0589 Slide – Georgia Supreme Court Leo Frank Appeals Documents, 1913, 1914

Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

by an examination what stage of digestion certain things were in. There are so many exceptions to the rule. As to whether the cabbage had been digested or not, if whole pieces of cabbage were there I could tell, but if you could not find the cabbage either with the naked eye or the microscope, I would say that it had been digested. I don't know how long it takes an ordinary stomach to digest turnips. If a 13 year old child ate cabbage and bread on Saturday and her body was found that night about three o'clock, with the tongue out, deep indentations in the neck, a small flow of blood from a wound in the back of the head, a discolor of blood over her pantlets, one of the drawers leg torn, the stocking supporter torn loose, rigor mortis had set in since 16 to 20 hours, all blood had settled down in that part where gravity had taken it according to the way the body was lying and the small testines was clear six feet below the stomach, the stomach was normal, and there was no mucous and every indication was that the digestion was progressing favorably and this cabbage was found with the naked eye in the stomach and unmistakable evidences of undigested starch granules and thirty two drops of hydrochloric acid, I say emphatically that no man living in my judgement could say how long that cabbage had been in the stomach. If Mary Phagan was alarmed concerning her surroundings, or knew that certain facts were upon her digestion then and there would have almost been completely arrested. If she lived six or eight hours after this alarm, I say that no digestion could have continued up to the time of her death. Any kind of mental or physical excitement would largely arrest digestion, probably completely. I could tell by looking into the stomach that day but I examined that ten days afterwards, and found the cabbage in that state and I had said that death or excitement had arrested its digestion I would consider that I had stated one of the greatest absurdities of the day. I don't believe it is possible to tell a thing in the world of the contents of the stomach of a person that had been dead six or eight or ten days. Yes, that looks like cabbage (States Exhibit 0)