Quora: Did Leo Frank really kill Mary Phagan?

Caption: Counsel for State and Defense in hot argument before Judge Roan.

Did National Pencil Company superintendent Leo Frank really kill Mary Phagan in 1913?

Yes, Leo Frank killed Mary Phagan and we know this to be the case to a mathematical certainty, when we combine forensic evidence, testimony from an accessory-after-the-fact, and Leo Frank’s reversal of his alibi where he places himself at the scene of the crime, when the rape-murder took place. I will explain this in more detail in the forthcoming answer below.

The Leo Frank trial transcript and brief of evidence did not exist in cyberspace until research scholars at the Leo Frank Archive and Leo Frank Research Library began publishing the newspaper transcriptions and official legal records.

Did Leo Frank Confess?

Leo Frank didn’t outright confess to the jury, he just mentioned a lavatory break in the death-making room which was tantamount to a confession. A bonafide confession requires an open admission of something without coercion. Leo Frank without coercion, changed his alibi that he never left his office when Mary Phagan was with him there requesting her pay, and he told the jury he might have been relieving his bladder and bowels in the men’s bathroom, which was really nothing more than a toilet stall. The significance of this admission by Frank, was because Jim Conley said he found Mary Phagan there when he was told to look there.

He told the jury I must have been making potty in the metal room when the Stover adolescent was in my executive office while she was staring at the ceiling! The prosecution said the sodomizing and killing happened in the metal room as Stover was in the executive office waiting for Frank. “I’m not a very smart criminal”, Frank hinted at, he gave the circumstances needed to solve the murder. Leo Frank solved the murder mystery by saying he was in the room where the crime took place when the crime took place. How hard would it be for a jury to convict someone based on such admission?

This comes from reliable library citations on the worldwide net.

Photo: The case of the People vs. Leo Max Frank, July 28, 1913.
Hotlanta, Fulton County Superior Court, Georgia, U.S.A.

Before Leo Frank's trial, the Police and prosecuting attorneys developed a theory that Leo Frank murdered the adolescent M. A. Phagan in the metal room of the National Pencil factory on the superintendent's level where his business office was situated. The metal room (M.A. Phagan worked in this room) was separated from Leo Frank’s office by a corridor/hallway. Police found Phagan’s hair strands with her crusty blood on it, caught up on a tool machine that Leo Frank slammed it on there, in the work room. Phagan’s crispy blood was found on the floor beams of the metal room near the toilet room. Blood gets crispy and dehydrated when dry.

Leo Frank for 16 weeks between his arrest and Jim, then him sitting down on the Stand next to the judge where the wooden seat was for witnesses to testify, he swore up and down he wasn’t in the metal room before. Saying he was coupled together with the M. A. Phagan adolescent in his executive office. No one else was there according to him, just M.A. Phagan and L. M. Frank. Phagan left he said when she got her payslip, and he said he just went back to hard work on accounting documents and didn’t leave the executive office until 13:00 hours.

Some other girl unusually called Monteen Stover went to Frank’s office room at the time (12:05/12:07/12:10) contradicting him repeatedly he said he was there with Phagan, but he wasn’t. He lied. An eyewitness caught him lying. So what does a genius mechanical engineer do? He puts genius mechanical engineer, himself, in the murder room at the belied clock time the sodomy-slaughtering was believed to take place. How addle-brained must a genius mechanical engineer be to deny being in the murder room from 12:00 to 13:00 for 16 weeks, then for him to change his mind to say, YES SIR, I was in the murder room using the potty room? Potty time!

Dunce-like Leo Frank tells the jury to convict him and sentence him to death by hanging, for being in the potty room where the Phagan adolescent was sodomized and killed in the metal room.

Hi Jury!

“Now, gentlemen, to the best of my recollection from the time the whistle blew for twelve o’clock until after a quarter to one when I went up stairs and spoke to Arthur White and Harry Denham, to the best of my recollection, I did not stir out of the inner office; but it is possible that in order to answer a call of nature [defication?] or to urinate [taking a whiz?]I may have gone to the toilet. Those are things that a man does unconsciously and cannot tell how many times nor when he does it. Now, sitting in my office at my desk, it is impossible for me to see out into the outer hall when the safe door is open, as it was that morning, and not only is it impossible for me to see out, but it is impossible for people to see in and see me there.”

Yes Leo Frank murdered Mary Phagan. He told the jury so. And jury being a good jury, said “We’ll he admitted it to us, so sure yeah!” and the judge being a good judge, sentenced Leo Frank to the gallows for saying “well I was in the murder room using the potty when the murder happened”.

You can look at books written by Leo Frank public relations whitewashers, or you can use your own common sense and read the trial records and appeal of the conviction.

My accurately tested 135 IQ by a licensed professional, kibitzes to me December 2020, yes, obviously he killed Mary Phagan in 1913. The people who say he didn’t Kill Mary Phagan and he is innocent are anti-gentile activists. 100 years from now activists will be saying Epstein, Weinstein, and Cosby were innocent and framed by anti-Semites.

Consensus by activists who say Leo Frank was innocent is meaningless. They can’t be trusted when they are willing to lie for Leo Frank.

***Biblio-Citation Podcasts:***

*Coroner Paul Donehoo Inquest*

1. Leo Frank: The Coroner’s Inquest (Leo Frank: The Coroner’s Inquest)

*Leo Frank Trial*

1. 100 Years Ago Today: The Trial of Leo Frank Begins (100 Years Ago Today: The Trial of Leo Frank Begins)

2. Leo Frank Trial Week One The Leo Frank Trial: Week One (The Leo Frank Trial: Week One)

3. Leo Frank Trial Week Two The Leo Frank Trial: Week Two (The Leo Frank Trial: Week Two)

4. 100 Years Ago Today: Leo Frank Takes the Stand (100 Years Ago Today: Leo Frank Takes the Stand)

5. Leo Frank Trial Week Three The Leo Frank Trial: Week Three (The Leo Frank Trial: Week Three)

6. The Leo Frank Trial: Week Four (The Leo Frank Trial: Week Four)

7. The Leo Frank Trial: Closing Arguments of Hooper, Arnold, and Rosser (The Leo Frank Trial: Closing Arguments of Hooper, Arnold, and Rosser)

8. The Leo Frank Trial: Closing Arguments, District Attorney (The Leo Frank Trial: Closing Arguments, Solicitor Dorsey)

9. The presiding judge Leonard Strickland Roan Charge to the Court (New Audio Book: The American Mercury on Leo Frank - Judge Leonard Roan’s Charge to the Jury)

10. 100 Reasons Leo Frank Is Guilty

Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court Records:

If you want to read the affidavits of factory employees who testified against Leo Frank at the trial but afterward admitted they committed perjury they are available on The Internet Archive, direct access to the account (free) User Account (archive.org) ←click here.

Guess what happened? They never afterward admitted they committed perjury, they had been bribed and tricked to sign their affidavits. It’s in the Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court records and I implore you to read them.

In the Marietta Daily Journal, November 14, 1994, the first version of the Mary Phagan historical sign is mentioned in the news, it had been in the ground for about 3 years, first planted in 1991.

Which grave in the Marietta City Cemetery is visited by the most people? If you said that of Mary Phagan, you'd be correct.

Marietta is rich in history. The old city cemetery on Powder Springs Street is one of its historical jewels. Most of the city's earliest residents are buried there. Some bore names that are still remembered. The city is capitalizing on its past by educating those of us in the present by erecting historical markers throughout the cemetery.

Some of the monuments mark graves whose tombstones are badly worn by age. Others will flesh out details of the sometimes sketchy inscription on the headstones. The markers were written based on research by historical consultant Curt Rutledge of Atlanta.

The marker standing by the grave of Miss Phagan reads:

"Celebrated in song as 'Little Mary Phagan' after her murder on Confederate Memorial Day 1913 in Atlanta. Grave marked by CSA [Confederate States of America] veterans in 1915. Tribute by Tom Watson set 1933. Leo Frank sentenced to hang, granted clemency before lynching August 17, 1915. His 1986 pardon based on State's failure to protect him/apprehend killers, not on Frank's innocence."

Many Cob graduates and fans of the University of Georgia probably have no idea that the man for whom Sanford Stadium in Athens is named is buried in the Marietta Cemetery.

His marker reads: " 'S.V. Sanford.' The greatest friend the University of Georgia ever had" began his academic career in Marietta: principal, Supt. City Schs. 1892-1903. At Georgia (1930 - 45) promoted academics & sports: Faculty chrm athletics from 1908; first head of Sch. of Journalism in 1921. President 1931 to 1935; Chancellor of Consolidated University 1935 - 45. 1929 Stadium named in his honor. "

Interestingly, though Sanford had honorary doctorates from Mercer University and UGA, never earned on the hard way.

And there is the marker for the "Lady in Black" It reads:

"This memorial to Mary Annie Gertrell (1863 - 1906) was erected by her grieving sister Lucy (1863 - 1954). Musicians both & natives of Cobb County, Lucy visited this grave from her Atlanta home at least twice weekly for 48 years, many times on foot. Dressed always in mourning clothes, Lucy became known on the streets of Atlanta as "The Lady in Black' "

Also remembered is William Root whose house the oldest in Marietta is being restored by the Cobb Landmarks & Historical Society. Root's marker reads:

"Beloved merchant, druggist and Episcopalian, he helped found St. James in 1842. In 1844 he built his home across from the church. His 1845 drug store on the square was a town social center. The Root home, one of the oldest wooden houses and a good specimen of early town architecture, now stands at N. Marietta Pkwy & Polk St. It is open to the public. "

It isn't yet, but it will be someday.

Markers also are up at the burial vault of Roswell co-founder Francis Harris McLeod; William Capers G. Harris, whose grave is believed to be the oldest in the cemetery; and slave lot, where 19 slaves and free blacks were buried between 1848 and 1866.

The city cemetery is one of Marietta's most peaceful places and is rich in history. The city is to be commended for putting up the markers, another idea of late Mayor Joe Mack Wilson.

Bill Kinney is associate editor of the Marietta Daily Journal.

Marietta Daily Journal Commentary, November 14, 1994, by Bill Kinney (deceased 2016)

Later in the Marietta Daily Journal, we learn about how in a closed-door meeting (that the public was not informed about), a decision was made to change the Mary Phagan historical sign due to Jewish activist machinations.

Second part of the newspaper article.

Transcript of the newspaper:

Family of Mary Phagan protests marker change

Without a formal vote and with the press absent, Marietta City Council has changed the inscription on the city's historic marker at the grave of rape-murder victim Mary Phagan in the Marietta City Cemetery. The Phagan family is blaming Councilman Philip Goldstein.

The descendants of Miss Phagan are upset because the family was not notified before or after the change, and only learned of it on a cemetery-cleaning visit. The family says the newly-placed marker - which sits on a city-maintained path near the grave and is not to be confused with Miss Phagan's ornate tombstone, which makes no mention of the circumstances of her death - omits the reason for the 1986 posthumous pardon given Leo Frank.

Frank - Miss Phagan's boss - was convicted in 1913 by a Fulton Superior Court jury of the 13-year-old girl's murder in an Atlanta pencil factory and sentenced to hang. When Gov. John Slaton commuted Frank's sentence to life in 1915, a group of Marietta men abducted Frank from the state prison near Milledgeville and lynched him near what is now the Big Chicken on Frey's Gin Road in Marietta.

[Years later someone vandalized the elegant white marble flowerpot situated at the footer of the epitaph slab and stole the broken piece of it.]

The Phagan family initially opposed placing a marker at their ancestor's grave, fearing there would be increased damage to the cemetery plot and curiosity seekers would leave graffiti. That hasn't happened. Late Mayor Joe Mack Wilson told east Cobb resident and Cherokee County special education teacher Mary Phagan Keen, a great-niece of Mary Phagan, that the grave was the most sought by visitors to Marietta and should have a marker, along with several other notable graves in the cemetery.

[Newly Concealing the fact that Leo M. Frank was not officially exonerated]

Mayor Wilson told the Phagan family the city would let them approve the text of the marker. The family insisted the unusual conditions of Frank's 1986 pardon be explained. That was done. Now controversy has arisen because that portion of the marker has been changed.

The Georgia Pardons and Parole Board in 1983 turned down a request for a pardon based on Frank's alleged innocence. [Leo] Frank's former office boy, Alonzo Mann, told two Nashville Tennessean newsmen he saw black janitor Jim Conley holding a limp body in his arms the day of the murder. In its 1983 denial of a pardon for Frank, the board said after Mann's testimony it "did not find conclusive evidence proving beyond any doubt that Frank was innocent."

A new parole board then granted Frank a pardon in 1986 on the grounds the state did not protect him in prison, thereby allowing him to be lynched and thus ending any further court appeals. Frank's conviction was appealed unsuccessfully by his lawyers three times to the Georgia Supreme Court and twice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 1986 pardon said: "Without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the state's failure to protect the person of Leo M. Frank and thereby preserve his opportunity for continued legal appeal of his conviction, and in recognition of the state's failure to bring his killers to justice, and as an effort to heal old wounds...the board hereby grants to Leo M. Frank a pardon." The family opposed the 1986 pardon, and now is irked at the council and [Philip] Goldstein.

[The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles failed to mention the fact that Leo Frank had fully exhausted all of his trial appeals at the Georgia and Federal Supreme Court in April of 1915.]

"We are as much a victim as the family of Leo Frank," said Ms. Keen. For 80 years, we have been the object of the curiosity-seekers and subjected to unfair and untrue books and TV docudramas. The current council didn't show the same respect to us as did Mayor Wilson and a previous council." Ms. Keen's father, James Phagan, said the action was "extremely insensitive of the council" and "disingenuous of Councilman [Philip] Goldstein. How can you separate Mary Phagan and Leo Frank?" he asked. "Can you mention the Holocaust and not mention Hitler? It's simply pandering by Councilman [Philip] Goldstein to a segment of the community. It's another effort to change history."

The inscription change was made by the Parks and Tourism Committee chaired by Councilman Dan Cox. Members are Councilwoman Betty Hunter and Goldstein. The full council OK'd the action. Cox admitted the committee had yielded to "political pressure" by [Philip] Goldstein and the Jewish community. Calling the change "a no-win situation," Cox said he reluctantly consented to the change "because it offended a part of the community."

[August 17, 1995. Leo Frank's Lynching Site, 1200 Roswell Road, Marietta, Cobb County, Georgia]

On the 80th anniversary of Frank's lynching on Aug. 17, [1995] a group of Jewish leaders led by Rabbi Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth in East Cobb said the historic marker at Mary Phagan's grave should be removed. The group placed a small plaque in the side of the VPI Corp. building owned by Roy Varner at 1200 Roswell St., near the site of Frank's lynching. The plaque reads: "Wrongly Accused, Falsely Convicted and Wantonly Murdered." Attending the ceremony were Marietta Councilmen Goldstein and James Dodd, who told Jewish leaders they would look into removing the line of the marker that refers to the pardon conditions.

"This is a plaque that marks the grave of Mary Phagan," said [Philip] Goldstein. "The last two lines deal with information on Leo Frank, and it's not his grave." Goldstein was quoted in the Jewish Times as saying: "The wording is factually correct. The mention of Frank [not getting officially exonerated] on Phagan's marker should be deleted because it is irrelevant, not because it upsets the Jewish community."

It was Dodd who brought the matter before council, supported by [Philip] Goldstein. "This is a lose-lose situation for me," [Philip] Goldstein said. The marker referring to the condition of Frank's pardon has been removed and replaced with a marker the Phagan family had objected to.

End of transcription.

Mariettans were outraged by the sneaky sign change in the November/December 1995 time frame and one citizen wrote the newspaper sharing his own thoughts on the matter that were shared by many

Transcription:

DEAR EDITOR: Bill Kinney's "Around Town" column December 2nd told of a change made in the wording on a historical marker near the grave of Mary Phagan in the Marietta City Cemetery. Censored from the original marker was reference to the dubious "pardon" given Leo Frank in 1986 for the rape and murder of Ms. Phagan. He was convicted of the crime in 1913, and the conviction was upheld three times by the Georgia's Supreme Court and twice by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Phagan family was never notified that a change in wording on the historical marker was being sought or made. They learned of it while on a cemetery-cleaning visit.

Kinney explained: "The inscription change was made by the Parks and Tourism Committee chaired by Councilman Dan Cox. Members are Betty Hunter and Philip Goldstein... Cox admitted the committee yielded to 'political pressure' by Goldstein and Jewish Community." And the Marietta City Council went along without a formal vote and the press absent.

The MDJ is to be commended for exposing this insensitive, conniving, deplorable action. The Jewish community should not conspire and manipulate to change history to suit its wishes. Jewish leaders should denounce this contrived deed and urge that the original wording on the historical marker be restored. TJ Campbell, Smyrna.

End of Transcription.

Using the grave of the child sex predator’s victim to rehabilitate him? You decide.

In 1982, the Jewish activist and chief executive editor of the Nashville Tennessean John Seigenthaler working in relay with the ADL’s lawyer Charles Wittenstein, and teaming-up with other Jewish groups (Atlanta Jewish Federation, and American Jewish Committee), found a foggy octagenarian, Alonzo M. Mann, barely kept alive with an artificial heart (pacemaker) who had worked as an office boy for 3 weeks when Leo Frank was arrested 70 years earlier (Frank was arrested on April 29th, 1913, Alonzo Mann started his office boy job in early April), and they got him in the 1980s to come up with a cockamamie story to try and trick the Georgia Paroles and Pardon board to exonerate Leo Frank. I’ll add the three-page rejection letter to the exoneration-effort in the footer area of the answer above.

The state-sanctioned committee saw right through the tissue of lies, but it was powerful Jewish groups (ADL, AJC, AJF) behind the exoneration effort, so they threw them an appeasing dog biscuit just to shut them up and get rid of them (like giving a participation award to someone just for showing up). Thus, the state of Georgia gave Leo Frank a pardon in 1986 on “biodegradable bathroom tissue paper” but not a real pardon carved in stone with a full exoneration, that’s the reality of the 1982–1986 anti-Gentile episode.

The Jewish community was embarrassed by the outcome that a decade later they had mention of Leo Frank not being exonerated, actually removed from a Mary Phagan historical sign in a cemetery next to the child-victim’s grave. They didn’t want people knowing the pardon was half-baked and without absolution or exculpation for Frank’s crime. They wanted everyone to be tricked.

Let's start with the first iteration of the Mary Phagan graveside historical marker in the years 1995 and prior. Pay special attention to the language of the sign concerning what was erased and what was added.

On the first semantic version of this cemetery sign below, it gave you factual and accurate information about,

Firstly: Mary Phagan celebrated in a famous folk song at the time.

Secondly, her grave which unbeknownst formerly had only a small ground marker from 1913–1914 that was replaced by the CSA veterans who provided the marble headstone presently there now in 1915.

Thirdly, U.S. congressman (U.S. House of Representatives, 1896; and U.S. Senate, 1920) Tom Watson’s posthumous poetic tribute to Mary Phagan written in 1915, added in the form of a marble slab added 11 years after the Senator from Georgia passed away in 1922.

Fourthly, It goes into Leo Frank being sentenced to hang [by both the trial judge and jury] and his sentence being commuted [to life in prison by Governor John Slaton who owned the law firm that defended Leo Frank during his 1913 trial and 1914 state appeals]. Followed by information about Leo Frank getting lynched [in response to the Governor’s gross violation of morals and ethics, including betrayal to the state constitution]. And that Leo Frank’s pardon in 1986, did not officially absolve him of the crime. The state of Georgia still recognizes Leo Frank as guilty. The last part outraged the Jewish community at the time because they wanted that inconvenient fact about Frank’s fake-posthumous-pardon to remain obfuscated with regard to his verdict of guilt being sustained.

MARY PHAGAN. Celebrated in song as “Little Mary Phagan” [She was only 4′10″ tall] after her murder on [Georgia Confederate Memorial Day [April 26] 1913 in Atlanta. Grave marked by CSA [the Confederate States of America] veterans in [June 25th] 1915. Tribute by Tom Watson set 1933 [this refers to the famous epitaph poem on a marble slab atop of the grave]. Leo Frank, sentenced to hang, granted clemency [life in prison with no parole] before lynching August 17, 1915. His 1986 pardon based on State’s failure to protect him/apprehend killers, not Frank’s innocence.

“Not Frank’s Innocence” - These three words had the Marietta and Atlanta Hasbaras of the time seething with infantilizing anger. The public was not meant to know that after 73 years (1913 - 1986) of lawyers, historians and journalists created a manufactured consensus of Leo Frank’s supposed innocent that the state of Georgia politely refused to officially codify their falsification of history in the pop culture of entertainment and education. This was an enormous setback in their propaganda efforts, so instead, they decided to double down. And that’s exactly what they have done since 1986, they have redoubled their effort to wrongfully exonerate Leo Frank in the court of public opinion. Since 1986 they have flooded the mainstream media with newspaper articles professing his innocence and blaming the “Negro and Colored man” (how they referred to him for 73 years, emphasizing his race), Jim Conley.

Public Relations Disaster

So as you can see this sign was a big public relations problem that needed to be whitewashed with nonsense about him having a controversial trial. The Jewish community’s leaders didn’t want people knowing Leo Frank’s posthumous pardon was based solely on a technicality, not his supposed innocence. It’s the latter issue that was the thorn in their side for 73 years at the time. After FOUR (82–86) calendar years of sleazy wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, they still couldn’t wangle and cobble together any convincing evidence or logical arguments to vindicate Frank. Moreover, digging up the Georgia Supreme Court Record of Frank’s appeal and trial brief of evidence likely increased the belief in 1986 of his guilt and the certitude that the jury’s verdict was right, even 7-decades years after the trial ended. Today in 2021, almost 108 years after the 1913 trial, Leo Frank’s Georgia Supreme Court appeals showcases the criminal extremes of his well-monied defense team’s illegal treachery. When people read all the dirty details that came out in Leo Frank’s 1913–1914 appeals to the supreme court of Georgia, their jaws drop in shock and horror. You won’t believe it until you read that official legal volume yourself, it’s mind-bending and mind-blowing.

Sign Number 2: 1995.

The sign above is the second iteration of the historical marker.

According to the Marietta Daily Journal (I can add images of the newspaper article) Marietta Rabbi Lebow and Marietta city councilman Philip Goldstein, had the original sign texted removed in part and had scrubbed the parts they found irrelevant, which was the contextualization letting everyone know the state still regarded Leo Frank as guilty.

With regards to Leo Frank’s Frankite Cult, these people are playing disgusting games by having a Leo Frank rehabilitation sign placed right next to the dead girl’s grave. They are using political maneuvers against the best interests of the people of Marietta Georgia and in essence, harassing the family of the young 1913 victim.

Seriously, try to imagine for a moment if a young female member of your family or extended family was sexually assaulted and strangled to death by a serial rapist & pedophile who ran a sweatshop and this sex killer was actually molesting other kids in the factory he operated, and his religious defenders put up the funds and convinced a local city council to put a sign next to the victims grave, sanitizing the reputation of the convicted homicidal sodomite.

These Frankite cult freaks behind Leo Frank’s rehabilitation are mentally ill sickos and weirdos, psychologically torturing the family of the dead little child! The facts outlined herewithin is the reason why this macabre story must be told and why the facts of the case, as to why he was duly convicted, need to be talked about and debated in public. They’re actually trying to gaslight the state of Georgia to overturn his 1913 molestation-murder conviction!

This is how other members in the Jewish community have described it to me—Leo Frank wasn’t vindicated of the sexually violent crime of homicide he was convicted for—he was only given his unusable civil rights back with the 1986 posthumous-pardon. After March 11th, 1986, he can now vote again (say what?!), run for the political office (can dead people run for office?!), and own a handgun (scary thought, can you imagine his zombie with a firearm?!)

I think we can all agree it is pretty darn silly since he was dead for 71 years at the time (March 11th, 1986) and they gave him all these rights back that he doesn’t deserve and cannot use just to appease the Jewish community. Can someone who they buried 6 feet under the ground in 1915, vote again seven decades later in presidential elections? I hope not!