09 Chapter V Crime Stirs Atlanta Leo Frank Case 1913

⁣⁣When it was learned that Mary Phagan had been murdered in the basement of the National Pencil Factory, the city of Atlanta was more concerned than ever. The famous Grace incident was the excitement it created. There has been a lot of interest in the trial of Ms. Callie Scott Applebaum. But the mystery surrounding Mary Phagan's murder and the abomination of the act created a sensation that lasted for months after the supposed nine days.


An endless mystery. The mystery surrounding this case makes it one of the most famous in Georgia's criminal history. They all mentioned Mary Phagan's name. The papers were released one after the other on the Monday morning after the murder. About a dozen of them were arrested. The audience seemed so engrossed in the gruesome crime that they could bear it no longer. As a result, rumors abounded, many of them highly sensational.


Those who spread the rumor claimed it would help identify the killer. They overwhelmed the Atlanta Police Department. Before the first case ended on Sunday, members of the public unanimously found Mr Lee guilty after reports of another suspect led to the arrest of another man. It was the lover of the dead girl, Arthur Mullen Axe, a former tram conductor. According to L. Sentell's's statement, Mullinax was arrested. L.

Sentell was then an employee of C.J. Camper. The man was seen by an employee of a camping equipment company with Mary Phagan around 12:30 p.m. me.

On the morning of the murder, I was walking down Forsyth Street near the pencil factory. Sentell told police he had known Mary Phagan for several years and was convinced she was the girl he had seen on the street.

He added that he was even more surprised when he saw her coming and realized it was little Phagan. He said, "Hi, Mary," as the couple walked by, and she said, "Hi." Mullinax was quickly taken into custody by authorities and taken to the police station Sunday evening.


Sentell had a positive opinion of him after seeing him with Mary Phagan. When Mullinax was arrested, a mob gathered at the police station and several threats were made against his life. This is just one example of public protests. The suspect has denied his innocence, telling police he met Mary Phagan once at a Christmas play and only knew her by sight. After the police decided to arrest him on the charges, he was placed in another cell. Another suspect, J.M. Gantt was arrested Monday in Marietta. More shocking details revealed that Gantt was aware of the murder. Apparently he knows Mary Phagan.



He went to the factory on Saturday afternoon. He knew the building from his days as a factory worker. Mrs.

J.M. Gantt's younger sister, F.C. Terrell. After Gantt stayed Friday night, police tracked down Terrell to his home at 28 East Linden St. He gave conflicting accounts of his movements.

The police later concluded that they were heading in the right direction. Gantt was arrested Monday morning on a warrant for Mary Phagan's murder. He was transported to Atlanta and reunited with Lee and Mullinax at the train station when he disembarked at Marietta. Gantt was candid about his experience, admitting that he had been fired from his factory job a few weeks earlier. He then returned on Saturday to retrieve the shoes he had left behind, explaining that his trip to Marietta at that unfortunate hour was merely the carrying out of a plan he had made with his mother a few days earlier.


The morning after his arrest, Gantt filed a writ of habeas corpus, seeking to have him released from custody. However, he and Mullinax were released before they could implement this. After each person's testimony was given during a forensic examination on May 1, their alibis were clearly established. Mullinax's release was made possible primarily by his fiancee, Pearl Robinson, who came forward to testify that she was the girl Sentell had been seeing with him.

Later in the trial, Gantt was called as a witness and Mullinax was not even called as a witness because he knew so little about the case. In the days following the murder, many rumors circulated that Gantt and Mullinax were the only two men the police had to investigate, deny or confirm.


The girl in red, who claimed to know about a murder she witnessed in Marietta, was rumored to have been drugged and taken away in a car early Saturday morning. Due to rumors and hearsay, he had many friends in the police. One of the smallest of these led to the arrest of Paul Bowen, a former Atlanta resident who knew Mary Phagan from as far away as Houston, Texas.

On May 7, the day after his arrest, Bowen was able to provide an alibi without having to return to Atlanta.

It is interesting to note that Bowen's arrest was used as the basis for firing half of Houston's detectives due to the favorable political climate of the city at the time.

Police received a boost Monday following the murders when it was revealed that local Pinkerton detectives had been hired by the pencil factory authorities to help find the killer.

As of Monday, April 28, there have been many rumors that there has been no real progress in the Phagan case.

The coroner's jury intervened in the inquest and met with Coroner Paul Donahue in the morning in the metal room of the pencil factory. After examining the body and the scene, the case was immediately closed.

The most notable discovery of the day was a bloodstain on the metal floor of the room, leading investigators to believe that Phagan had killed his daughter and dragged her body there, and not in the basement as he had originally believed. The death of the little girl and how it happened has been the subject of many theories, and among them there was only one theory.

So the drama ended on Monday, April 28, when the men were still arrested later and all three suspects, Lee, Gant and Mullinax, were behind bars. Within 24 hours, one of them is arrested.