Author: Historical Librarian

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Says Phagan Suspect Left Pair of Shoes In His Place Saturday Evening. Charles W. McGee, of Colonial Hills, a bartender in the saloon of J. P. Hunter at 35 South Forsyth Street, almost directly across from the National Pencil Company plant, corroborated to-day the story told by J. M. Gantt about leaving a pair of shoes in the saloon from Saturday night until Monday morning. "The man I judge to be Gantt from the description came into the saloon, but stayed only a short time," said McGee. "I noticed nothing suspicious about Gantt Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 John Milton Gantt, the accusation of a terrible crime hanging over him, from his cell at police headquarters, has made to-day a complete denial of any connection with the Mary Phagan murder in the first formal statement to the public since his arrest in Marietta yesterday afternoon. The statement, which was given to a Georgian reporter, was said by Chief Beavers to be substantially the same as that taken by the police department stenographer last night for the use of the city detectives. This remarkable denial, if it is to be given credence, Read More ...

  Gantt reading murder warrant   Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 A sensational arrest will be made in the Mary Phagan murder mystery within a few hours. It will be based on the firm theory of the police and detectives that the strangled girl was never outside the factory of the National Pencil Company from the time she went in there for her pay Saturday noon until her dead and mutilated body was taken to the morgue early Sunday morning. The detectives do not believe that Arthur Mullinax is guilty of the murder. They do not believe that J. Read More ...

  Leo M. Frank.   Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Mysterious Action of Officials Gives New and Startling Turn to Hunt for Guilty Man—Attorney Rosser, Barred, Later Admitted to Client. Has the Phagan murder mystery been solved? The police say they know the guilty man. Chief of Detectives Lanford at 2 o'clock this afternoon told The Georgian: "We have evidence in hand which will clear the mystery in the next few hours and satisfy the public." All the afternoon the police have been "sweating" Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the factory where the girl worked, and putting through the Read More ...

    Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 The little town of Marietta, Georgia, where her baby eyes first opened upon the light of day scarcely fourteen years ago, will to-day witness the sorrowful funeral of Mary Phagan, the sweet young girl who was mysteriously murdered in the National Pencil Factory Saturday night and whose body was later found in the basement where it had been dragged by unknown hands. The casket, accompanied by the girl's stricken family—her mother and stepfather, her sister Ollie, 18 years old, and her three brothers, Ben, Charley and Josh, all young boys, left the Union Read More ...

Mrs. J. W. Coleman, below, mother of slain Mary Phagan, and Ollie Phagan, sister of the murdered girl . Mrs. Coleman is prostrated by grief over the crime, and warns all mothers of working girls to watch carefully their loved ones. Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Has the murderer of pretty little Mary Phagan slipped the net that the police most carefully spread for him? Is the author of the crime that shocked the city and State with its terrible brutality still at large? Is the mystery, as baffling in its myriad conflicting elements as it is revolting in Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Among all the hearts that are bowed down in sorrow over the murder of Mary Phagan, the 14-year-old factory child found dead in the National Pencil factory Saturday, there is none who feels the suffering and the anguish of the separation so keenly as her sister, Ollie, 18 years old, her companion since childhood. For with her it is the suffering of youth, when the rose-veil of life has been lifted to show its tragic and terrible side in all its fullness for the first time. And it is all the more pitiful for Read More ...

    Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Is the murderer of Mary Phagan among the four men who are being held at police headquarters, or is he still at large, either among those still unsuspected or among those who have been severely quizzed by the officers? The men still in custody are: 1—Newt Lee, negro night watchman, who is thought to know much more about the crime than he has told, but who has not been regarded as the perpetrator; 2—Arthur Mullinax, former street car conductor, for whom a strong alibi has been established, and from whom suspicion is Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 J. W. Phillips Thinks Couple Who Asked for Room May Have Been Gantt and Girl. Was the young woman who, in company with a young man, applied to John W. Phillips, keeper of a rooming house at Forsyth and Hunter Streets at about 11 o'clock Saturday night for a room, Mary Phagan, the little girl who was found murdered the following morning? And was Gantt the man with her? Phillips was not positive to-day. He saw the young woman in the morgue at Bloomfield's undertaking establishment, and it is understood he positively identified Read More ...

  Miss Pearl Robinson, sweetheart of Arthur Mullinax, the man questioned by the police in connection with the slaying of Mary Phagan. Her story cleared Mullinax of any suspicion of complicity in the crime which has shocked Atlanta.   Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Brave little Pearl Robinson! Her loyalty and devotion to Arthur Mullinax, one of the four men held in connection with the brutal strangling of Mary Phagan, form the only bright feature in a sordid and revolting crime. What did she care for the stares of the groups of people that hung about the detective headquarters Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 That Mary Phagan never left the factory after she entered it at 12:15 o'clock Saturday, the day of her murder, and that she was killed and her body dragged into the basement by the negro night watchman, Newt Lee, now in jail, is the firm belief of the child's stepfather, W. J. Coleman, and other members of her family. As for Arthur Mullinax, former street car conductor, held on suspicion, Mr. Coleman told a Georgian reporter he thought him innocent of the crime. He was also very doubtful if J. M. Gantt, ex-bookkeeper Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Suggestive Illustrations Clipped From Magazines Pasted Up About Scene of Tragedy. Pictures of Salome dancers in scanty raiment, and of chorus girls in different postures adorned the walls of the National Pencil Company's plant. They had been clipped from a theatrical and prize-fighting magazine. A more melodramatic stage setting for a rendezvous or for the committing of a murder could hardly have been obtained. The building is cut up with partitions, which allow of a person passing about from one part to another without attracting the attention of others. While the main entrance Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Mother and Aunt of Mary Phagan Swoon at Burial in Marietta This Morning. A thousand persons saw a minister of God raise his hands to heaven to-day and heard him call for divine justice. Before his closed eyes was a little casket, its pure whiteness hid by the banks and banks of beautiful flowers. Within the casket lay the bruised and mutilated body of Mary Phagan, the innocent young victim of one of Atlanta's blackest and most bestial crimes. The spirit of the terrible tragedy filled the air. An aunt of the strangled Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Who Would Be the Most Interested in Saying That the Night Watchman Did Not Do It? While the tendency of the police straight through has seemed to be to doubt that Mary Phagan, the murdered girl, really wrote the small notes found beside her body purporting to give a clew to her murderer, the girl's stepfather, W.J. Coleman, thinks it possible that she may have written one of the scrawls. That one is the note written on the little yellow factory slip—so faintly traced it is almost impossible to read it. It is Read More ...

    Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, April 29th, 1913 Hope for apprehension of the slayer of Mary Phagan has come to the police with the discovery of distinct finger prints, stamped in blood on the sleeve of the dead girl's jacket. The discovery was made by a Georgian reporter in the course of a minute inspection of the girl's clothes yesterday evening. The finger prints are on the right arm of the light silk dress. The imprints of two fingers are just below the shoulder, staining purple the lavender of the child's dress and penetrating to the arm, as if they Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Wednesday April 30th, 1913 G. W. Epps, Jr., 14 years old, of 248 Fox Street, who lives just around the corner from Mary Phagan, and who was her boy sweetheart, testified before the Coroner's Jury this afternoon that Mary Phagan had asked him to come down by the factory and go home with her a few days ago. She told him, he said, that Mr. Frank had been in the habit of going down to the front door and waiting there until she came out and looked suspicious at her and winked. He was asked: Q. When did Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, April 30th, 1913 At Special Council Meeting Called by Mayor Only One Man Opposes Action. At a special session of city council to-day, called by Mayor Woodward, to give the city's financial aid to the apprehension of the guilty persons in the Mary Phagan strangling case, $1,000 was appropriated as a reward to the person furnishing information leading to the arrest of the man or men who committed the deed. The appropriation found one opponent in Councilman Thomson, who said the lure of a high award would be likely to result in the arrest and hanging Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, April 30th, 1913 Records Purport to Show Watchman Failed to Register Three Times Saturday Night. What does the National Pencil Factory time clock show? It was the duty of Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, to punch it every half-hour. Records brought to the police station purport to show that Lee three times failed to punch the clock. But Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the factory, told a Georgian reporter Sunday afternoon that Lee had punched the clock regularly and that the clock record was all right. Misses Were Not Consecutive. Accepting the evidence of the Read More ...

  Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, April 30th, 1913 Negro Woman Says Man Accused of Phagan Crime Was Not Home Saturday Night. If Newt Lee, the watchman, went home on Saturday night and discarded a bloody, stained shirt, Lorena Townes, the negro woman with whom he boarded, knows it. Lorena says Lee was not home on Saturday night. Detectives found the blood-stained shirt in an old barrel in Lee's room, and around this point has been built the theory that after committing the crime the man went home, changed his shirt, returned to the factory and then telephoned the police. Supporting this Read More ...