Statement of Jim Conley: May 28, 1913

State of Jim Conley, May 28, 1913.

State of Georgia,
County of Fulton.

Personally appeared before me, a Notary Public, in and for the above State and County, James Conley, who being duly sworn on oath says:

I make this statement, my second statement, in regard to the murder of Mary Phagan at the National Pencil Factory. In my first statement I made the statement that I went to the pencil factory on Friday, April 25, 1913, and went to Frank's office at four minutes to one, which is a mistake. I made this statement in regard to Friday in order that I might not be accused of knowing anything of this murder, for I thought if I put myself there on Saturday, they might accuse me of having a hand in it, and I now make my second and last statement regarding the matter freely and voluntarily, after thinking over the situation, and I have made up my mind to tell the whole truth, and I make it freely and voluntarily, without the promise of any reward or from force or fear of punishment in any way.

I got up Saturday morning, April 26th, between 9 and half past 9. I was at home 172 Rhodes Street. There is a clock on the Atlanta University and I looked at that clock after I put on my clothes; I went to the door and poured some water out of the wash pan and then I looked at the clock on the Atlanta University, but I forgot what time it was exactly, but I remember it was between nine and half past nine. Then I washed my face and I eat some steak and some liver and bread and drank a cup of tea, and then I sat down in a chair a little while, about ten minutes, I guess, and then I told my wife to give me back the three dollars and I would get some paper money to keep her from losing it, to pay her rent with, and she gave it to me, and I told her I was going to Peters street, and I went to Peters street, and stopped at the beer saloon near the corner of Peters and Haynes street and I bought two beers there for myself and gave another fellow a beer, I don't know what his name was, but they call him Bob. I don't know where he works, but he had a whip over his shoulder. I stayed in that saloon 3 or 4 minutes, just long enough to drink that beer, and then I walks up to the Butt-In Saloon and walks back to the pool table, and there was four fellows back there shooting dice, five with me, one was named Joe Bobs, and one was named Bob Williams and I won 90 cents, I don't know how long we were shooting for we were shooting on the sly, unbeknownst to the bartender. I guess we were shooting about ten minutes, and then I come to the bar and bought a glass of beer there at the Butt-In Saloon, and then I went to Early's beer saloon on Peters St., and I bought a glass of beer there and I walked back to the toilet and stood there and made a cigarette and then bought another glass of beer, and I come out and bought a half-pint of whiskey and I drank some of the whiskey, and then I started to the Capital City Laundry and on my way there I met Mr. Frank, at the corner of Forsyth and Nelson streets going to Montags, and he told me to wait a few minutes, and he asked me where I was going, and I told him I was going to the Capital City Laundry to see my mother, and he didn't say nothing, only he said to wait a minute until he come back, that he was going to see the Montags, and I stood there until he come back, that he was going to see the Montags, and I stood there until he come back, he was gone about 20 minutes, I guess. He come back and told me to come to the factory that he wanted to see me, and I went to the factory with him, walking behind him, and he stopped at the Curtis Drug Store at Forsyth and Mitchell Sts., and he got a drink, and I waited on the outside until he come out, and then he told me to come on and I went to the factory with him. He had a box with him, which he carried with him to the Montag's; it has an opener to it, and after we got to the factory, Mr. Frank took the box and put it there at the trash barrel, which was just to the right of the steps as you go in, he put a box there for me to sit on, there was some great big boxes back further. He told me to sit down there until I heard him whistle. He just took his foot and pushed a box over there for me to sit on. Then he told me not to let Mr. Darley see me, and after Mr. Frank went up the steps, in a few minutes here comes a young lady downstairs, that was Miss Mattie, I think she had on a dark red suit and a rain cloak and a parasol in her hand, but I didn't notice her hat. Then here comes Mr. Darley down, and he had on a gray suit of clothes, didn't have any hat on his head, and he stopped Miss Mattie with a handkerchief wiping her eyes, it seemed to me like she had been crying, and then I heard Mr. Darley say to her, "Don't worry, I will see that you get that next week", and they stood there and talked awhile, but I could not hear anything else they said, then she went on out of the door and Mr. Darley came back up the steps, and Mr. Darley stayed up there a good while, then he come down and left and I did not see him anymore.

Then here comes Mr. Holloway down, about five minutes after Mr. Darley had gone: Mr. Holloway went out on the sidewalk and stood there three or five minutes and then he come and went back up the steps, and then here come another colored fellow, a pegged-legged one, and he went up the steps, he had some bills in his hands, and Mr. Holloway come back down with the pegged legged one and went out on the sidewalk and looked at the fellow's wagon, but what he said to him I don't know. It was a wagon that had sides to it and I didn't see the name on it. I wasn't a regular dray, I don't think, it looked like it might have come from that plate glass company on Alabama Street. Then Mr. Holloway went back upstairs and it wasn't long before Mr. Holloway come back down and was gone for good. I don't know how long, but I guess he stayed upstairs long enough to put on his coat and hat. I saw Mr. Holloway turn up to his right towards Hunter street, then there comes another lady into the factory, and she had on a green looking dress, she works on the fourth floor, and she walked with her head down, sort of stoop shouldered, she works for Arthur White. She stayed up there 7 or 8 minutes and then she come back down with her money in her hand, and she stood just a little opposite me and tore the envelope open right there and took her money out and counted it, and she shut her hand up and went out the door and she turned towards Hunter street, and about 15 or 20 minutes after there, there wasn't any passing at all, and I sat there on the box with my head against the trash barrel. I stretched my feet out and put my hat in my lap but I couldn't say whether I went to sleep or not, and the next thing that attracted my attention, Mr. Frank whistled for me twice just like this (indicating), and when he whistled I went on up the stairs and the double doors on the stairway were closed and I opened them and they shut themselves, and Mr. Frank was standing at the top of the steps and he said, "You heard me, did you?" and I said "Yes sir," and Mr. Frank grabbed me by the arm and he was squeezing my arm so tight his hand was trembling. He had his glasses on, and he had me just like he was walking down the street with a lady, and like he didn't want me to look behind me at all, and I thought it was because he had me so tight that made him tremble, and he carried me through the first office and into his private office, and then he come back in there, and he didn't say nothing, he grabbed up a box of sulpher matches, and he went back in the outer office, the door was open between his office and the outer office, and then he saw two ladies coming and he said to me, "Gee, here comes Miss Emma Clark and Miss Corinthia Hall", and he come back in there to me, he was walking fast and seemed to be excited, and he said to me, "Come right in here, Jim", and he motioned to the wardrobe and I was a little slow about it and Mr. Frank grabbed me and gave me a shove and put me in a wardrobe and he shut the doors and told me to stay there until after they had gone, and I just heard Miss Emma say "Good morning, Mr. Frank, are you alone" and Mr. Frank said "Yes", and I couldn't hear them say nothing else, but I didn't know it was Miss Corinthia Hall until Mr. Frank spoke and said it was, but I heard Miss Emma's voice; they didn't stay there long, until they were gone. I didn't hear them. The next move was Mr. Frank come and let me out of the wardrobe. I don't remember Miss Hall and Miss Clarke using the telephone, if they did I didn't hear them and I didn't see them myself. I stayed in the wardrobe a pretty good while, for the whiskey and beer I had drank got me to sweating. I couldn't hear them talking, only I heard Miss Emma say, "Good morning." If they had been talking loud I could have heard them, but if they were talking low I couldn't. If they went upstairs Mr. Frank must have kept right behind them, to see that they didn't take off anything. Then after awhile Mr. Frank he come into the office and he pulled out one of those round chairs from under the desk. The first thing, he let me out of the wardrobe and I said, "I got too hot in there," and he said "Yes, I see you are sweating", When he opened the door I was fixing to step out, and his eyes were looking larger than they usually look, and he jerked the door open and I was right there in front of the door, and then Mr. Frank said to me to sit down in a chair, in the one that turns all the way around, and when I sat down he told me to get up and shut the door; that was the door between his office and the stenographer's office and I got up and shut it, and he said, "Jim, can you write?" He was sitting down facing me and he brushed back his hair and I said "Yes sir, I can write a little bit, Mr. Frank," and then he give me a pencil that he got off the top of his desk, and there was nothing on it, he turned sheet over for me to write, and then he told me what to put there, he told me to put on there "dear mother, a long tall black negro did this by hisself," and when I went to put down "negro" I put it "N-e-g-r-o-s" and he said don't put no "s" there, he said that means negroes and he said now rub the "s" off and I rubbed the "s" out, and he said, "It means just one person like yourself," and he told me to write it again and I written it, and he looked at it and slapped me on the back and said "That's all right, old boy," and he said "write it again," and I written it for him three times. Then Mr. Frank reared back in his chair and asked me if I wanted a smoke and I told him "Yes sir", and he taken out a cigarette for himself and handed me the box and he sort of turned around when he handed me the box and I taken out a cigarette and he handed me the box of matches, and I taken out a cigarette and lit it and saw some money in the box and I handed the box of cigarettes back and he told me that was all right to keep them, and I told him he had some money in the box and he said that was all right, I could have that. I taken it and stuck it in my pocket and then Mr. Frank looked around at me and held up his hand towards the top of the house and said "Why should I hang, I have wealthy people in Brooklyn." I didn't know what he was talking about, I didn't have any idea in the world what he was talking about, and he was winking and rubbing his hands together and touching me on the chank with his foot and took a deep breath, he said "Why should I hang?" and shook his head and rubbed his hands together. Then he asked me where was Snowball (Gordon Bailey), and I told him I didn't know sir: and he asked me did I know the night watchman, and I told him no sir, I didn't know the night watchman personally. I just knew him by passing him, and he asked me if I had seen him in the basement at any time and I told him no sir, that he would have to ask the fireman about that, for he was down in the basement more than any of us was, and when I told Mr. Frank that he stuck one finger in his mouth and said "S-s-sh, that's all right", and then Mr. Frank told me he was going to take that note I had written and send it off in a letter to his people when he wrote, and recommend me to them, because I was a good working negro around there and he liked me, and when Mr. Frank said that I said "Don't take out another dollar for that watchman," and he said "all right, I won't" and he said, "I don't see why you want to buy a watch, because that big fat wife of mine wanted me to buy her an automobile but I won't do it," I didn't say anything about that for it didn't concern me, and didn't seem to concern the subject he was talking about at first, and then Mr. Frank told me when he wrote that letter he would not forget about me and he said "Well, I will see you later about this," and I said "All right Sir," and then he reached in his pocket and pulled out his watch and said, "It is nearly time for me to be going to dinner," but I didn't look at the watch. Then I asked Mr. Frank if that was all he wanted with me right now, and he said yes, and then I asked him again, "Do you mean I can have what's in the box sure enough, Mr. Frank," and he said "Yes" but all the time though he was talking and jollying and going on with me, and I began to think it was something, for a white man to be playing with a negro, and during the time he cast his eyes up to the top of the house and said, "Why should I hang, I have wealthy people in Brooklyn". I never did know where Mr. Frank's home was, I thought this was his home all the time. Then Mr. Frank said "I will see you Monday, if I live and nothing happens, James," and I said "well, is that all you want for good, Mr. Frank?" and he said "Yes", and I saw him go to his desk and take out a brownish-looking scratch pad. The one I wrote on was white and was single ruled and I saw him take out a brownish looking one from his desk and he took his pencil and made a mark on it. I took it to be an "M", but he shut the tablet up and looked at me and told me that was all he wanted with me, and he come all the way to the top of the steps and he come three or four steps down to where he could see me until I hit the sidewalk, it seems as if he was watching me to see if I would take anything as I went out, but there was nothing to take unless I took a great big box, but when I passed those two doors on the steps there. Mr. Frank told me to leave one of them open, and I taken a little piece of iron they have there, and pushed it against the door to keep it from shutting and went on out in the street, and I pulled the front doors to as I went out, and I went to the beer saloon across the street and opened the cigarette box and it had two paper dollars in there and two silver quarters, and I laughed and said "Good luck has done struck me", and I bought a ten cent double header and then went back to Peters street, and hadn't none of the boys got there that I run with and I walks up there to the moving picture show and looked at the pictures and they didn't seem to be any good, and I come back down Peters street looking for that fellow I got the half pint whiskey from, but I couldn't find him, and I struck out for home, and when I got home it was about half past two o'clock, and I took the bucket and went to Joe Carr's at Mangum and Magnolia street, and got fifteen cents worth of beer in it and come back home and sent the little girl to get a dime worth of stove wood and a nickle's worth of pan sausage, and I eat half the pan sausage up raw, and I give my old lady $3.50 and the other little change I kept it, and I layed down across the bed and there is where I stayed until about half past eight that night, and I got up and set in front of the first a little while and got to swimming at the head, and then here comes her sister, and after she left I went to bed and I didn't leave home no more until twelve o'clock Sunday, in the day time, and I walked up Mitchell street and stayed up there until a quarter to one, and I come on back home, I was feeling bad, and I layed down across the bed and stayed there until 6 o'clock or 6:30 that night, and I walked up to my mother's at 92 Tatnall street, and they gave me a lunch up there and I brought it on back home and I stayed there and eat it up and stayed at home until 10 minutes to 7 the next morning, and when I got to the corner of Forsyth and Mitchell street, the W. & A. blowed for 7 o'clock and then I went running on to the factory, and it was four or five minutes after 7 o'clock, the clock may have been a little fast, and when I got there I went upstairs to the dressing room and in comes Gordon Bailey, and here come Joe Williams, and then Mr. Wade Campbell, the lead inspector, and he comes in there and says "Wasn't it bad about that girl being killed," and we asked him "which girl" and it seemed like he said "Mary Puckett". and we asked him whereabouts and he said "in the basement", and we asked him if it was a white or colored girl", and he said "It was a white girl," and we told him "yes it was", and we asked him how she got killed, and he said he didn't know, and then he come on out the door first and I come right behind him with the sprinkler in my hand, and then he went to the toilet and I went right behind him and got a sprinkler full of water and I stayed down the aisle until about 9 o'clock, and I went and got my saw stuff on the third floor and brought it up to the fourth floor and unloaded it, and then I said I would go to the basement and see who that was that got killed, and when I got there there was such a crowd of white people there I couldn't go back there, and then the fireman sent me to get him a nickle's worth of onions and a loaf of bread, and then here comes Gordon and he give me a nickle and the fireman give me a nickle and told me to get them a dime's worth of beer and I got it and we all drank it. I went back upstairs and stayed there until about 15 minutes to 10, and the whistle blowed for the factory to shut down, and I heard Mr. Joe Stelker say the factory was going to close and to come back tomorrow, and I went and changed shoes and pulled off the pants and put on my hat and come down at 10 minutes to 10, and didn't go back any more until Tuesday morning, and went to work at Tuesday morning and got through with my work and went downstairs about half past 9 and there was such a crowd down there I didn't stay long, and I come back up the aisle and went taking up some trash and about half past 10 or 11 o'clock, Mr. Frank come back up the aisle and leaned over to me and said "Jim be a good boy" and I said "Yes, sir, I am, Mr. Frank," and when I heard from Mr. Frank again he was arrested.

I come to work Wednesday morning and started down to the basement and there was such a crowd down there I couldn't get to use the toilet, and I goes back upstairs and finished my work and works all that day, and Thursday morning I come to work and got caught up by 10 o'clock, and I went downstairs and the fireman and another colored fellow was down there and I asked the fireman where it was that they say the young lady got killed at, and he told me right around there, and I took a little piece of paper and went around there to see if I could see, but I couldn't see where anybody had been laying at, and I come on back and found he was throwing some stuff into the furnace, and I went on upstairs and stayed there until 25 minutes to 12, and the detectives were giving us all subpoenaes and I got my subpoena and went back upstairs and stayed up there until 5 minutes to 12, and I come down and went out in the streets and heard the whistle when it blowed for 12 o'clock, and I went back and started to cleaning up at half past twelve, and got through cleaning at half past one. Then I went down to wash my shirt so I could have a clean one to wear to court, for I had been wearing this one for three weeks and when I got back there and pulled off my shirt and washed it, then there comes Mr. Quinn and I asked him where was the dry house and he showed me where it was, and he told me, he said "Jim, there ain't no steam in there now", and I said to myself I will have to hang this on the steam pipe to get it dry, and by me hanging it on there I got a little rust on it, and some of them saw me back there washing my shirt and called up the detectives and when the detectives come up there I had done put on my shirt and they asked me where was the shirt I was washing and I told them this here was the shirt, and they said yes, because it was not good dry, and then told me to come and go with them, and I did. They brought me down here and found there was no blood on the shirt, and gave me my shirt back, and that's all I know.

(Signed) James Conley.

Sworn to and subscribed before me this the 28th day of May, 1913.

G. C. February,
Notary Public, Fulton County, Georgia.