy. Do we have any fitness before? I know just that it's spooky season and I would really like that to start right now. It already did. We're going to be getting into spooky content. Yeah I just gave it a full list yesterday. Yeah so let's go. So let's fucking go girls. Oh yes and we want to do I think I'm usually we always do like a Halloween themed listener tale. Yeah I don't remember if we did like full blown Halloween stories last year. This year we're going to get ahead of it. Yeah so you always send your listener tales into [email protected]. Tell us you're like most fucked up scary Halloween stories. Yeah and then make sure you put like Halloween listener tale in the subject line and start getting them into Deb because she's got a sift through a lot of them. Yeah and if we get a lot of them in like real to November. We can carry it to November and we can start using them at the end of some of the spooky episodes just to like add to the fun. So give it to us. Give us your spooky Halloween listener tales or like haunted house experiences. Yeah it's like like like possessions. And let us know what you're going to be for Halloween while you're at it. Yeah. Yeah I don't know. Do you know what you're being this year? I don't yet because we usually wait for the girls to tell us what we're being. The girls actually told me and Drew who were being this year and I'm ready. We're being Helen and Ed from Kiff. Yeah and I said yes and I'm excited about Helen and I love Ed. See so there you go. I have bare feet and a hat on my hand. Watch Kiff. It is like goal. It is like goal to learn all of those words because he does this like spell in the middle. Yeah. Okay of course where it's like so fast I'm going to learn it. Yeah. Helen you are to the kids and they can listen to it on Spotify to your crazy. The Kiff soundtrack slaps. I actually saw a squirrel run into the road this morning and I was like Kiff. Kiff. Kiff. Kiff. Kiff. Kiff. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so affected by your kids. Yeah. I mean we all are. We love them. They affect us all. All of those little batches. But yeah I don't think there's any I'm trying to I don't think there's a lot of business. I mean you can you can still buy the butcher legacy. You can always buy the butcher legacy anymore. It's there. You could buy all three of them in fact. You could. In fact I recommend it. Yeah. You should start at the beginning. Yeah. And hopefully someday we'll get special editions of the other two. Yeah. I feel like if you guys ask for it enough that is something that could happen. Can I ask for it? Yeah. Hi Zando. It's Ash. Can we do special editions of the book? Please. Let's do special editions. Let's do a box set. Let's do a box set. Please. Yeah. If you guys asked for it enough I ask and you shall receive. So start asking. I'll ask every episode if you want me to. I will ask every episode of my own volition. There you go. I love it. All right. Let's go. Yeah. All right. We've put it off long enough. No, I keep trying to think of I keep trying to think of a name to call the man who keeps the time because there's like multiple who are we going to call him today Stanley Stanley Stanley Mark the time to mark it down. There it is. This one was quicker Stanley it was. I don't know if you'd agree Stanley but don't stop your watch just yet. Yeah. Okay. All right. So from the very start of her life in 1899 it did sadly seem that Mary Fagan's life was destined for some kind of tragedy. That makes me sad. It's awful. Yeah. She was born in Florence, Alabama to a widowed mother Fanny Fagan. Three months before Mary was born her father actually passed away. Damn. So that obviously left Fanny by herself to raise four children, each which like even now that would be absolutely horrific but please picture that in 1899 in Alabama in Alabama precisely. So widowed and with no source of income Fanny moved back to her hometown of Mary at a Georgia just a few months after giving birth and at the very least there she would have the support of her family. Yeah. Now based on a little that we do know about Mary's brief life she was her typical small town girly girl. She loved to go to the movies and various you know read through various fan magazines like photo lore. She keep up with the stars of the time the latest trends in fashion and she had this dream of one day breaking out of rural Georgia to make her way to Hollywood. But unfortunately she would never make her way out there. Like a lot of kids in rural areas in the early 1900s she had to drop out of school when she was just nine years old. Nine years old. For anyone confused that's third grade. That's wild. And she had to go get a job. That was so common. Like that was just like nine-year-old and younger. Yeah. In factories. That's crazy. Insane. And I mean think about what factories were like at that time. Oh yeah. So she initially got a job at the local textile factory to help support the family. But in 1912 Fanny moved the family again this time to East Point which is a suburb just outside of Atlanta. And she was able to get remarried and she opened a boarding house. So that was, you know, they're doing a little bit better. Mary was 12 years old at that point and she was already very experienced in factory work. She was killed nuts. And she quickly found a new position at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta where she made 10 cents an hour running the knurling machine which that machine inserted the rubber racer into the metal end of the pencils. Oh damn. It's kind of cool. I never even thought about how that happens. Neither did I. Mary knew all about it though. Yeah. And now despite the absolutely abhorrent conditions and the long hours at the factory, Mary did have much to be thankful for all things considered. Her job actually paid more than twice the hourly wage that her brothers were making at the cotton mill and her position at the pencil company was supposed to be pretty safe compared to those held by others at different factories and even within that same factory. Okay. Now obviously we're sitting here and we're telling you that a nine-year-old dropped out of school and was working at a factory where it had very unsafe conditions. Yeah. So her situation sounds dire. But what's crazy is that at that time she and her family were a lot better off than a lot of the other working families in Atlanta, which is wild. Yeah. During this period jobs were really hard to come by and almost every poor or working-class man, woman and child was found in the cotton fields, factories or working as like domestic workers for wealthy families. Wow. To make matters worse, more than half of Atlanta's school-aged children at this time were suffering from anemia, malnutrition in large glands and heart disease. Oh my god. Yeah. And the death rate for all atlantins was more than one-third higher than the national average. Only shit. Yeah. So things were fucking bleak. I didn't know about any of that. I didn't either. Damn. By the time the family moved to Atlanta in 1912, Georgia was the only state left in the country actually that still allowed children as young as 10 to work these dangerous factory jobs. So this was, this was a bleak life. Yeah. On the morning of April 26, 1913, though, Mary Aida breakfast of cabbage and wheat biscuits. And then got dressed in a store-bought violet dress in gray pumps and she put two little bows in her hair. That day the town was set to celebrate Confederate Day. Oh yeah. It was a day celebrating those who fought for the South and the American Civil War. And Mary, whoo, wanted to look good for the festivities scheduled for that afternoon. She left the boarding house a little before noon and caught the trolley downtown where the parade was set to begin. And when she reached town, she got off the trolley on four-site street, the location of the national pencil company. And she was going to stop in to pick up her recent pay. Now she was actually typically scheduled for a 55-hour work week. Jesus. She is 13 years old. I was just going to say a child. 13 years old working 55 hours a week. No. But things had been slow at the factory recently. And she only had worked two of her scheduled days. So she just got $1.20 in pay. Wow. But something was better than nothing. And she had no intention of leaving that money in the safe until her next shift. No way. The family needed that money. Now the last time Mary was seen was when she entered the building around noon, just as the parade got underway. And the elderly veterans started making their way down Main Street. Hours passed and the parade had long wrapped up. But still nobody had seen Mary since she left the house. Then a little past 3.30 a.m. the next day, the national pencil companies Nightwatchman Newt Lee made a horrific discovery while he was making his rounds. And the basement of the factory partially hidden behind a closed-off storage shed. He found Mary laying on her side and her face was pressed into a pile of trash on the floor. This is very, very graphic, but I'm going to do my best to get through it, you know? Yeah. So her skirt was pulled up around her waist. She was missing one shoe. And there was a strip of fabric torn from her dress that was wrapped tightly around her neck. It was only later when Nute turned her body over that he saw the full extent of and brutality of Mary's injuries. Her face was battered, one of her eyes was swollen completely shut, she had scratches all over her body. And just above her left ear there was a jagged gash in her scalp that had clearly blood heavily. That is so fucking brutal. To Nute's horror, her tongue also protruded from her mouth and blood was still leaking from her mouth or had leaked from her mouth and her ear. God. It seemed also that every inch of her was covered in black suit. What the fuck? Yeah. So he ran to the phone to call for the police telling the officers a white woman has been killed up here. Now later it seemed remarkable to all the officers that Lee, who was a black man, knew the girl was white considering all the suit covering her body. And that did seem suspicious for them, but I don't find it that suspicious myself. The trash and other debris surrounding Mary's body weren't the only thing that made investigating the scene difficult though. The factory itself, especially where Mary was found, didn't lend itself to easy access. Whoever had done this to her had, yeah, it wasn't like they just stumbled upon her. No, exactly. The basement was only accessible by a slow moving metal elevator car or a rickety wooden ladder that descended several floors into complete darkness. Once investigators were finally able to reach the basement, conditions down there were also challenging to say the least. It was dark, everything was dirty, covered in suit, and there were thick layers of pencil shavings and dust covering legitimately every surface. It sounds horrific. Yeah. In fact, if Newt Lee hadn't run to get a larger lantern, it's likely that the officers could have stepped on Mary's body while searching for her. Now up close, it was very abundantly clear that Mary had put up a fight, but it was also clear that the murder wasn't the only crime that had been committed. Upon a quick examination, they could see that her gardeners had been ripped from their fascinating belt and her underwear was torn at the crotch. She had been sexually assaulted so violently that honestly, even using the word violent is an understatement. Oh, that's awful. It was horrific. Now, investigators ended up finding Mary's missing shoe underneath a pile of garbage near her body, and they also found a bloody hankerchief as well. They also noticed that the lock on the door leading to the alley had been tampered with, and that somebody, likely the killer, had pried the class loose in order to get out of there easily. It wasn't until they started raking through the piles of trash near the body, though, that officers found the strangest pieces of evidence. In a pile of debris next to Mary's head, there were two hastily scrolled notes. Sergeant LS dobs picked them up from the pile and read them aloud for everyone. They do contain slurs, so I'm obviously going to skip over those. Thank you for that. Yeah, you bet. The first one said he said, and also they're spelled very incorrect. He said he would love me and land down play like the night which did, but that long tall black enceler did boy his self. And then before dobs had even finished reading that note, Newt Lee apparently gas loudly and stated something to the effect of that they were trying to put it off on him. Okay. Later, many of the officers would recall the situation differently and insisting that what Lee actually said was, white folks, that's me. White folks, that's me. I have a feeling he didn't say that. I can't imagine why you would think that. Yeah, I think when he saw what the note said or heard what they said, he was like, oh, fuck, or is somebody trying to put this on me? Yeah, they described some like a tall black man. And let's think about where we are in the country. It is Confederate day after all. Yeah. And the time period. Exactly. So I would think he would be a little little nervous about him. And he's the one that found our body, so he's obviously really nervous. Yeah. A minute or so later, dobs found a second note in the pile, which appeared to be a kind of continuation of the first note. It said, ma'am, that enceler higher down here did this. I went to make water and he pushed me down that hole, a long tall enceler black that who it was, long-sleemed tall enceler. I write while play with me. So is this supposed to be from Mary? Yeah. In her condition. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. To anyone who knew him, the idea that New Lee was capable of committing such a horrific crime seemed impossible. Yeah. Because this also isn't just like any, obviously, this would be horrific no matter what. But like, this is a astonishingly brutal in grotesque. Yeah. Like, this isn't just somebody who like lost it and just what I like, you know, I mean, like, this is a lot. Well, and you would imagine that he's, so he's making, remember, he made his rounds and he could, he stumbles across Mary's body and she is in brutal condition. Yeah. He'd be covered in blood or there would be bloody clothes somewhere in the vicinity that likely would have belonged to him and could be crazy. Absolutely. They talk about how bloody this scene was. It was absolutely no way. Yeah. He would honestly probably have defensive wounds. Well, that's the other thing because I remember I said she put up a fight. Whoever did this would be covered in defensive wounds like you just said. One thing you really do have to think about. And also, if he did this, why would he call the police? That's the other way. Why wouldn't he just leave? And you just said yourself that the person who left tried to make a hasty escape out that like actually made it so they could make a hasty escape. Obviously, they were like peace out. Yeah. Not trying to get caught here. Yeah. I don't think he'd call the police. Exactly. Now, Newt had been born into slavery and by then was in his mid fifties. He was known as a super easy going guy. He also had never had any trouble with law enforcement in the past. Yeah. This is probably the first. He had never had any problems with his employers. Like he never had problems with anybody. Yeah. And just to be clear, when I said employers, I'm not talking about the people he was enslaved by. I'm talking about employer. Yeah. That's not employer. I'm talking about he worked at the factory and he never had any issues there. He was a paid employee. Yeah. When officers arrived at the factory in response to his call, he seemed scared by what he had found by finding Mary. And he was eager to help in the investigation. Like, remember, he went to go get a bigger lantern to help them see everything. Like, why would he go? Why would he go this way? You know what I mean? And if he's like clearly looking like he is really uncomfortable and scared by this body in front of him, like that tells you something. I don't think that he'd be able to do that. Now, all that being said, though, for some reason when he finished reading the second note, Dobbs turned to Newton said, you did this or you know who did it? Whoa. Without any indication of why he felt that way. That's wild. Yeah. New immediately denied knowing anything about the murder and stated and started giving his account of the whole evening before that to the officers. And that was a story that he stuck to without any variation even days later during a coroner's inquest because it's like, how can you turn and just say to the person, like, I know you did this or you know who did it? It's like, no, you have no evidence to say that racism. Yeah. Literally, blatant racism. Yeah. Now, according to new, he was making his rounds a little after 3 AM. And he went into the basement to make sure that that door to the alley was locked. And also to make sure there were no fires because that was a significant front and a factory full of wood shavings. I could see that. So it was, he had every reason in the world to be down. Yeah. While he was in the basement, he decided to use the restroom. And he set the lantern down on the floor next to the toilet. When he was done, he picked up the lantern, took a few steps forward. And that's when he saw Mary laying on the floor. He said, I thought it was something some devilish boys had put there to scare me. I went over and saw it was a body and I got scared than I called the police. That's the thing he called the police. He immediately called the police. So the story did sound plausible. But for some reason, all of the officers on scene were still suspicious. For some reason. Races. Yeah. When he called the police to report the body, he specifically had described Mary as a white girl. And that's one of the key things that did make them suspicious outside of racism. Here's the thing. Doesn't make me suspicious because you're going to get the cops there a lot quicker if you say it's a white girl that got killed. 100%. I mean, like, let's be honest. That really was suspicious to them. I'm like, how quick would you have moved? Well, and maybe you say that. And the reason that they were suspicious, they said was that because she was so covered and so you couldn't have known her race. But later when this was pointed out, he said her hair was simply too straight to be that of a black girl. And you also have to think of the time period here. Yes. White women were wearing their hair quite differently than the black women. Yeah. So the officers were still unconvinced, though. And they thought the notes that were found near Mary's body implicated in the crime. So he was arrested and taken to the station for questioning. This also feels like even another layer of racism on it because I'm like, well, Sut looks different from black people's skin. Yeah. And I think a black man would be able to tell the difference between Sut on skin and a black woman. Yeah. Like, can we can we also point that should out that it's like, wow, wow, fellas. Like, damn, you're going to become increasingly angry as the story continues and for good reason. That's wild. It's full of racism. Yeah. Now, in the news broke about the body being discovered in the factory basement, the local papers immediately set to work trying to outdo each other, of course, because nothing else is happening at the time. Yeah. They were competing to be the first to publish each new detail of the case. At the same time, a large reward was offered to any anybody who could identify Mary's killer. And although they had arrested Newt Lee, very few people thought that he had actually killed Mary Fagan. - The court of public opinion was, I don't think that man did it. - There's literally no evidence to put him to be. - The only thing that police felt they had that tied him to the case was the notes found near Mary's body, which appeared to have been written by the victim in order to implicate Lee. - Yeah. - Or just, - Like that's what it was supposed to look like. - Yeah, but it could implicate Lee or any black man that's the other thing. I'm like, I see the only black man that could have done this. - No, no. - But the problem was that the handwriting also didn't match Mary's. And as a practice writer and reader, she wouldn't have made all the grammatical errors that were found in all the misspellings. - Yeah. - But despite that, investigators weren't entirely convinced that Newt didn't know who did kill Mary. So they held him for the time being until a better suspect came along. 'Cause they didn't want to look incompetent. - No, but it just made them look more confident. - That was gonna say, they did a great job of that. - Now during the course of their interview with Newt, investigators learned that there were a few other men at the factory that day, including the last person to see Mary alive. And that was factory supervisor Leo Frank. Now detectives tried to get a hold of him by phone that morning, but he didn't pick up. And when they finally did reach him later that day, he immediately agreed to come meet them at the factory. Now, even though they already had Newt Lee in custody, as soon as Leo Frank arrived on the scene, investigators decided he's suspicious to him now. - So now it's him. Detective Boots Rogers. - Detective Boots Rogers. - I won't be breezing past that. - How could you? - It's your only option in life to become a detective. - You gotta be detective Boots. - That or you own a Boots story. - Yeah, that's it. - He later said, Mr. Frank seemed extremely nervous. His questions were jumpy. His voice was ever find voice kind of lady-like. Oh, excuse me. - He was awful. He was rubbing his hands. He seemed to be excited. I was like, well, yeah, most people are pretty fucking nervous when being questioned by the police. - Well, that's it. I never understand when they don't take that into consideration when it's like, yeah, if I was called in because someone was murdered in my factory, I too would be nervous. - That's the other thing. It's like this young girl was found in his factory. - And he was rubbing his hands. Same. - Literally. - I rubbed my hands all the time. - I rubbed my hands. - Literally, I'm telling the story and picking my lip as I tell the story. - That has, I'm literally rubbing my hands as we are listening 'cause I'm also like this is stressful. - It is stressful. - But they also thought it was so strange that all of that and then the fact that it had taken hours to get a hold of him. So they were like, you know what? I think you look like you have something to hide. And it's like, here's the thing. You want to point to the fact, okay, he's the last person to have seen her. - Big deal. - That's relevant. That's valid. But they're not even using that as the reason they're like, he sounded lady-like. He was rubbing his hands and he was busy that day. - But it's just like he sounded lady-like is such a, just like, okay, sorry, his voice might sound that way. - How does any of this point like point to the thing that's actually relevant, which you can point to and actually try to like, he's the last person to see her. So use that and then work off of that. - Exactly. Now when the detectives told Frank what happened, he was surprised as anyone would be to find out that somebody was killed and not only their place of employment, but a factory that he himself owned. - Yeah. - But he said he didn't know the name Mary Fagan. But then when he was brought to the morgue and shown the body, he said, yes, that's the girl who came to my office the day before to pick up her wages. But also a lot of fucking people worked at that factory. He's not gonna know everybody by the end. Now with the detectives at his side, he gave them a tour of the factory and they examined the crime scene together. The next day, Atlantis woke up two headlines of a major break in the Fagan case with the arrest of a new suspect. National Pencil Company bookkeeper, J.M. Gantt. Now three weeks earlier, Gantt had been let go from his position at the factory. And while he admitted going to the factory on the afternoon of the 25th when Mary was killed, he said it was only to reach to you of some shoes that he had left behind a few weeks earlier when he was fired. - Well, that's a little more suspicious to me than anything else. - Yes, it is. Now, but I also want to remind you that they still have Newt Lee in custody. - Well, that's what I'm confused by. I'm like, oh, another one, okay. - Is that allowed? - Yeah. - So he admitted that he did no Mary, J.M. Gantt did as they worked on the same floor together, but he was like, we weren't close or friendly and we just knew each other. And also it was almost 6 p.m. By the time he got to the factory to pick up his shoes and then he went home after. So Mary had been killed long before Gantt even arrived at the factory. - Oh, no. - Given all of that and given everything in this investigation, it's unclear why they then moved their attention to Gantt. - Were they able, I wonder, to determine that he came to the factory at 6 p.m.? - I'm not sure. - Or if he was just saying that and they weren't sure that they could confirm that? - Possibly. - Yeah. - I think it's most likely that having been fired from the factory, they assumed that he had some sort of like disgruntled. - Yeah, yeah, disgruntled, exactly. Now, in addition, the day that the body was discovered, he did take a train to Marietta, which investigators could have interpreted as trying to flee after the murder. - Yeah. - Or maybe he just traveled by train. - Yeah, absolutely could have. - But in any case, Leo Frank cooperated Grant's story and vouched for his character. - There you go. - So eventually he was released from custody. Leo Frank on the other hand would not be so lucky. Now with Gantt ruled out and Newt Lee still in custody, but seeming less and less viable as suspect with each new piece of evidence, attention soon turned to the only other person who was known to be at the factory that day. Leo Frank. I'm wondering why they're not taking into consideration the fact that if Leo Frank did do it, that he could have just pondered off on that other guy. - He could have pondered off on that other guy. - He could have not corroborated his story and just been like, yeah, I don't know. - 100% - Keep going down that road. - 100% and he also would have been covered in scratches. - Yeah. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - The news of Frank's arrest should have been a bombshell, but it arrived with a subtlety that was pretty uncharacteristic of the press at that time. Rather than outright state, that Frank was a suspect in the murder, investigators said they expected, quote, "testimony of the superintendant," like owner of the factory, "may lead to an arrest of the person guilty "of the atrocious crime that shocked the whole city." But they were quick to add no further arrest or expected soon. - How does that make sense? That sounds like it's like what he's going to say will lead to the arrest of somebody who did it, but we're not going to arrest anyone soon. - Well, like I'm sorry, excuse me. - Yeah, pretty cagey. - Yeah, a little bit. - That despite the cagey statement, the truth was at that point, detectives didn't have any other suspects or really any other evidence to help them advance to the case forward. In fact, the evidence that they did have really didn't point to anyone in particular. But that being the case, it was a huge break when a few days after the murder, one of the machinists found blood and hair evidence near one of the machines on the main floor. - Oh shit. - The evidence strongly suggested that Mary had obviously been attacked on that floor, initially, not in the basement where her body was discovered. And just as important, the evidence was found not far from Leo Frank's office. - Okay. - So we're starting to snowball a little bit here. - We're starting to get something actual to work with. - Now by then, Newt Lee had been working with the police to help them build a case against Frank because he's still being held in custody. - Yeah. - And likely threatened. Among other things, he told detectives that Frank had ordered him out of the building around 4 p.m. and told him not to come back for several hours. During the coroner's inquest, Newt Lee also said that Leo Frank was rubbing his hands and told me to go out in town and not get back later than six o'clock. - Okay. - But also if you think about when Mary was likely killed, it was earlier in the afternoon. - Yeah, that makes sense. - So still, this is weird. - Yeah. - It's all strange. - It's all super weird. - 'Cause obviously that sounds strange. - It does, for sure. It's the thing that sticks out to me, though, is that he makes a point to say that Leo Frank was rubbing his hands when the other investigator also said that. - That was, yeah. - He made it a, like, - That stuck out to him. - Admission of guilt somehow. - Now, on April 26th, Leo Frank gave his deposition in the company of his lawyer, Luther Rosser, and he was one of the most powerful and prominent attorneys in Atlanta at that time. But Leo Frank's story was a straightforward recitation of what he did that day. According to him, Mary came to pick up her pay a little after 12 p.m. and then she left. He said, I paid her. She went out of the office. It wasn't possible to see the direction that she went when she left. And then after paying her, he said he went up to get some lunch. When he returned to his office, he said he did some paperwork until he was interrupted by another employee who would come to the factory, hoping he would give him a loan until payday. Then, according to Frank, J.M. Gant arrived at the factory around six and Leo told Newt Lee to accompany Gant to the floor where he'd left his shoes. After giving that permission, he locked up his office for the day, left and got home around 6.30 that night. - Okay. - Now, when investigators pressed him for more details, he did become frustrated and flustered. - Okay. - Can look like guilt? - Absolutely. - Or it can be somebody who's telling you everything they know and doesn't have anything else to tell you and doesn't want to say that you're trying to get them to tell you something that's not true. - Yeah. Well, his lawyer interjected, why it's preposterous. A man who would have done such a deed must be full of scratches and marks and his clothing must be bloody. - And that is true. - So given how likely that was to be true, Leo Frank. stripped down to his underwear and allowed investigators to examine his entire body, which was as far as they could see free from any evidence of altercation, which is wild. This is a few days later, like barely, what is this, three days later? I mean, you have to even think about it. She had a swollen, her eye was swollen, shut. So I guess it depends on if she was hit with something, or if to me that comes across because they didn't really find anything that she was hit with. That sounds like a punch, or some kind of, you would have had a blow and kind of mark on your hand from a punch like that. Yeah. She had a laceration on her skull, that's going to bleed, that's how'd you get that? Like, you know what I mean? And then this is awful and very graphic, and I apologize ahead of time, but she was very violently raped and she was obviously alive because blood was flowing. Yep. They found a lot of blood. Yep. And she would have, she was fighting back. They said that. Yeah. You would have something, some kind of, you would not get out of an altercation like that without a spot on your body. With something. Yeah, I had to have been something. Exactly. And like, obviously you can get rid of bloody clothes, but you also have to think of like where we're at. Yeah. You know, it would be around the factory somewhere, like we, and then you could say like, I mean, his initials are probably like sewn into his clothes back, you know, like, look, it's Frank's. We have Frank's. But still for some reason, even though he proved that his body had not a scratch on it, the officers were unconvinced. So at his home, Frank allowed them to examine the contents of his clothing hamper and of his clean clothing. And there was no evidence of blood to be found on any of his clothes, clean or dirty, which is interesting. It is. Now, obviously you could say he might have thrown that up like duh. So in the absence of new information, the press started advancing their own theories about the murder of those floated, the two most prominent where that Mary had been attacked by a white enslaver who intended to kidnap her and sell her to the highest bidder. What a theory. Uh-huh. Damn. The other was that she was taken for a drive by a male suitor before the assault and was either drugged or given large amounts of alcohol and then assaulted. Okay. I don't know why anyone thought that because making shit up, she walked into the factory. Yeah. That's the last time she was seen. And outside there was a large parade going on. So if anybody had somebody would have seen her leave. Yeah. But okay. Sure. Sell your papers, I guess. Yeah. Now at the same time, several journalists were following the stories of Newtley and Leo Frank very closely. At that time in Atlanta, you'll be shocked to hear that the police had developed quite a reputation for the brutality, particularly when it came to black residents and other minorities. Can you believe it? That's wild. For example, the ratio of black residents arrested over white residents was nearly double. And there had been at least one murder of a black man while in police custody, Jesus, in the last handful of years. All that to say, whether they intended to or not, the police in the press were fueling an already precarious situation with their talk of white slavery and their unwillingness to release a black man, Newtley and a Jewish man, Leo Frank, despite a major lack of evidence. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. 100%. Now, in an attempt to build his own case, for an essence, Leo Frank hired Harry Scott, who was a detective with the Pinkerton agency, and he hoped that Scott would be able to help find his own evidence to clear Leo of any suspicion. Unfortunately, what Leo Frank didn't know was that while many of the old Pinkerton agents did have poor relationships with law enforcement, Harry Scott was one of a few who had always been very closely aligned with the police. Oh, boy. So this meant that, despite his being an independent investigator, there was still a good chance there that he was going to back the official story. Whoa. Yeah. So this was like shooting yourself in the foot, without knowing. As it turned out, after just having one conversation with Leo Frank, Scott came away with what he thought were several troubling realizations. He said he thought it was strange that Leo Frank had now come to strongly suspect J.M. Gantt was the killer, based on his previous relationship with Mary. That was pretty weird because when he was initially interviewed by the police, Leo Frank said he didn't know really anything about Mary. Yeah. And didn't even know her name. But now he knew that she had a relationship, which it's also like a relationship where did that come from? Right. And then there was also the matter of the newly discovered piece of information that Frank hadn't told the police. According to him on the day of the murder, he said there was an unidentified black man at the factory who was seen by another worker, but he hadn't told police that. But also, I don't think he trusts the police right now, and he hired you independently, so I can kind of see why he would trust. Also, the only reason I'm playing devil's advocate so hard here is because I'll let just let you know Leo Frank didn't do this. Yeah, that's it. I was going to say that's important to know a lot of time. Now, for the most part, the story Leo Frank told Harry Scott was the same story he told police several days earlier, obviously, you know, a few details missing. And the story he told his lawyer, it's unclear why the pieces of information hadn't come up before that he hadn't told the police or where they had come from in the first place. But what is clear is that the addition of this information did make him look more suspicious, which absolutely, which is an add I can understand and Harry Scott there was quick to tell the police as much. Yeah. Which again, that that's that is something that you're not telling the whole story first off as soon as the story changes it makes people question. It does. I think it came from a place of desperation probably that's the thing like knowing in hindsight, you can absolutely see that but at the time, I can understand why you go, whoa, whoa. Yeah. Why didn't you say that before fully agree? Yeah. We will find out that there was another man at the factory at that time that people didn't know about. Yeah. Now, the story took another wild turn when just one day later, the lead detective on the case, John Black was seen search or was searching a new lease apartment and discovered within a metal trash barrel, a white linen shirt that was soaked to the armpits with blood. According to detective Black, everything about it seemed wrong. For one thing, the worst stains appeared to be on the inside of the shirt rather than the outside, almost like somebody turned it inside out and used it to mop up like a large amount of blood. And there was also the fact that the shirt appeared to be clean and freshly pressed, almost like it hadn't been worn yet. It was weird. Yeah. Detective, all of these peculiarities meant only one thing. The bloody shirt was a plant intended to point the finger at New Lee and away from the real killer. Jesus. This is getting weird. It's just strange. It's getting weirder and weirder. It's unclear how detective Black made the leap, but at some point after finding the shirt, he concluded that not only was the bloody shirt a plant, but that it had been planted by the real killer. And that was Leo Frank. Okay, there's really no evidence that he planted that shirt, but Detective Black said Frank was trying to point the suspicion at New Lee. He wanted his own house search so that when officers had gone through it and nothing had been found there, he could tell them to go and search New Lee's house. Okay. I guess. Sure. That's just a theory, though. That's not evidence. This is tenuous, everybody. So until that point in the investigation, the status of New Lee and Leo Frank had been that they were detained. However, with what the detectives had learned from Harry Scott and the increased suspicion of Leo Frank, both men were now officially under the arrest for the murder of Mary Fagan. Which again, why are they both under arrest if you only are really strongly suspicious of one? Yeah. It's weird. It is weird. Is it so that you can get information from the other? I think that's exactly what it is. Also going to try. Yeah. So when the coroner's inquest finally got underway in early May, it quickly became the biggest news in Georgia. By that time, the press had published every sensational aspect of the case that they could find. And those they couldn't, they just kind of used a little creative license to create. Yeah. You know, for example, when machinist RP Barrett testified before the panel, he described a deeply sexist and misogynistic work environment. You don't say. Yeah. He told the jury that he, quote, frequently heard that the building was used for immoral purposes. One of the owners of a neighboring business testified that frothlicks were secretly held in that place. Frothlicks, you say, I want to host a frothlick. What's a frothlick? I don't know. The way they're describing frothlick might not be what you want to host at your house. Not probably not what they're describing, but a froth. Hosting a frothlick sounds great, but I think they're meaning it in an angel. Frothlick sounds majestic. I think frothlick may be a code for rendezvous. Oh, I don't want to host that. Yeah. Yeah, not that. But a frothlick. What's frothlick about? I love frothlick. Um, there's really no way to know who was influencing the testimony of these two guys or where they even got these ideas. But the motive of their testimony was clearly to give the impression of a work environment that under Leo Frank's supervision had become this like, den of corruption where no woman was safe. Damn. Yeah. And that was just one of the many examples of testimony intended to point the finger at frang. In his own testimony about the investigation, our, our good old pal, detective Boots Rogers, detective Boots. Well, it's on the ground, claimed that Frank, quote, changed the tape and the time clock at the factory to align with his version of events. And that his demeanor on the day that he was called to the factory to speak with police was that of a nervous and anxious man, okay, with a lady-like voice. Yeah. Apparently. Those who testified in Frank's defense, though, were met with a lot of scrutiny and suspicion from the prosecutor, who seemed very obviously determined to poke holes in the story because that's their job. According to Lemmy Quinn, the factory foreman, he had been in the factory shortly after Mary picked up her pay, and he saw her leave the factory. He said, huh? But his testimony, so, and because of that, his testimony directly challenged the theory that Mary had been attacked by Frank. in the factory and had never left. Initially investigators did their best to accuse him of lying, but his story was actually confirmed by another employee, Corinthia Hall, who had lunch with Quinn that afternoon after he left the factory. And she testified as a working woman at the pencil company she never felt unsafe, and she described Frank's treatment of women as unimpeachable. Wow. So that's a difference. That's very different. And she actually works there. She's not just a woman. And she's a woman. Yeah. We can attest for each other. Yeah. Now, despite the lack of evidence and multiple statements, the statements from witnesses now backing up newly in Leo Frank's stories, the coroner's inquest came to an end on the afternoon of May 8th with a recommendation that the case be sent to a grand jury for a ruling. By most accounts, the outcome of the inquest was heavily influenced by the testimony of Harry Scott, the private detective hired by Leo Frank, and lead detective John Black, who both believed Frank was guilty, and also from testimony of Nellie Pettis, who was a sister-in-law of one of the factory employees. She said that she had gone to the factory about a month earlier to pick up her sister-in-law's pay, and she said Leo Frank supposedly made an open proposal and even intimated the offer of money. It is wild that the difference between people's interpretations of him or experience with him, I'm like, they're vastly different. They're literally on opposite ends of the spectrum. It's literally like his treatment of woman was unimpeachable or he offered me money to have an encounter or he openly offered money for it's like, which one is he? I'm like, can he not lie in the middle somewhere? Yeah, like what's going on over here? We're closer to Corinthians Halls today. Yeah. Now, given the widespread corruption within the Atlanta police department at the time, and the press's pension for exaggerating or just straight-up lying to cell papers, it's difficult to say why investigators had become so competent that Leo Frank was the killer, or why they believed that Newt Lee was his accomplice. Yeah, like how does that even work? Like, where do we get there? Right. According to Steve Oni, who will link in the show notes, it wasn't so much the evidence against Leo Frank in particular as it was the lack of evidence against anybody else. After having ruled out the few suspects that they did have at the start of the investigation, the only person they had left to reasonably point the finger out was Leo Frank apparently, but in all his attempts to help himself out of predicaments, like hiring the Pinkerton's, all he did was make himself look more guilty, unfortunately. It was almost like investigators were so convinced he was the killer, or determined for him to be convicted, that every attempt to clear his name was just further evidence of guilt. Damn. The thing that is so confusing to me, though, is that if you're using those notes as evidence, it's a black man that she described. Yeah, that's even further pointing away from him. But then it was determined that they weren't in Mary's handwriting, so I don't know what they're still using the notes for. Yeah. As evidence, if they're trying to say that Newt Lee was there, well, I think I wonder. So if they're using those as evidence, then I guess they would be taking it as Leo Frank is the person who did this and then trying to pawn it off on Newt Lee, by writing the notes. Okay. Yeah, it's a black man. Yep. I think that's probably saying. Maybe what they're going on here. I think you're right. Yeah. Now, when the case went to the grand jury in mid-May, the prosecution presented obviously what evidence they had, which was not much. For the most part, what they presented was the same evidence that the witnesses from the coroner's inquest had said. But there were several witnesses called the testify who didn't seem to know why they'd even been called in the first place. Good. Yeah. That's good. When the grand jury convened, we convened on May 24th. They reviewed the evidence for about 10 minutes before returning an indictment for murder against Leo Frank. Whoa. Throughout the trial, the prosecution presented no documented evidence to the jury. Literally only testimony in hearsay. That's it. And obviously that's significant because among the most compelling testimony that the jury heard, was from a police officer who took the sworn affidavit from a man, James Conley, who was one of the janitors at the factory. James Conley told detectives that Leo Frank had asked him to write the notes found with the body. Oh, shit. So yeah, your theory is absolutely correct. But now it's not new. Writing the letters. It's James. Him having someone else do it. But strangely, so he said he wrote the notes. But strangely, he could not identify said notes. And claimed he only recognized them when they were read to him from the newspaper. And he, quote, believed they were the ones he wrote. Weird. Yeah. Now, the declaration also was only made after Conley was arrested because somebody reported seeing him washing a bloody shirt at the factory days after the murder. When he was questioned, he said it was his only shirt and he was washing it so it would appear clean at the inquest. Even though at the time he made that statement, he hadn't been called to the inquest as a witness. Also, do you want to explain why your shirt is bloody? Yeah. No one's being like, hey, what is that? Yeah. No, we're just not going to, the only bloody shirt that we can really look at, that's like, whoa. What's that? Okay. Yeah. Now, not only did he not testify at the inquest or the grand jury trial, but the prosecution also declined to present the affidavit for examination by the jury or the defense. In fact, the contents of the affidavit were so scarcely described for the jury by John Black, to whom James Conley had supposedly given the information about the notes. So, it was just like reiterated vaguely to the jury. According to Detective Black, Conley said to him that Leo Frank called him into his office that day, actually the day before the murder, and asked him to write two notes and an exchange he received two dollars and 50 cents in a pack of cigarettes. It's like, okay, so this was also premeditated. Yeah, like, where are we going here? And also, why would that be, how does that even make sense in the jury's mind? Because Mary wasn't working that day. She stopped in to get her paycheck. Yeah. So, Leo Frank wouldn't even know necessarily that she was going to be coming in to get her check. No, because it's like she wasn't scheduled to work. She wasn't scheduled to work, and she was coming in for a pretty small paycheck, considerably. Like, yeah. So, he wouldn't have been expecting her. No. So, that doesn't make sense at all. Yeah. No, it was also worth noting that Conley was arrested on May 1st, the day that he was discovered washing the shirt at the factory. But it was only on the 24th that he wanted to speak to John Black about what he knew. So, that begs the question, why did he sit in a jail cell for almost a month before deciding to share vital information about the case on the very day that the grand jury was expected to return its indictment? Yeah. Hello. Hello. Also, he had previously stated to the police that he didn't know how to write. So, if that was the case, how did he write two different notes to be left beside Mary's body? Huh. Not only did he didn't know how to write and had previously told them that, but then he didn't recognize the notes until they were read to him from the newspaper. And he wouldn't recognize them because he couldn't read. Yeah. That makes sense. Hello. What's, yeah. And they never brought him to testify his own testimony. They just, the jury just got to hear vague testimony reiterated to them. This seems legit. Yeah, for sure. I'd be so convinced on that, Jerry. This seems legit. It pisses me off. According to Steve Oeney, the statement from Conley, Conley only came about after he'd been in solitary confinement for a period of time, which is like very human and fine. Yeah, totally. I get to come out of there pretty okay. And also only came after he was intensely, quote unquote, and repeatedly interrogated for several days by lead detective Black and Harry Scott. I'd like you all to just picture what intensely interrogating a Black man in the early 1900s in Atlanta was like. Yeah. So one paper, the Georgian even went as far as accusing the investigators of manipulating Conley in order to get information they could use against Frank. I think they were on to something. Yeah. The papers said the police questions were of course all put with the idea of gaining information against Leo Frank. The police refused to admit that suspicion was turning or should turn to Conley, who has told one falsehood after another since his arrest. Yeah. Like, let's be real. And what's that's so crazy to me though, because it's like, you've had this guy sitting in jail who you found washing a bloody shirt at the very place where a body was found. And you don't sit there and be like, well, wait a minute. And he's like, I don't know how to read or write. I couldn't have written those notes. Actually, I did write those notes, but for Leo Frank. Whoops. And it's like, what the f- we're not going to ask about the bloody shirt? No, no. Now, the Georgian wasn't wrong in their assertion that the case against Frank appeared to be crumbling at a very crucial time for investigators. It was clear that they needed a convincing piece of evidence that they could give the grand jury to ensure an indictment so that they didn't look fucking stupid. Yeah. But the problem was the first statement they elicited from Jim Conley was contradicted and undermined by several things that were known about him, so much so that even investigators on the case found it hard to believe. But fortunately, he was willing to give a second statement to detectives. How convenient. Oh, Lord. And that one was far more detailed and cleaned up some of the areas in his previous statement. Oh, that's nice. You believe it? That's really convenient. It reminds me of Jesse Miskelli. I was just thinking of that. Now, once that perfect second statement was obtained, almost every detective's opinion of Conley seemed to change in an instant. Oh, good. He went from being a no liar to what the press described as the missing link, which connects the chain of circumstantial evidence detectives had gathered. Wow. Yeah. How the mighty have gotten mightier. And that was the statement that was described to the grand jury. and it was that description that appears to have moved everything in favor of the prosecution and secured it, a guilty verdict. So once the indictment was returned by the grand jury, or not a guilty verdict, I should say an indictment, things started to move quickly. A trial was quickly set for late July and both sides started preparing their cases for the jury. When the trial began on July 28th, they kept up the speedy pace, selecting and seating the entire jury in a few hours. Wow, yeah, that doesn't happen. That was pretty speedy. Yeah. And the prosecution's case was simple. They theorized that Leo Frank murdered Mary Fagan on the afternoon that she came to pick up her wages. And then enlisted the help of Jim Conley to write the notes in order to port investigators toward Newtley. And to that end, prosecutor Dorsey claimed that he would call upon Jim Conley, who they claimed had been regularly relied upon by Leo Frank in his pursuit of young women at the factory. Oh, now that's the thing. Even though the only other witness they had that worked at the factory said his treatment of women was unambutable. Yeah, yeah. Now the first witness called by the prosecution was Newtley, the janitor who discovered Mary's body. Up until that point, he had been sitting in police custody. And his appearance in court was the first time he'd been free in months. Wow. Yeah. He described the experience of finding the body and of Leo Frank's demeanor on the day of the murder. And then did their best to frame their questions and these answers in a way that obviously would cast Leo Frank and assist vicious light, including a now supposed meeting between Lee and Frank were Frank tried to get their story straight. Wow. So that's just been added. But why would he have a meeting with Lee to get their story straight if he was ultimately framing Lee? I was just going to say, how is this working now? Why would he even talk to Lee? Yeah. Now he was just Newtley was one of just many witnesses called by the prosecutor, the prosecutor to smear Leo Frank's character and make his ordinary behavior seem suspect in some way. But for every witness called by the prosecution, there were at least as many Frank supporters sitting in the audience hoping to be called by the defense as character witnesses. Rebecca Carson told her reporter every girl employed at the factory believes Mr. Frank is innocent. Wow. She was one of more than 30 factory employees who were rallying behind Leo Frank and were eager to refute all the claims made against him by the prosecution. The other female employee said if he hadn't been so intent upon his work, he would have taken half holiday on that Saturday and wouldn't even be accused as he is now, which is wild. It's like he was clearly dedicated. Now in a lot of ways, the trial was just a replay of the grand jury, a lot of the same witnesses were there, the scant evidence that investigators had managed to pull together was presented. But what was different was the defense mounted by Rosser according to the defense team, it was actually Jim Conley who killed Mary Fagan and the police had been manipulating him in order to get evidence against their prime suspect. In support of that, the defense planned to present a timeline of Leo Frank's schedule that day, which would have put him out of the factory when the murder was even believed to have been committed. He wasn't even there yet because he didn't come until later. They also planned or I think he was at lunch actually, he went into the factory earlier that day then went to lunch then came back. So they also plan to present several witnesses who would testify that not only did Leo Frank and Mary Fagan have no prior relationship, but that Leo was as far from the sexual deviant prescribed described by the prosecutor as one could even be. But the problem the defense was up against wasn't the evidence or the prosecution's arguments, it was the three months worth of sensational headlines about the murder. With every paper in Georgia vying for readers, there was no shortage of scandalous headlines and even the most discerning reader would have been hard pressed to tell fact from fiction. So that was heavily influencing. And then there was also the matter of Jim Conley's very detailed statement, despite having a questionable reputation, the release of that second statement he signed did prove to be very persuasive to the jury. Yeah, probably because he didn't write it himself. Now in his closing statement, Rosser reiterated his clients innocence and underscored the evidence that pointed toward Jim Conley calling him a drunk and a liar. And he suggested that had Leo Frank not been Jewish, it was unlikely that he would have ever been arrested or charged in the first place. But he said investigators in the prosecution had already invested so much in Frank's guilt that by the time it reached the grand jury, they couldn't turn back anymore. That's pretty much exactly what happened. In his closing statement, Hugh Dorsey accused Leo Frank of being a sexual deviant who had killed Mary Fagan in order to keep her from reporting the sexual assault. And he was Leo Frank was Dorsey told the jury a murder of fit only for the gallows and a felon's grave. Yeah, that's poetic, despite having literally no evidence. Yeah, if this wasn't a wrongfully accused person, I'd be like, whoa, that good argument. Now the next day on August 25th, the jury deliberated for under two hours before returning to the courtroom to deliver a guilty verdict. When the verdict was read, the crowd outside of the courtroom erupted in cheers of celebration. Immediately, the defense motion for a mistrial, arguing that because of the spectator's behavior, possibly intimidating the jury this entire time, Leo Frank hadn't had a fair trial. There you go. The judge listened to the argument, but denied the motion, arguing there was no way of knowing what the crowd was cheering for or whose side they were even on throughout the trial. Well, and it's like not knowing what we know now. Like obviously they're going to cheer for somebody who like rapes and murders of 13 year old girl to be put in jail. But now knowing you're like, they were cheering because they were racist. Now the next day, Leo Frank returned to court where he was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Mary Fagan. And when asked whether he had anything to say before being removed from the court, he said, your honor. I say now as I have always said, I am innocent. Further than this is my further than this, my case is in the hands of my council. When all was said and done, judge Roan set a date of October 10, 1913 for execution, pending any appeals or intercession on Frank's behalf. Now the announcement of Leo Frank's conviction divided residents of Atlanta. And even as far away as Boston at the time, because we know what's up. Writing in the Jewish advocate, the magazine editor called the conviction, a quote monstrous miscarriage of justice and implied a conspiracy on part of the police to frame the defendant. The editor wrote, the only proven fact as developed by the evidence was that Mary Fagan was murdered in the pencil factory of which Frank was the superintendent. It was Jim Conley's evidence only that enabled the state to get the case to the jury. Who knows what influence was brought to bear on Jim Conley? Yeah, because it came out of nowhere. That statement was on the very last minute that it could have been. Observers went the only one skeptical that the jury had made the right decision and finding Frank guilty. Even the judge himself in his refusal to grant a mistrial said, I'm not certain of this man's guilt. Wow, but I don't have to be convinced the jury was convinced. Wow, that's huge. The year out loud. That really is. Now, obviously that statement hid behind due process, but it's clear that he wasn't convinced by the prosecution's argument as the jury was. In fact, a month later when the issue of a new trial was heard in his court in October, the judge made a surprising statement regarding Frank's supposed guilt. He said, I have given this question long consideration. I want to say here that although I heard the evidence in the arguments during these 30 days, I do not know this morning whether Leo Frank is innocent or guilty. Wow. So he continued to say that fascinating. Now, which I'm also just like that's insane that you said that and just like didn't allow for a retrial or what? Now, in February 1914, his Leo Franks appeal for a new trial was heard by the State Supreme Court. As they had done in the lower court, his lawyers argued that due to extensive press coverage and the uncontrolled and increasingly angry group of spectators in and outside of court, Frank had been denied a fair trial. Among other things, his lawyer pointed out that throughout the trial, salesmen moved in and out of the crowd and were selling placards announcing that Frank was Jewish. What the fuck? Yep. And otherwise, quote, stirring up passions of the crowd. What does that have to do with anything? What the fuck? Just so you know, this guy on trial is Jewish in case that helps you. Like that's just like, what? Excuse me. How was that even fucking allowed? Damn. They just didn't give a fuck back. Let's go. Now, despite all of that very compelling evidence of complete bias in the original case, the State Supreme Court voted four to two in favor of upholding the lower courts dismissal for the new trial. Now, with their refusal to retry the case, the State Supreme Court left Leo Frank with only two options, convinced the United States Supreme Court to hear the case or convinced the governor of his innocence and obtain a pardon. Neither really seemed like viable options. But in the wake of the State Supreme Court's decision, the case started or really continued to receive even more attention. At the time of Frank's conviction, the prosecutor's office also stated that they intended to charge Jim Conley as an accessory, which would have resulted in a three to five year jail term. But when they're trying - The trial was over. The prosecution's office simply let Conley go free. - That's different. - Yeah. - Dorsey later said that's quite different. - It's not the same. - Dorsey later said, Conley had nothing to do with the murder. He was just Frank's tool and he ought not to be punished. - No. - You can't punish people for doing that. - He would have been an accessory to murder, dog. - Yeah, I don't punish him for it. - What? - What? - He was just a tool in the murder. - Yeah. - He just let somebody convince him to help. - I think that's also illegal. - I think that's why that whole fucking jail term exists. - No way. - You shouldn't be punished for that. - But okay. - That's crazy. - So that got people talking even more 'cause that seemed pretty fucking strange. - Yeah. - That he would just be released. - It seems a little weird. - I can't imagine being an onlooker at this time. - Yeah. - Now by March, there was more evidence to suggest that Jim Conley might have known more about the murder than he originally let on. - Good. - During a press conference where he again emphatically stated his client's innocence. Rosser introduced a sworn affidavit from another employee at the factory, Helen Ferguson, who claimed that just one week before Mary Fagan was murdered, Conley had accosted her in exactly the same spot on the first floor where Mary was believed to have been killed. - That's relevant. She said, "I walked over to a dark place behind the stairway and started to pick up a box when I caught sight of Conley. He was drunk, seemingly drunk as could be. I was scared and I picked up the box and started to hurry away." Then he came over toward me menacingly and I drew back. I dropped the box. And as he pushed nearer me, I jumped to the stairs and ran away as fast as I could. - I mean, to me, that feels predatory. An aggressive, yup, and relevant. - Yup, yeah. - And where was that affidavit before again? - Now it seemed that each new piece of evidence and testimony that was discovered after Leo Frank had been sentenced, pointed the finger completely away from him and directly towards Jim Conley. - Yeah. - But when the state and the courts were presented with that evidence, they just continued to be like, "No, we got the right guy." - Jesus Christ, they will never, ever admit it. - No, yeah. - Finally, in June of 1915, the case and all the evidence made it to the desk of Governor John Slayton for consideration of a commutation for the death sentence. In a long statement where he cited multiple conflicts in the testimony and evidence not allowed during trial, that probably should have been allowed. - Yeah. - Slayton indicated that he would grant the application for clemency. - Damn. - Now with the commutation approved, it seemed Leo Frank was finally going to be set free after two years of wrongful imprisonment. - Poor thing. - In a fucking nightmare. - Yeah. - But the problem was, remember, people were divided on this case. So not everybody thought that he had been wrongfully imprisoned. - It's so wild to me too. And this shit happens because I'm like, you're not part of the case. - You don't have access to all the shit that everyone who is part of the case has access to. - You are eating the news. - Yeah. - Which is so delicious. - You cannot know. - No. - Not salacious and biased. - Yeah. - So to the people who believed in the certainty of Leo Frank's guilt, the idea that he would be set free, even if it was only for a new trial was unacceptable. So on July 18th, another inmate attempted to take into, take the lawn to his own hands, and he slashed Leo Frank's throat. - Jesus. - The wound was deep and it was serious, and it left prison doctors concerned that Leo Frank might not survive the attack. - Oh wow. - But within a few weeks, he was luckily and remarkably on the mend, and it seemed that he was out of the woods and headed for release. Then the unimaginable happened. Now in the early morning hours of August 17th, 1915, a mob of 25 men converged on milligable state prison and dragged Leo from his bed, kidnapping him from the prison. Confused and disoriented. He was thrown into the back of a truck and driven almost 200 miles to Maryette. - Yeah. - Along the near seven hour drive, a coordinated group telephoned from various outposts to make sure that the road to Maryette was cleared ahead of the mob. When they arrived just outside of Fraze Gin around 7am, Leo was pulled from the car. His hands were cuffed behind him. They tied his feet at the angles. He was forced to then stand on a small table under a large tree while the mob tied a new surround his neck, and then the table was kicked out from under him and he was hanged. - Holy shit. - This gets even more graphic. When it was clear that he was dead, one of the onlookers, a former judge named Newt Morris, urged the men to cut the body down, hoping that it would calm them down. - A former judge. - Yeah. Unfortunately, cutting down the body had the opposite effect. When Frank's body hit the ground, one of the onlookers, Robert E. Lee Howell, rushed forward and started-- - Robert E. Lee Howell. - Robert E. Lee Howell. - Got it, period. - Yeah, it's a name 'em. - Yeah. - He rushed forward and started stomping on Leo Frank's face as others in the group kicked the body or tried to cut away souvenirs of clothing. - Where? - We're disgusting species. - We're disgusting species, we really are. - Eventually, some men from the mob were able to get the body back and it was transported, and Leo Frank was transported back to Atlanta. When the body was delivered to Atlanta, it drew an equally large crowd, all demanding to see the body. - We're not okay. - Some were surprisingly sympathetic to the mob. One citizen wrote a statement to the press that read, "The public will never know the identities "of these 25 brave and loyal men "who took into their own hands the execution of a law "that had been stripped away from them by Governor Slayton. "I would not advise inquisitive authorities "or persons to try to reveal them." - The worst part about this is we couldn't sit here in 2026 and be like, "Holy shit, like-- - Time shoot was crazy. - Time shoot was crazy back then. I see us here again. - Yup. - And that's what makes me like, fuck. - Fuck, like this is not one of those that we could look at a few years ago and go fuck. - Yeah. - We have a bunch of mass-men running around doing fucked-up shit. - Well, and it's just, and also, you look on the internet, people, 'cause we look at these cases and we see these kind of things happen, like lynchings, like you look into lynchings. It is the most horrifying shit you will ever read in your life. - Absolutely. - And there are several, right now, in fact, there are several black people who have been found hanging that have been labeled as a suicide. - Yup. - Some of which are being found to be-- - Huh, wait a minute, maybe not. - Yup. - So it's like, it's not in the past, and people are treating people like subhuman, othering others, and it's not on mainstream news. - And also, you look on the internet and you will see, because you look at this and you say, how can a crowd sit there and watch somebody be hanging? - Look at the camera. - It just doesn't, you look at the internet right now, people have no humanity left. Like there is, people don't, they watch videos of people dying, they see murder. - Oh, so desensitized. - And people are so desensitized to it, they joke about it. You look at a common section on these things, and it's like, you can look at, even like, I think recently, might have been yesterday that day before, there was like a news helicopter that crashed, while it was covering another accident, and two people died in that helicopter, and there is footage from the helicopter of it going down and you can hear them as it's going down. In the comments are, you'll see people just making jokes about it, like bringing, thinking they're cute, hoping they get their, like, thousand likes from their funny comment. We're here again. - Yeah. - And I don't know how we got here, but we have to stop being here. - We should do. - We should do. - We should fucking do. - It's fucking terrifying. - It is. - It really is. - Like, I hate this shit. - It's fucked up. - It's too realistic. - And it's so important to point out that, like, obviously, a lot of times in these stories, we're like, holy shit, times are crazy back then, but they're just as crazy. If not, we swing around, and it's not. - It's not great. - It's not great. We gotta get out of this. - Yeah. Well, Leo Frank's body was held under guard in Atlanta for a few more days before being transported to New York by train, where he was ultimately buried. To the people of Marietta, and doubtless many in Atlanta, and across the state, the governor's commutation of Leo Frank was a betrayal of the people's will. So they felt that Leo Frank got what he deserved. - Oh. - But there was just as many who blamed the police, the state, the press, and the Pinkertons, for the way that they had clearly twisted the truth and manipulated the public into believing something that likely was not true. Governor Sleaton called the members of the mob cowardly assassins and vowed to capture and prosecute every last one of them. Similar cries for justice came from other corners of the state, but inevitably, no one was held accountable for the murder of Leo Frank. - That's not a single person. - That's wild. - Not one single person, which is weird, because you all 25 men ran into a prison where I'm sure officers recognized semi-all. - Yeah, you can't just run into a prison. So you had to be helped into that prison. - Yup. - And how did you get past the bars? Somebody helped you do that. Somebody opened the cell. - Yeah. - Now, this is? - This will get you real mad. - This is, I wanna say the worst part of the case, but every part of this case is so awful that this is really just nice to go, blah. - Yeah. So decades later, in 1982, 83-year-olds Alonzo Mann, who was a former office boy for the National Pencil Company, came forward to their press to reveal a secret that he had come. 10 for 70 years. He was 14 years old at the time working at the factory five days a week, including Saturdays. And he had been at the factory on the day that Mary was killed. And he saw with his own eyes Jim Conley carrying the girl's body into the basement of the factory. Later that day Alonzo told his mother what he had seen and she told him to remain silent unless somebody asked him directly whether he knew anything, but nobody ever asked. Oh, and also they didn't interview everybody in that fucking place. No, you didn't interview the office boy that was working that day. No, they had no idea who the fuck was working. They said that they talked to everybody who was working that day. Generally not. Jim Conley was working that day. Yeah, Alonzo man was working that day. He said later there will be some people who will be angry at me because I kept all this silent until it was too late to save Leo Frank's life. They will say that being young is no excuse. They will blame my mother. The only thing I can say is she did what she thought was best for me and my family. Four years later in March of 1986, the state of Georgia awarded a posthumous pardon to Leo Frank after the anti-deformation league and the American Jewish committee submitted a petition arguing that they should not have to prove Frank's innocence. The requirement the state had put forth two years later, or earlier, excuse me. Now following closely on the heels of Alonzo man's statement, the state's pardon effectively brought an end to the tragic story of the murders of Mary Fagan and Leo Frank. What a fucking tragedy from beginning to end truly. Because also Alonzo man and his family obviously felt like if they came forward with information, the finger was going to be pointed next to them. I think that's such an important point to me. Even sadder when you think of it. Because it's like, this man had to not only lose parts of his life to being imprisoned, but then be murdered by one of the most horrific ways you can imagine. Have his name smeared for decades. He had his name smeared for how long. And it's like and they get and somebody knew it all along. And one didn't say anything, but it was probably scared to be so affected by the climate that they were in. Well, because they felt like they couldn't say it. Because look at how minorities in this area of Atlanta were being treated. That's even worse. And just that's why it's literally like tragedy from beginning to end. Because there was just no such thing as justice. How can you have justice in a place that is that corrupt? Can we just stop othering people? For real. Why do you give up? Like we're just fuck what people believe. God damn. Why do you give up? Fuck. Can we just treat people as like? How did these people aren't hurting each other? I don't care what you believe. Treat it as a case by case basis, man. By all means. You're a shitty person. It doesn't matter what what you look like. What you look like. Where you're from. What you believe. What you do. What you believe in is wild. It's dumb as hell. That's wild. It's dumb as hell. This case was so hard. To get through and then to present all over again. I got even angrier than I was when I was editing it. And I just want us to get better. Yeah. I know. I have like. Listen to this. Just a little cope. It's not better. And that's what's like. I hope Gen Alpha saves us. Come on. Save us. Save us. Gen Alpha. Somebody save us. This is a love of love. We need to save ourselves. We need to all put SOS. SOS. Yeah. Save ourselves. There you go. Do you have like a fucked fact or maybe a fun fact? You know what? I'm going to give you a fun thing. Can you give us the funnest fact of all time, please? This is funny. Tell us. Kuala's have fingerprints that are really similar to human beings. Fingerprints. So they have accidentally messed up police crime scenes sometimes. I hate that they've messed up crime scenes, but I'm obsessed with it. It's fucked in fun. Like you just don't look at me. Why do their fingerprints look like ours? That's so creepy. I don't know. They also have really smooth brains. They do have really smooth brains. So they're like real dumb. Sometimes I wonder if I have a smooth brain. In fact, I think you could just leave sort of like toxic. Yeah. That's why they sleep so much. No, you're so right. It's not Kuala show that the kids watch. I watched that episode too. Is these Kuala world on Netflix? If your fingers like animals, watch it. It's great. Yeah. Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. Not as weird as a single fucking person that I've just described to you in this case. Anything like that. Thank you and good night. [Music] [Music] [Music]