The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man Part 3

Atlanta Press Wants Answers - Within three days of Mary Phagan's murder, both Newt Lee and Leo Frank were held in separate cells at Atlanta Police Headquarters. The explosive racial dynamics of the burgeoning murder case - including Leo Frank's claim that "blacks" were responsible - even a careful reading of the report reveals no trace of anti-Semitism at the outset. The Anti-Defamation League's teacher's guide to the recent Fagan murder claims: However, not a single article or editorial hinted at such a thing. A month after his murder, Georgian editors found Leo Frank's positive exoneration. No fingerprints on the girl's body or clothing were identified as belonging to him.A search by the detectives implicating him in the crime turned up nothing….Police, as far as is known, have identified Frank If it hadn't been for free entry for Mary Fagan herself, she might not even have known she was the last person she saw.
The moment he saw her body, he told the officer that this was the girl he had paid for at noon the previous day. As far as evidence suggests, no one knew that Mary Fagan was in the building at the time. The biggest victim of negative and racist pre-trial propaganda was Newt Lee, and black status was restored whenever his name was mentioned in print. and was even publicly threatened with death in newspaper headlines.
The constitutional clause reads, "Your loyalty or [your] neck. In the same article, printed three days after the murder, Lee's race is mentioned nine times. Despite the age-old allegations of agitation, an analysis published in Forum magazine in 1916 reminds us that the "newscopy" associated with it ended up in Jewish hands. No one, surplus cop or not, lost sight of the fact that the little girl was dead and Frank was the last man known to have seen Mary Fagan alive.
Blood and hair, physical evidence of her murder, were found on the same floor as his office, and he says he met the girl minutes before she was killed. They believed it was enough evidence to hang Frank.

The Trial of Leo Frank: Theory & The Evidence n Calling the state of the Georgia case against Leo Frank "compelling," Steve Onney, author of a 742-page book on the case, says it We stand up to those who call us anti-Semitic and unfavorable anger. Motivated his charge.
At the time of the trial, Mary Fagan's murder was being investigated by the coroner's office and his four specialized agencies: the Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia District Attorney's Office, Pinkerton and the William J. Burns Detective Agency. . The latter two of him were employed by Leo Frank, but all four agreed on surprisingly similar theories, revolving around the spider-and-web scenario. They claimed that Saturday, April 26, they took advantage of the weekly payday holiday when the factory was closed and unmanned to have a sexual encounter with an unsuspecting 13-year-old Mary Fagan. . When she resisted him, 29-year-old Frank violently assaulted her and accidentally knocked her unconscious in the ensuing fight. Realizing the horrific consequences of his deed, Frank deliberately killed her by strangling her with a heavy 6-foot-long string of hers, such as is commonly used in factories. A series of circumstantial evidence of time, motive, opportunity, and physical evidence made Frank's conviction more likely, if not simpler. The jury must not only consider the prosecution's scenario, but also whether alternative theories are plausible. It was not a "chain" of evidence because, as lead prosecutor Hugh Dorsey puts it, "the chain is no stronger than its weakest link." and neither may be sufficient on its own, but all together can be powerful enough to prove the accused's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. evidence of

Although the state's case was based on good evidence, there was one unusual feature that put this indictment in a class of its own: the white male defendant was a murderer who deserved death. State Attorney Hugh Dorsey believed he could
Overcoming this serious anomaly, he finalized his case before the Georgia courts in August 1913.

Allegations: Leo Frank murdered Mary Fagan in his upstairs metal room down the hall from Frank's office.
Evidence: Police found a fan-shaped splattered blood stain on the floor of the metal room. A police officer testified: It looked as if a white substance had been wiped over it, and N.V. Darley, the factory manager, testified that it "looked like an attempt to cover up the blood stains."
A white substance known as Haskoline was sold and used as a lubricant in factory machinery. Only Frank seems to have known it was actually "soap and oil" and understood its value as a cleaning agent. On April 26th, Frank spent most of his time in his second floor of the factory. Suspect: Mary Fagan's head hit the handle of a machine in a metal room.
Evidence: Several strands of hair were found hanging from the lathe, which witnesses claimed were not there when the factory closed Friday.
Her two wounds on Ms. Fagan's head, one on her face and one on the back of her head, caused bleeding under her skull and knocked her unconscious. The injuries consisted of someone being slapped in the face and then falling backwards against the machine's metal crank, causing the protruding shaft to pull out some of his hair.
Allegations: Mary Fagan was sexually abused during her lifetime. Evidence: The testimony of Dr. H.F. Harris confirmed that Fagan was bleeding from her vagina before she died: There was evidence of some kind of violence in the walls of the vagina....the dilation of blood vessels Showed damage to vagina shortly before death….evidence of riots in the neighborhood
Hymen.
Claim: The murder occurred around the time Mary Fagan met Leo Frank.
Evidence: It is known that Mary ate cabbage that day before leaving home to go to the factory.A chemical analysis of the progress and extent of digestion of the contents of Mary's stomach suggested the time of her murder. Fixed around the time she was dating Leo Frank.
Prosecutor Hugh Dorsey brought his case to a Fulton County grand jury, and on May 24 (almost a month after the April 26 murders), Leo Frank was indicted for the murder of Mary Fagan. it was done. According to internal ADL documents, the 23-member grand jury included five prominent members of the Jewish community, all of whom voted to indict Leo Frank. Among them was the merchant and manufacturer Viktor He Hugo Krieg Shaver, who served on the Executive Committee of both the National Jewish Charity Congress and his Hebrew Congregational Union of America. All have signed an indictment, some of which are as follows:

On behalf of the citizens of Georgia, I impeach and indict Leo M. Frank for murder...by force and weapon, unlawfully and maliciously murdered Mary her Fagan, on the spot. Choked her.. with her string around her neck...
They decided to detain Newt Lee as a key witness. With this grand jury vote confirming his investigation, District Attorney Dorsey confidently prepared for the trial of Leo Frank, who would take Atlanta in the summer of 1913.