Leo Frank Case: Dictograph Incident - Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery

This is the nineth Chapter in the 22-part series on the 'Leo Frank Case: Inside Story Of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery'. The trial of Leo Frank, a man accused of murdering Mary Phagan, was marked by the words "persecution and prejudice." Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey hired private detectives to investigate the case, believing that Frank was guilty. However, city detectives were also open to conviction, even if it pointed away from Frank.

Frank and Newt Lee were committed to the tower as suspects, but rumors of a young girl meeting Mary Phagan and receiving a pay check from Frank continued. Colonel Thomas B. Felder, an Atlanta attorney and former friend of Governor Cole Blease, announced that he had been employed by citizens of Bellwood to find and prosecute the girl's murderer. Felder claimed that a vast corruption fund had been raised to save Frank, guilty or innocent.

The Pinkerton operatives, employed by the pencil company, were accused of double crossing the city police to learn their secrets and report them to the attorneys for Frank's defense. City detectives were suspicious of the Bums people and had every Burns operative shadowed.

The suspicions of the city detectives culminated in the dictographing of Col. Felder by agents in the employ of Chief Lanford. Chief Lanford charged that Felder had sought to bribe G. C. February, his stenographer, to steal certain affidavits and papers in the Phagan case. The deal was negotiated through A. S. Colyar, an adventurer formerly from Tennessee, who had known Felder during the dispensary graft probe.

The grand jury's investigation of the sensational dictograph incident indicted Felder for libeling Lanford and Lanford for libeling Felder in their several published attacks on each other. While the Felder-Lanford controversy had little to do with the Phagan murder mystery, it served to intensify public interest in the crime and make rumors that "unseen hands" were at work harder to down. Learn more about how complicated the procedure was in getting Frank indicted by a grand jury (consisting of five Jews) for the rape and murder of Mary Phagan.

Seeking Justice for Little Mary Phagan
https://www.LittleMaryPhagan.com

Please purchase the book, 'The Frank Case: Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery by The Atlanta Publishing Company' to learn more about the Leo Frank case.