This is Part Three of Three. For Part One, go here, and for Part Two, here.
The police had arrested a third man for killing Mary Phagan, a teenager who worked for the National Pencil Company in Atlanta. The latest suspect was Jim Conley, a NPC janitor. He was a short and stocky light skinned black man.
He became a suspect after another employee said he saw Conley scrubbing a red substance from his shirt. The employee thought it was blood. The police determined the shirt didn’t contain blood and returned it to Conley.
On May 8th, Frank and Lee were held by a coroner’s jury. Several female employees claimed Frank often made sexual advances towards them. A 14-year-old girl named Monteen Stover testified she was at the factory on the day Mary disappeared and around the time Mary had come in to get her check. Stover said she arrived to collect her pay but didn’t see Frank in his office. She left without her pay. This contradicted Frank’s statement about being in his office when Mary had arrived to get her check.
On May 16th, Jim Conley gave one of many different stories about his whereabouts on the day Mary Phagan died. He said on the day of her murder, he had left his house around 10:30 a.m. and then went to a few bars. Afterward, he claimed to have stayed at home for the rest of the day.
Conley, however, admitted to writing the two notes found next to Mary’s body. He called them Murder notes. He blamed the crime on Leo Frank. Here is what Conley said: On Friday April the 25th before Mary’s murder, he said Frank asked for him to stop by his office and write the notes.
The police believed Conley had written the two notes but were surprised he had mentioned Frank’s name. Conley’s admission to writing the notes wasn’t shared with the grand jury. This could have either exonerated Frank or made Conley an accomplice.
A Fulton County grand jury indicted Leo Frank for Mary Phagan’s murder. The grand jury didn’t indict Newt Lee and Jim Conley never testified in front of the grand jury.
Jim Conley, however, changed his story for a fourth time. During a four hour interview with police, he said Frank took him to the body and confessed to killing the girl. According to Conley, after Frank killed Mary, Conley helped Frank load the body on the elevator. Conley then took the elevator to the first floor while Frank used the trapdoor to return to the first floor. They both rode the elevator to the second floor and went to Frank’s office where he told Conley to write the notes.
Leo Frank went on trial Monday July 28, 1913. On April 26th, Conley told the jury that Frank killed Mary Phagan after she rejected his sexual advances. He said he then helped Frank cover up the murder. Conley also mentioned the two notes were written to implicate Newt Lee.
During a cross examination, Conley admitted to having an extensive criminal record and defecating in the elevator shaft before Mary’s death. Although Conley offered several different stories, most people felt Conley wasn’t bright enough to make up such a story unless it was true.
Leo Frank testified that he never saw Jim Conley on April 26, 1913, the day of the murder. Frank said Conley was lying about seeing him on that day. On August 25, 1913 before 5 p.m., the jury found Leo Frank guilty of murdering Mary Phagan.
The day after the trial, Leo Frank learned he would be hanged on October 10, 1913. His appeals failed. On April 9, 1915, the United States Supreme court denied Frank’s final appeal. His execution was scheduled for June 22, 1915.
Jim Conley was found guilty of being an accomplice and sentenced to a chain gang for a year.
Frank’s attorneys then unsuccessfully requested an appeal for clemency with the Georgia Prison Commission. Two weeks later, Georgia Governor John M. Slaton conducted his own investigation as he felt Frank might be innocent.
On June 21, 1915, Governor Slaton commuted Leo Frank’s death sentence on the day before Frank’s scheduled execution date. Several thousand protesters showed up at City Hall to protest. The Georgia National guard, local law enforcement and deputized friends of the governor intervened to keep law and order.
During the evening of July 17, 1915, another prisoner named William Creen nearly killed Frank with a butcher knife. Creen thought he might get pardoned for killing Frank. Somehow, the prison’s medical staff saved Frank from a gruesome death. But prison walls wouldn’t stop a group of men who wanted to execute Leo Frank.
A group of vigilantes called the Knights of Mary Phagan began recruiting members to help break Leo Frank from prison and to kill him. On August 16, 1915, eight vehicles with 28 armed men drove to the Milledgeville State Penitentiary.
The mob arrived at the prison around 10 p.m. They overpowered the guards and placed the warden in handcuffs. The men pulled Leo Frank from his cell and drove away with him. On August 17th, the mob hanged Leo Frank at 7 a.m. that morning. No one was charged with killing Leo Frank.
Here are additional points about this story:
August 1, 1933: William Creen, the man who stabbed Leo Frank received a full pardon.
December 1983, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles pardoned Frank on March 11, 1986, but didn’t clear him of killing Mary Phagan.
Today, the popular belief is Jim Conley killed Mary Phagan. One of the more unusual pieces of evidence was Conley’s feces. It remained intact when found. Conley admitted on the stand he had relieved himself before the murder, yet, he claimed he and Frank used the elevator to move Mary Phagan’s body to the basement. If true, how did the two men use the elevator without smashing the feces?
The feces and two notes written by Conley proved he was near Mary Phagan’s body. But there was no actual evidence that placed Leo Frank anywhere near Mary Phagan’s body.
Frank was placed at the scene based on the testimony of a liar and career criminal. Jim Conley died sometime in 1962. However, it’s been alleged he confessed on his deathbed to killing Mary Phagan. But there is no evidence to support this claim.
However, it came out that Annie Maude Carter, Conley’s girlfriend at the time, claimed Conley told her he had killed Mary Phagan. Carter also claimed Conley stole Mary’s pay and wrote the two notes.
Carter wrote an affidavit for Frank’s legal team to give to the court as evidence to prove Leo Frank’s innocence. On April 24, 1914, Frank’s defense team tried to use Carter’s statement as evidence for a new trial. The court rejected the statement and denied Frank’s request for a new trial.
Many Years after Leo Frank had died, there was one final surprise about this case.
On March 4, 1982, an 83-year-old Tennessee man named Alonzo Mann said he worked at the National Pencil Factory when he was 14. Mann needed to clear his conscience. He said he saw Conley carrying Mary Phagan’s corpse over his shoulder. He was alone and headed to the trapdoor that went into the basement. Mann said Conley threatened to kill him if he said anything. He told his mother.
She told him to remain silent because she didn’t want him to get involved. Even after Frank’s conviction, he remained silent. Mann said he had carried this terrible secret for many years. Mann took a lie detector test and a psychological stress test. Testing results showed Mann had told the truth. His story appeared in the Tennessean newspaper on March 7, 1982. In November 1982, Mann repeated his story on video. He died in 1985.
But there are those who don’t believe Mann.
For instance, if you believed Mann, then you had to believe a black man carried a dead white girl’s body across the busiest sections of the factory without arousing any suspicion. This seemed unlikely.
Although Mary Phagan died over 100 years ago, historians and true crime fanatics continue to debate over this case. It remains one of the most controversial cases in Atlanta’s history.
Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and an avid reader. Contact him through his website at www.themarcabe.com or through Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themarcabe or his Twitter account @themarcabe