09 Chapter V Crime Stirs Atlanta Leo Frank Case 1913

The city of Atlanta was deeply disturbed, as it had never been before, upon learning that Mary Phagan had been killed in the National Pencil factory's basement. Excitement had been raised by the well-known Grace case. Much interest had been piqued by Mrs. Callie Scott Applebaum's trial. However, the enigma surrounding Mary Phagan's murder and the heinousness of the act came together to create a sensation that persisted for months after the required nine days. A mystery for which there might never be a conclusion.

There is a mystery surrounding this case that will make it the most well-known in Georgia's criminal history. Everyone was mentioning Mary Phagan's name. The papers were released one after another on Monday morning after the murder.

Dozens of them were taken up. The public appeared to be enthralled with the horrific crime and could not get enough of it. The end result was an abundance of rumors, most of them highly sensational, that the people spreading them claimed would help identify the murderer. This inundated the Atlanta Police Department.

After reports of other suspects led to the arrest of another man before that first Sunday ended, the public at large unanimously declared that mute Lee was the guilty man. He was the supposed friend of the deceased girls, Arthur Mullen Axe, a former streetcar conductor. Per E's statement, Mullen Axe was taken into custody. L. Sentell is a CJ employee. The man with Mary Phagan was sighted by a camper grocery company employee at 12:30 in the morning. me.

Strolling along Forsyth Street close to the pencil factory on the morning of the murder. Sentell told the police that he had known Mary Phagan for years and that he was certain she was the girl he had seen on the street. He added that he was even more shocked when he saw her approaching and realized she was the little Phagan girl. He claimed that as the pair went by, he said, "Hello, Mary," to which she replied, "Hello." Mullinax was quickly taken into custody by the authorities and brought to the police station late on Sunday night.

He was positively identified by Sentell as the man he claimed to have seen with Mary Phagan. When Mullinax was being taken into custody, there was a throng at the police station, and he received multiple threats to his life. This was an example of how enraged the public was. The suspect angrily denied being innocent to the police, saying he had only ever met Mary Phagan once at a Christmas performance and that he knew her only by sight.

He was placed in a different cell after the officers decided to keep him under suspicion. Another suspect, J.M. Gantt, was taken into custody in Marietta on Monday.

Many unsettling details suggested that Gantt was aware of the crime. It was established that he knew Mary Phagan. On Saturday afternoon, he had visited the factory.

He knew the building from his days as an employee at the factory. Mrs. F.C. Terrell, the sister of Gantt. After Gantt had spent the night there on Friday, officers tracked down Terrell at her home at 28 East Linden Street. She recounted his movements in conflicting ways.

Officers concluded they were headed in the right direction after that. Gantt was taken into custody on Monday morning after being accused of Mary Phagan's murder in a warrant. He was taken to Atlanta and reunited with Lee and Mullinax in the station house just as he got out of the car at Marietta.

Gantt gave a straightforward account of his experiences, acknowledging that he had been let go from the factory a few weeks prior. He then explained that he had returned on Saturday to retrieve some shoes he had left behind, and that by traveling to Marietta at that unfortunate hour, he was only carrying out plans he had made with his mother days earlier. Gantt attempted to obtain his release from custody by requesting a writ of habeas corpus the morning after his arrest. However, both he and Mullinax were set free before it could be implemented.

On May 1, after each person provided testimony at the coroner's inquest that unambiguously established their alibi. Mullinax's release was primarily made possible by Pearl Robinson, his fiancée, who came forward to testify that she was the girl Sentell had seen with him. Later on in the trial, Gantt was subpoenaed as a witness, and Mullinax was not even called as a witness because it was found that he knew the case very little.

In the days that followed the murder, the police had numerous rumors to investigate, dispel, or corroborate, of which Gantt and Mullinax were just two. There are rumors of a red-dressed girl who claimed to know something about the crime being witnessed in Marietta being taken away in a car on a Saturday morning and drugged. The police had plenty of friends thanks to rumors and rumors of rumors.

Among the least of them led to the arrest of Paul Bowen, a former Atlanta resident who was acquainted with Mary Phagan, in distant Houston, Texas. The day following his apprehension, on May 7, Bowen managed to furnish an alibi without having to make the arduous journey back to Atlanta. It's interesting to remember that Bowen's arrest was used as justification to fire half of Houston's detective force at the time due to the friendly political climate in the city at the time.

When it was revealed that the Pencil factory authorities had hired local Pinkerton detectives to help track down the murderer, the police were allegedly given assistance on the Monday after the killing. There were so many rumors going around on Monday, April 28, that not much real progress on the Phagan case had been made. The coroner's jury was empaneled in the investigation and met with coroner Paul Donahue in the Pencil Factory's metal room during the morning.

After examining the body and the crime scene, it was adjourned right away. One noteworthy finding of the day was bloodstains on the metal room floor, which led investigators to believe that the Phagan girl was killed there rather than in the basement as initially believed and that her body was subsequently dragged there. The little girl's death and how it occurred were the subject of numerous theories, of which this was only one. Thus, on Monday, April 28, the drama came to an end, with the men who would later play the main roles in it still at large and the three suspects—Lee, Gantt, and Mullinax—all in jail.

Within the next twenty-four hours, one of them was to be arrested.