216 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

184 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

A hair found on a lathe, examined under a microscope, led to the opinion that it was not hers. Other witnesses claimed they saw blood on the floor near the dressing room, the same place where Conley said he had dragged the body, and noted that it was not there on Friday. Additional witnesses who examined the floor stated that the spots looked like bloodstains, but they were not certain. There was testimony indicating frequent injuries at the factory, and blood was not an uncommon sight. A part of what they thought to be blood was chipped from the floor, and Dr. Claude Smith testified that, under a microscope, he found three to five blood corpuscles on one of the chips, though he could not confirm it was human blood.

Near the body in the basement, two notes were found in a negro's handwriting: one on brown paper and the other on a leaf of a scratch pad. The note on white paper read: "He said he would love me, laid down play like the night-witch, did it, but that long tall black negro did boy hisself." On the brown paper, which was the carbon sheet of an order blank, the following was written: "Mam that negro fire down here did this when i went to make water and he push me down a hole a long tall black negro did (had) it. i right while play with me."

However, the most startling evidence, and that upon which the conviction of Frank was based, was given by a dissolute and good-for-nothing negro, Jim Conley, a 27-year-old man who had frequently been in the chain-gang. Conley had worked at the factory for about two years, in the basement for about two months, and had also operated the elevator. The detectives learned around the middle of May that Conley could write, although he initially denied it. Before the trial, he made one statement and three affidavits about his connection with the matter.

*This opinion seems to have been given later on a motion for a new trial.

^R. P. Barrett, ante.

^T. N. Starnes, post, p. 192; J. L. Beavers, post, p. 199.

^Post, p. 200.

^Post, p. 244.

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