Frank’s family and friends spent tens of thousands of dollars to finance his appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court and then to the Federal courts. Surprisingly, so did many of the reporters who had covered the trial for the national media, such as Herbert Asbury, author of Gangs of New York.īut outside Georgia, many believed Frank had been railroaded. Most Georgians believed Frank’s guilt had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In this way Frank was convicted and sentenced to death. They all testified that they had a bad opinion of Frank’s character, although they couldn’t provide concrete examples of his immorality.ĭorsey’s summation lasted three days, with thousands packing the streets for blocks around the courthouse, roaring “Hang the Jew!” The judge advised Frank and his lawyers not to attend the verdict’s reading for fear of their lives. Dorsey called several female ex-employees of National Pencil. Dorsey heavily relied on Conley, who testified that he’d been Frank’s lookout while the supervisor had forced himself on female employees that he’d found Frank standing over Mary’s body and had helped him carry it downstairs. Men standing in the courtroom windows shouted play-by-play commentary down to the crowd as vendors hawked refreshments. Throughout the trial, the streets outside the courthouse were jammed by mobs, drawn by the sensational press coverage. It lasted 25 days in the heat of a Georgia summer. As the public responded to the media prompts by demanding Frank’s conviction, the police quietly disregarded far more considerable evidence pointing to Conley, whom Dorsey began preparing for trial as his main witness.įrank’s trial opened on July 28, 1913. Gossip that Frank was a pervert was printed as news under bold headlines. The three Atlanta dailies, the Atlanta Constitution, the Journal and the Georgian, also assumed Frank’s guilt and fought to exploit the story’s sensational details. They began releasing carefully chosen information to reporters, who apparently filled in the gaps with hearsay. The police and prosecution swiftly committed themselves to a theory of Frank’s guilt. Dorsey, the prosecutor, wanted higher office and hoped to gain it by convicting Mary Phagan’s killer. Then Leo Frank was arrested: Police insisted that Frank had been the last person to see her alive. The Atlanta police arrested Lee and another Negro, Jim Conley, a janitor who’d been seen washing blood from a shirt shortly after the incident. on April 27, Newt Lee, a Negro watchman, found Mary’s strangled, blood-soaked body in the factory’s basement. Leo Frank was working in his office and paid her.Īt three a.m. Everyone now agrees that, on April 26, 1913, Confederate Memorial Day, a day of parades and ceremonies in Atlanta, she stopped by the factory for her money. She was a pretty girl, nearly 13, and was owed back wages of $1.20. In early April 1913, one of its employees, Mary Phagan, was laid off for lack of work. In August 1908, he moved to Atlanta to supervise a family business, the National Pencil Factory. Leo Frank, born on April 17, 1884, grew up in Brooklyn.
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