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

Here is the translated text as follows:

548

X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

He then said that there were others concerned in it, and others did it, but he was perfectly innocent. He said he hired another man to do it. [The prisoner's counsel objected. The Court decided that it might be received unless it could be shown that the prisoner was influenced by hope or fear to make the statement he did.]

I have frequently been into De Wolf's cell for the purpose of having conversation with him, at his request. I never told him that the best thing he could do would be to make a confession. The most I ever said to encourage him to confess was that if he was perfectly innocent, as he said he was, and if he knew who was guilty, he had better tell. I may have said that I thought there was another person more to blame than he was. I said I thought there was another man who knew more about it than had come out. De Wolf asked me what I thought would be the result—if I thought the District Attorney would come up and let him out. I told him no, I didn’t think what he had disclosed would amount to anything.

De Wolf first asked me into his cell about the 1st of February. He said Mr. Stone was in the room with him, and Stiles was swearing and telling him he had cheated him out of $50. He told Stone he wished the damned rascal had liquor enough down his throat to kill him. Stone said it wouldn't be much of a job to kill him. He told Stone he owed Stiles $50, and if he would kill him, he would give him that. Stone said, for the $50 he would kill him. He said he then went down, and Stone put his hand in Stiles’ handkerchief, behind his neck and choked him, and then came down and said he was dead enough, he guessed. He then went up and saw Stiles dead. He then went to the tavern and called two men, and went for the doctor. Stiles’ wife knew nothing about it. I told him I didn’t believe his story, but I had thought of a way to test the truth of it, if he would consent to it. He wanted to know what it was. I told him I would have Stone arrested that evening as an accessory to the murder, and put in the cell adjoining, and after all was still in the house, he should commence a conversation with Stone, which I could overhear. He said he couldn’t do that, because things would come out against him that would make his case a great deal worse than it now was. I asked him how that could be, if he had told the truth. He said, “A man in my situation would tell most anything to save his own life.”

After De Wolf knew I had the letter to Mr. Tucker, he said he had bought poison once or twice for Mrs. Stiles to use, but he didn’t know whether she had used it or not. He bought some to carry with him the night that Stiles died. Mrs. Stiles told him to get some and put it in hot sling, and that would send it all over him, so he couldn’t throw it off. He said he did not use the poison because he didn’t see any hot water about, and he was afraid of being discovered.

John W. Lincoln: Since De Wolf has been confined, I have been to the jail about once a week. I went once with Mr. Louis Dwight, and De Wolf was talking to him, but he said, “If you have any confession to make,

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