The Leo Frank Case: Chapter 7 Of 22 - Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery

⁣The coroner's inquest began Wednesday morning after lengthy interviews with Frank and Newt Lee at the police station Tuesday night. A large number of witnesses, including factory girls and many others, arrived at the police station to testify at the inquest. The first to testify were Constables W.F. Anderson and Brown, who detailed how they were informed of the murder and how they found the body on that harrowing Saturday night. Mr. Anderson said the basement was a long narrow enclosure between rock walls, with an elevator shaft near the front, a boiler in the middle on the right, and a partition enclosed in a junk-room-like enclosure on the left that opened. I explained that there was a restroom. The right side is behind the cauldron, the left side is behind the girl's body and behind the door. Brown followed Anderson to the witness stand and made a very damaging testimony against Newt Lee. He said it was impossible to tell that the body belonged to a white girl unless you were within a few feet of it.

Brown testified that Mary Phagan's body was found in a pile on her chair, along with her clothes, a purple dress with white trimmings, shoes, and gunmetal-black slippers around 11 o'clock. At 4:45 a.m. Newt Lee took the stand and testified that he had arrived at the factory at 4:00 a.m. He then left as Frank told him to. Detectives and police say it was face down, but he testified that he found it face up. J.Q. Spear of Cartersville saw a girl and a man outside a pencil factory on Saturday afternoon, they were excited and nervous, and the girl was seen at P.'s on Sunday. Newt Lee testified that it was the same as Chapel of J. Bloomfield. George Epps, a young newsboy who had driven into town with Mary Phagan, testified that Mary told her that Mr. Frank gave her a look and that he was suspicious. E.L. Sentell testified that he saw Mullinax with a girl he believed to be Mary Phagan late Saturday night. R. P. Barrett testified that he found bloodstains near Mary's machine on the second floor. Gant took the stand and told the same story he had already told the detectives. J.W. Coleman testified about the horror she and her mother felt on the night of the murder by Leo M. Frank. Fourth National Bank assistant teller Barry said the note found on the girl's body was written in the same hand-writing as several other notes written by black nightguard Newt Lee, detectives at police headquarters. said.

The inquest was postponed until Thursday as investigators took steps toward solving the mystery of the death of infant Mary Phagan. They concluded that Mary had only briefly gone to the factory on Saturday afternoons to collect her wages, and that she had never left the factory. Claims that Mary was seen in the middle of the night with Malenax and girls matching her description were scrutinized but found to be unfounded. Elle Center confirmed that she saw Pearl Robinson, not Mary Phagan with Mullinax. Other witnesses who are said to have seen the girl on Saturday afternoon also came forward and said they may have been wrong.

Officials have come to the plausible speculation that Mary Phagan never made it out of the pencil factory alive. Gant and Molinax were released from custody on Thursday afternoon, and the inquest was temporarily postponed. ⁣⁣The Donahue coroner said an autopsy into the girl's death was postponed until Monday. The two suspects are: Newt Lee and Leo Frank were transferred to Fulton County Tower pending an investigation at Police Headquarters. The coroner's warrant that brought them to the Tower was identical in both cases, except for the name that Frank read to the Fulton County, Georgia jailer. After the two men in the tower and two other former suspects were released Thursday, there seemed little doubt that investigators held the key to the mystery. But James Jim Conley, a black cleaner at a pencil factory, was arrested at 2 a.m. At 12:00 p.m. Thursday, he was detained at the Police Headquarters factory along with elevator boy Snowball. Conley's arrest was not well publicized at the time, and the newspapers wrote only one paragraph about it. The sixth arrest in the Phagan murders was made by investigators at 1:00 am.

At midnight Thursday, James Conley, a black janitor employed at the National Pencil Factory, was seen washing his shirts at the faucet behind the building. He claimed that the stains on his shirt were rust stains and that he had washed the shirt to appear in court to attend the interrogation he was summoned for. His testimony is believed by the police, and theories and clues are pouring into the detective agency. Many of Frank's friends personally worked on the case to clear the cloud of suspicion hanging over the prominent young superintendent. Theories flood the detective agency as to how Mary Phagan came to her death and what system might be used to bring her murderers to justice. People have been calling authorities to tell them how to proceed, and the agency has received hundreds of letters of advice and theories from the state and six other states. The most important detail in this text is that the two women had a murder dream and the murderer is detailed. Frank's friends flocked to his defense as both Frank and blacks denounced him. Thursday night, Joseph M. Brown advised Lieutenant General J. Van Holt Nash to keep in touch with the 5th Regiment's Georgia National Guard so that the unit could act in the event of an emergency.

This has prompted city, county and even state officials to pay close attention. Governor Brown also advised Lieutenant General J. Van Holt Nash to keep in touch with the Georgia National Guard at the 5th Georgia Regiment to keep the unit ready for action in the event of an emergency. The governor warned prison officials and police to be on alert for signs of civil unrest. Colonel E.E. Pomeroy, commander of the 5th Regiment, gathered his men in the Auditorium Armory, a few blocks from the tower where Frank and Lee were inside the prison, and held them there until late at night 11 o'clock. At 3:30 pm the soldiers were allowed to return to their homes.

⁣Rumors of mob violence were proven unfounded until the coroner's jury met again Thursday through Monday morning, and on Saturday night the militia were again ordered to stand by in case of trouble. A meeting between Chief Detective Rumford and Coroner Paul Donoghue summoned additional witnesses to the investigation, resulting in a united effort by city and state forces to tackle the case. Rumors circulated in the city throughout Saturday that one of the two prisoners in the tower had made a confession, which authorities angrily denied, but later proved to be completely unfounded.

⁣The first week after the discovery of Mary Phagan's body ended with elite county, city, state, and outside agencies working on the case, with two suspects inside the tower, and the state as a whole. I was looking forward to responding to the coroner's investigation.