Leo Frank TV

Atlanta Georgian Sunday, June 1st, 1913 By AN OLD POLICE REPORTER. Developments came thick and fast during the past week, and one is able to approach consideration of the Phagan case to-day with more assurance and ease of mind than heretofore. Distinctly have the clouds lifted, so I think, from about Leo Frank, and if not yet are they "in the deep bosom of the ocean buried," they have, nevertheless I take it, served to let a measure of the sunshine in. Leo Frank, snatching eagerly at that faltering ray of blessed and thrice-welcome light, may thank the negro Conley Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Thursday, May 29th, 1913 Dorsey Ready to Act if Negro Sticks to Latest Story Accusing Frank. Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey announced that if Conley persisted in his story he would take steps to have him indicted as an accessory after the fact and bring him to trial on this charge. Conley was Friday afternoon removed to the Tower, on an order signed by Judge Roan. Conley's startling tale came late Thursday afternoon after he had been under a merciless sweating for nearly three hours. Noting the signs of weakening, Detective Harry Scott and Chief Lanford shot question Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Thursday, May 29th, 1913 Swears Frank Told Him Girl Had Hit Her Head Against Something. The Georgian in it second Extra published exclusively the first REAL confession of James Conley, the negro sweeper at the National Pencil Factory, regarding the part he played in the Mary Phagan mystery. The Georgian has dealt in no haphazard guesses as to the negro Conley's testimony to the police and in giving prominence to his statements desires to say that it must not be taken as final until it is examined at the trial of Frank. Atlanta, Georgia, April 29, 1913. On Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Thursday, May 29th, 1913 Believed Beavers Will Try to Have Grand Jury Consider Accusations Against Attorney. That bribery charges against Colonel Thomas B. Felder and others will be placed before the Fulton County Grand Jury by police officials, was the indication when G. C. February, secretary of Chief of Detectives Lanford, and the person alleged to have been offered $1,000 in bribe money, secured a subpena Thursday afternoon for A. S. Colyar, Jr., to appear before Solicitor General Dorsey and give testimony Friday morning. The subpena formally summoned Colyar, who was the author of the dictographing of Felder Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Thursday, May 29th, 1913 With Detectives Looking On, Negro Shows How He Carried Girl's Body to Basement at Direction, as He Swear, of His Employer, Leo Frank. As a sensational climax to the confession of his part of the Mary Phagan tragedy, Jim Conley, negro sweeper, was taken to the National encil Factory Friday afternoon, where he enacted by movement every detail of the event that took place in the building of mystery after the death of the little girl. With the detectives noting every sentence that fell from the ready lips of the negro, Conley started from Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Thursday, May 29th, 1913 All Evidence Gathered by His Operatives Sent to the Noted Detective. James Conley, the negro sweeper at the National Pencil Factory who has turned suspicion on himself with a maze of contradictory statements, was put through a gruelling third degree examination at police headquarters this afternoon. Pinkerton Detective Harry Scott said as the grilling began before Chief Beavers and Chief Lanford that he expected to glean important information. Scott had interviewed factory employees and was convinced that there were many things to be cleared up before the negro's second affidavit, on which the police Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, May 28th, 1913 Mrs. Rebecca Brannon Declares Her Belief in Innocence of Factory Superintendent. Mrs. Rebecca C. Brannon, 356 Forest Avenue, a well known Atlanta woman, has written a letter to The Georgian in defense of Leo M. Frank. Mrs. Brannon, in her communication, avows a strong belief in the pencil factory superintendent's innocence, and denounces the hardships which the law has thrust upon him. In line with its policy to present all sides of the Phagan case, The Georgian herewith prints Mrs. Brannon's letter: In the name of God, humanity, and justice, I beg the public Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, May 28th, 1913 Police Secure Admission From Negro Sweeper During Examination for Phagan Clews. Admission that he was in the National Pencil factory on the day of the murder of Mary Phagan was gained from James Conley, the negro sweeper on whom suspicion has turned, after cross-examination by detectives at police headquarters. The negro, who became the center of attention with his amazing story that Leo Frank had told him to write the death notes, changed his narrative again to-day. Confronted by E. F. Holloway, a foreman in the plant, he admitted having been in the factory Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, May 28th, 1913 Negro Sweeper in New Affidavit Denies His Former Testimony and Makes Startling Assertions; Now Declares He Wrote Notes Saturday. James Conley, negro sweeper, in an affidavit made Wednesday, said that he was lying when he said he went to the National Pencil Factory on Friday. He said that he made the statement that it was Friday when Frank (as he says) told him to write the death notes, because he was afraid he would be accused of the murder of Mary Phagan if he told the truth. He said he felt that if he Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Wednesday, May 28th, 1913 Declares That He Will "Clean Out" Disorderly Places When Hutcheson Furnishes List. Renewed crusades to clean out vice in Atlanta have been precipitated by the publication Tuesday of an open letter to Chief of Police Beavers by Carl Hutcheson, an Atlanta attorney. Chief Beavers called up Hutcheson with a demand for his information, asking names, addresses and character of occupants, and declared Wednesday that he would proceed to clean up if the requested information was furnished. Hutcheson is now preparing a list of the places which he declared are immoral and told the chief Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, May 27th, 1913 Negro, Whose Story That He Wrote Notes at Frank's Dictation Is Generally Disbelieved, Was Often Drunk. Mrs. White Can Not Identify Him. Suspicion in the Phagan case was Tuesday morning turned full-flare upon James Conley, the negro whose unexpected assertion last week that he had written the notes found beside the body of Mary Phagan, at the dictation of Leo M. Frank, was followed by a speedy indictment of the pencil factory superintendent. In the opinion of E. F. Holloway, timekeeper and foreman in the factory, Conley is the guilty man. Careful study of Read More ...

Luther Z. Rosser, who is leading attorney of counsel for the defense of Leo M. Frank, indicted for the murder of Mary Phagan at the National Pencil factory. Mr. Rosser, as usual, is playing a game of silence. He has not indicated his line of defense. Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, May 27th, 1913 What will be the defense of Leo M. Frank when he is called upon next month to answer to the charge of strangling little Mary Phagan? With the confident announcement of the police Monday that they had completed a case against the factory superintendent that was as conclusive Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, May 27th, 1913 Attorney Carl Hutcheson Accuse Beavers of Permitting Unlawful Houses to Operate. GAMBLER'S PLOT, SAYS LANFORD IN HOT REPLY Detective Head Declares "Ring" Is Trying to Fix Charge of Bribery Against Him. Ignoring the fresh volley of charges made by Carl Hutcheson, an attorney, who offers to cite resorts which are allowed to operate by the city police. Chief Beavers Tuesday morning reiterated his declaration that the entire matter would be laid bare before the Grand Jury for decision. Detective Chief Lanford revealed another angle of the warfare when he declared that the fight being Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Tuesday, May 27th, 1913 C. W. Tobie, chief criminal investigator for the Burns Detective Agency, formally withdrew from the Phagan investigation Tuesday morning. The calling off of the Burns forces was announced by Dan P. Lehon, superintendent of the Southern branch, after Tobie had stated explicitly that he would not withdraw from the case. Colonel Thomas B. Felder, who brought the Burns detectives into the Phagan case, would make no statement relative to their withdrawal but announced that it did not mean the end of his investigation or connection with the case. Tobie made up his mind last Read More ...

Thomas B. Felder, and his expansive smile. This photograph was taken before Chief Beavers started out to make him prove his charges. What sort of a smile will Felder wear when Beavers gets through with him? Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Chief of Police Beavers and Chief of Detectives Lanford both stated emphatically Monday that they intended to go to the full limit of the law in making Thomas B. Felder prove his charges of graft in the police department. Both Beavers and Lanford will take the matter before the Grand Jury, and they will take other action in Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Pencil Factory Owners Told Him Not to Shield Superintendent, Scott Declares. Harry Scott, assistant superintendent of the Pinkertons, announced Monday his belief that Leo M. Frank was responsible for the slaying of 14-year-old Mary Phagan April 26. He added that his agency had been working on this theory from the time its services were engaged by officials of the National Pencil Company, two days after the crime. Scott previously had said the Pinkertons were on the case to find the guilty man, even though it might be Frank. His latest statement is believed to Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Mayor James G. Woodward Monday gave out a sizzling interview in reply to Police Chief Beavers' accusations, which he concluded with this statement: "If Beavers and Lanford authorized February . ‘a trusted man,' to go out and tell lies about corruption in the department in an effort to trap somebody, they are unworthy to hold the places they occupy, and the sooner they are put out the better it will be for the police department and the city. "February has proved that he is not fit to serve in the police department in any Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Chief of Police James L. Beavers issued a statement Monday forenoon defying his accusers to prove that he had been guilty of any act of moral turpitude as Chief of Police or as a citizen. He characterized the attack by Colonel Thomas B. Felder merely as an effort to detract attention from his own (Felder's) actions. Referring to A. S. Colyar, in his sweeping denial of the charges that have been made against the police department, he made the pertinent observation, "that it many times required a crook to turn up another crook." "I Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Police Board Minority as Anxious to Overthrow Chairman as Beavers and Lanford. Well informed politicians declared Monday that any efforts to remove Chief of Police Beavers and Chief of Detectives Newport Lanford were doomed to failure because of the support of the two officers by Carlos Mason, chairman of the Police Board, and his supporters. Despite rumors of changes of line-up on account of developments of the last few days, all indications are that, if the issue of removing Beavers and Lanford is made, the relative strength of the two old factions will remain Read More ...

Mrs. Nina Fomby, woman who made affidavit that Leo M. Frank had telephoned to her on the day of Mary Phagan's death trying to get a room for himself and a girl. Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Chief of Detectives Lanford was given two papers Monday accusing friends of Leo M. Frank of attempting to bribe a man and a woman to swear that they saw Mary Phagan at 10:30 Saturday night, April 26, at a soda fountain at Marietta and Forsyth Streets. These papers were given Lanford by A. S. Colyar, whose entrance into the Phagan case has Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Chief of Detectives Newport Lanford Monday announced that the mystery of the Mary Phagan tragedy is solved, as nearly as is possible without the absolute, direct testimony of eyewitnesses, and expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with the evidence now in hand. Accompanying this statement comes the authoritative announcement that the great strangling crime will be placed on Leo M. Frank, now under indictment on the charge of murder, and that Newt Lee, the suspected negro night watchman of the National Pencil Factory, will not be indicted. Lee will be held in jail until the Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Monday, May 26th, 1913 Topeka, Kans., Chief Wires Beavers That Burns Detective Was Not Convicted. That the local police authorities are tracing the past record of C. W. Tobie, the Burns operative investigating the Phagan case, came definitely into light Monday morning when Police Chief Beavers received a telegram from the Chief of Police of Topeka, Kans., regarding the detective. The telegram was in answer to one sent by Beavers some days ago to Topeka asking for Tobie's police record there. The answer stated that while Tobie had been involved in a kidnaping case in Topeka, that he Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Sunday, May 25th, 1913 A deluge of statements and affidavits tending to connect him with criminal operations all over the United States and Mexico, and showing that he has served time in half a dozen penitentiaries and been an inmate of a number of insane asylums, poured in Saturday upon the head of A. S. Colyar, the man who has stirred the city with his dictograph plots and his graft and bribery accusations involving Colonel Thomas B. Felder, Mayor James G. Woodward and others. Twenty-four hours after Colyar fired his first shot he was in jail. He was Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Sunday, May 25th, 1913 Declares He Will Die Fighting ‘Foes of Reform' Felder Denies Bribe Charges and Scores Police Chief Sees Conspiracy to Overthrow His Rule and Calls Felder Leader in the Plot Chief of Police James L. Beavers Saturday night gave to The Sunday American a sensational statement in reply to Colonel T. B. Felder's accusations against him and the police department, and declared that he would go before the Grand Jury, and seek to indict Felder and all others implicated in the "conspiracy" against him. He made it very plain that if there were men "higher Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Sunday, May 25th, 1913 Hugh M. Dorsey, Solicitor General, made it plain last night that if investigation develops the fact that there is anything in the charges of graft and corruption in the police department, or that Colonel Felder attempted to bribe public officials to secure evidence in the Phagan case, he most assuredly would present the matter to the Grand Jury. He said, however, that he does not think the charges and counter charges would amount to anything when sifted to the final analysis, other than a controversy between the city detectives and the man who brought Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Sunday, May 25th, 1913 Athens Judge Tells Colonel Felder That Dictograph ‘Trapper' Is Under Suspended Sentence in Georgia. Knoxville Complaint To Be Pressed. A. S. Colyar, soldier of fortune, who plotted the destruction, by means of the dictograph, of Colonel T. B. Felder and Mayor Woodward, last night was released under bond from the city prison. The charge of forgery on which he was arrested, he declared, was trumped up in order to take him from Atlanta, and was brought, he says, by Felder or his friends. Colyar was arrested at Marietta and Forsyth Streets Saturday afternoon by Read More ...

Mayor James G. Woodward, of Atlanta, accused by dictograph in conversation in A. S. Colyar's room at the Williams House, denies that he offered money to secure evidence of corruption against police and detective departments. Atlanta Georgian Sunday, May 25th, 1913 Woodward Brands Dictograph Trap Scheme to Make Him "Goat" Against Beavers. Mayor Woodward declared Saturday night that the sensational dictograph records were merely the "froth of a plot of a ‘dirty gang,'" and too unworthy and ridiculous to require any official action from him. "I think the matter reached its proper culmination when the dirty old crook Colyar, seemingly Read More ...

Colonel Thomas B. Felder in an earnest attitude, as he denies charges of attempted bribery and sourges Atlanta's police officials. Atlanta Georgian Sunday, May 25th, 1913 Colonel Thomas B. Felder Saturday night issued an exhaustive statement denying once more that he had offered a bribe of $1,000 to Chief Lanford's clerk, G. C. February , for evidence involving his superiors; charging that the dictograph records of his conversations with February and A. S. Colyar were padded; denouncing Colyar as a proved crook and ex-convict, and charging wholesale corruption in the police department, particularly against Beavers and Lanford. He said he Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Saturday, May 24th, 1913 True Bills Already Drawn by Solicitor Against Frank and Lee. The Grand Jury resumed Saturday morning the Phagan murder case with indictments against Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee charging strangulation. While nothing definite could be learned, it was confidently expected at the office of the Solicitor Saturday morning the case of Frank might be completed during the day. Only a few more witnesses were to be called. It was learned, and these could tell what they knew in a few hours. The indictments are the first of the kind to have been drawn Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Saturday, May 24th, 1913 But He Fails to Produce Man to Prove Charge, as He Promised. A. S. Colyar, Jr. failed entirely to produce the "mysterious man" whom he declared had been hired to "shoot to death" Chief of Police J. L. Beavers. When Colyar gave the sensational information of the conspiracy to kill the police official he declared that he would bring to police headquarters the man who had been secured to commit the deed; that this person would make affidavit to bear out the plot charges, and would swear also that he had been promised immunity Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Saturday, May 24th, 1913 Wanted Woodward to See Just What Sort of a Crook Colyar Was, He Declares. Edward O. Miles, a private detective, assumes the responsibility for the presence of Mayor Woodward at the Williams House, resulting in the dictographing of the Chief Executive of Atlanta. He also says it was at his suggestion Colonel Thomas B. Felder discontinued even his acquaintance with A. S. Colyar, the wild-eyed investigator from Tennessee. Miles' statement to a Georgian reporter follows: "Colonel Felder had already been to see Colyar and he asked me to go and see what he had; Read More ...

Atlanta Georgian Saturday, May 24th, 1913 Denies, However, That He Ever Offered Money During Course of Conversation Recorded. Mayor Woodward Saturday admitted that the dictograph record of his conversation in the room of the mysterious Colyar was correct. After reading the report in The Georgian, he said: "This is not as strong as the conversation I told you I had before I knew they had a dictograph on me. "I did not offer them any money, but I will say now that I will subscribe to a fund that might unearth any graft in any city department. But I haven't Read More ...