Thursday, 8th October 1914: Long Delayed Search May Help Solve Phagan Case, The Atlanta Journal

Detectives Search Rubbish Piles in Rear of Forsyth Street Saloon

Chief of Detectives Newport Lanford has shrouded in mystery the results of a recent search of rubbish piles behind the saloon at 50 North Forsyth Street, where Jim Conley claims he went to drink a glass of beer after he had assisted Leo M. Frank in disposing of the murdered body of Mary Phagan. Bartenders at Fisher's saloon say that the head of the detective department, with a number of other men, visited the saloon after 11 o'clock, one night last week, and with their electric search lights made an exhaustive search. The bartender did not assist in the search and declared that he knows nothing of its result. Chief Lanford would neither admit nor deny that he was searching for the missing purse, nor would he say if anything had been found. However, he admitted that the search was at the instigation of Attorney William M. Smith, Jim Conley's former attorney, who has recently announced that he believes his former client guilty of the crime for which Frank has been convicted.

REFERRED TO SMITH.

When a reporter attempted to question him about the search, Chief Lanford said: "Bill Smith was saying something about that a week or so ago; you had better see him." "Isn't it a fact that you, with several of your men, made a search of the rubbish pile in the saloon where Conley said on the stand he threw the cigarette box which had contained a little money Frank gave him?" he was asked. "See Smith," was the reply. "He is doing the talking now." Mr. Smith would not deny that he had accompanied the Detectives to make a search for the saloon but manifested a similar reticence. "I can't tell you anything about it at this time," he said. Although the Fisher saloon on Forsyth Street, which is nearly opposite the scene of the Phagan murder, figured more or less prominently in the testimony of Jim Conley, the search of a few days ago is the first, so far as is known, that detectives working on the case have made there. During the first investigation of the case, however, the pencil factory and other likely places were carefully searched for the purse, which Mary Phagan is known to have carried to the factory with her. Several purses, thought to be the missing one, were found during the course of the investigation, but the mother failed to identify them, and failure of all efforts to locate the pocketbook has been one of the many mysteries of the case.

LETTERS THREATEN SMITH.

Attorney Smith has written an interesting card in which he declares that he is going to stand by his guns despite the fact that he is receiving many threatening letters, since it was announced that he had changed his opinion about the murder case. "I am doing business at the same old stand," writes Mr. Smith, "not much business, but what I have, I am there to attend to. I am still living at the same old place, too, although I have taken the precaution to send my wife and children elsewhere so as not to endanger them." Addressing himself to the card writers and others who have threatened him, he says: "As a man and a lawyer, if it takes my life in the cause of justice, I am at your mercy. Come and get me, I have a mission to perform, and unless I am killed in the effort, I am going to perform it, and with gloves off at that. I do not intend to be disposed of like several men who have gotten a stiff punch in the jaw in this matter and then have gone off to a corner. I intend to say my say, regardless of what it costs." "Many advise me that I am persona non grata with some of the powers that be who handle the enforcement of the criminal law, and it seems mighty easy to crush every fellow down by the use of that power, if the exigencies seem to demand. I do not know as to whether my informants are correct. More investigation is turning on who W. M. Smith is and what he has done than on the question of who killed Mary Phagan. Go to it, fellows, and when my stable is cleaned out, possibly I can serve in helping clean out some others."