Wednesday, 4th March 1914: Conley Hit In Story Epps Boy Charges Police Plot, The Atlanta Georgian

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'ON FRANK CASE TO FINISH,' BURNS

"I am on the Frank case to the finish," was the emphatic declaration of William J. Burns Wednesday on his return to Atlanta from New Orleans and Jackson, Miss.

This was the first positive statement as to his intentions that had been made by the great detective since he began his preliminary investigation of the murder mystery.

Burns arrived in Atlanta at 11:50 o'clock Wednesday forenoon and went at once into conference with Milton Klein and Dr. B. Wildauer, who have been active in engaging his services.

A half dozen telegrams were awaiting him in Atlanta, most of them bearing on the Phagan case in some manner. Several of them were from far distant points and were signed by persons who expressed their eager wish that he probe the mystery to the bottom and ascertain so that there could be no shadow of doubt the identity of the little factory girl's slayer.

Will Be Here Most of Time.

"I shall be in Atlanta most of the time during my investigation," said Burns to a Georgian reporter. "I want to be right on the spot where I can get all of my information firsthand and where I can converse with the persons most closely connected with the case. I expect to go to New York for a day or so, but I shall return here almost at once.

The case is an unusual one and I am undertaking it almost as much from my personal interest in its complexities and its contradictory phases as I am from a purely business standpoint. My investigation will be impartial and without regard to whom it may help or hurt."

Leo Frank already had expressed his hearty desire that the famous detective enter the case.

"I hope that his investigation will extend to the furthest limit," Frank said. "I was most favorably impressed by him in his conversation with me here in the Tower. His reputation insures that there will be a fair and square investigation."

Will Bring His Experts.

Both Mr. Klein and Dr. Wildauer were greatly gratified at Burns' decision.

"It has been virtually certain that he would enter the case for the last ten days," said Dr. Wildauer, "but he wished to make a complete survey of the situation before he announced his intention."

When Burns returns to Atlanta he probably will be accompanied by several of his most dependable operatives. Their identity will not be disclosed until the conclusion of his work. Dan S. Lehon, of New Orleans, general manager of the Southern division of Burns' Agencies, is greatly interested in the case, and will have a share in it. C. E. Sears, manager of the local branch, met Burns at the train Wednesday and took part in the conference between his chief and Mr. Klein and Dr. Wildauer.

Career of Burns Studded With Successes.

Forty years ago William Allen was running for Governor of Ohio. A convict, wandering about the prison yard in Columbus, where he was allowed to have a little workshop, picked up an old circular saw and engraved upon it a portrait of the Gubernatorial Candidate.

Billy Burns, the young son of a Police Commissioner in Columbus, heard the warden tell the story and saw the picture. Later, Billy Burns, fascinated, used to watch the old convict and counterfeiter walk to and from the little shop Governor Hayes had set up for him after he pardoned him. Once the boy even talked to him.

"Billy" Burns will be in Atlanta, GA., again this week as "the world's greatest detective." He comes here to search out the truth of the South's deepest murder mystery the mystery of who murdered Mary Phagan.

Comes at Crucial Moment.

At this, the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute, with Leo M. Frank superintendent of the factory where little Mary worked, tried, convicted, and now held in the Fulton County Tower under sentence of death by hanging Detective William J. Burns, his shrewd, analytical brain drawn to the baffling skein of uncertainties in the case as a needle to a magnet, steps upon the somber stage and says:

"I'll see."

Shrewd? Analytical?

Burns is both these and more. Burns is crafty, he is resourceful, unrelenting; he reads the hearts of men as the bookworm reads his tome or the miser his golden ledger.

Burns is short, stocky, matter-of-fact. His reddish-brown mustache is curled at the ends, cropped short over the lips. His eyes are light blue and steady.

Looks Like Business Man.

Burns wears a dark business suit, cut close. He has the appearance and manner of an alert businessman. His questions are brief and crisp, but his statements are uttered in a softened tone with a slight drawl. This gives him time to think fully as he talks. His thoughts are lightning-quick and about as forceful when they strike a point.

For example:

Abe Ruef and Mayor Schmitz were leaders in a gang of "higher-ups" that had debauched San Francisco. It came down to the point of getting Ruef's confession or letting the big case go to pot. Burns had to have that confession.

Ruef had been under arrest for weeks. Burns had played upon his fears, his loves, his prejudices, and his ambition. This availed nothing. Burns began craftily to build in Ruef's mind the suspicion that Schmitz was about to confess. This suspicion sufficiently developed in Ruef's mind, Burns "got" him with this:

"By Jove, if you do plead guilty in that French restaurant case, Ruef, we'll make a sensation of it. We'll keep it dark till the day of the trial."

Pictures Startling Scene.

"The courtroom will be filled. Everybody will be there or watching, and you and Schmitz will be arraigned. I wouldn't tell even my own attorneys, if I were you. Oh, you might tell one of them, but pretend to tell him in court, then let him tell the others. They will jump and you can all go to a side room and hold a conference."

"We'll play innocent on our side, and you can come back into court, all paralyzed. The attorney you tell might walk up and down as if he were suffering and angry while you read your statement "

"And say, that statement; we'll make that a corker. I'll help you on it."

"You can act as if you drew it up at your little conference, but by preparing it in advance, you can make something that will move the whole room to tears, and the town. Even the judge will feel it, and Schmitz ! Say, the Mayor will drop in his tracks; for I can give you this straight: Mayor Schmitz is not expecting YOU to do this."

Personal vanity is the weak point common to most of the criminal class. Ruef played his part like an artist. His statement was carefully prepared. He wouldn't let an emotionless clerk read it.

Ruef held the center of the stage in the court scene; he drank the joy of the pain of it to the dregs. His voice choking, tears welling to his eyes, and sipping water after every sentence, Ruef read his farewell address.

A Psychological Detective.

He told how he had started out in life; what he, a university man, had hoped to do for good government; his surrender to conditions; his fall; he recited the claims of his family upon him, their sickness since his arrest, and how he had sworn to help them from now on "to destroy the system that destroys men."

That was a sample of Burns as a psychological detective. He sowed the seed of distrust among the members of the ring with consummate skill, then appealed to the fears that grew out of this distrust and induced the underlings to confess, then used their confessions to make his way up to Ruef. Later, Schmitz wanted to confess, but Burns sent him to the penitentiary without letting him confess.

BURNS, CRAFTY, UNRELENTING, WORKS LIKE A SCIENTIST

Great Detective, Now in Frank Case, Has Achieved Many Successes

Tracing of Anonymous Letters by Handwriting One of his Famous Accomplishments---Forcing Confessions by Psychological Reasoning.And here, gleaned from the pages of Current Literature and Mc Clure's Magazine, is the interesting sequel of Billy Burns and Charley Ulrich, the counterfeiter who engraved the Governor's picture on an old circular saw he found in the prison yard.

Ulrich tried hard to settle down, but the counterfeiting fever got him. Many years after he had given up his little shop and fallen into evil ways, and was being sought for "cleaning up" $200,000 on a fake Commission company in Germany, Burns then a Secret Service agent for the Federal Government was assigned to look after "old Charlie."

How He Trapped Old Friend.

Burns and his wife took an apartment across from Ulrich's in Cincinnati and watched day and night for five months before Ulrich started to New York to join the Brockway gang of counterfeiters. Burns tells the rest:

"When we arrived in New York, Charley went into a telegraph office to write a telegram, commencing with the body of the message, without writing the name of the person to whom it was to be sent."

"'Have just arrived,' he wrote, and then realized someone was looking over his shoulder. He looked up at me; I looked down at him."

"'Are you interested in this?' he asked."

"'Yes,' I replied."

"'Well,' he said, 'maybe you had better write it.'"

"'All right, I will.' I took the pen and wrote in the name and address of the fellow the message was to and signed it with Ulrich's name."

He Was Interested.

"Charley sat back, looking at me. 'You ARE interested, aren't you?' That was all he said."

"'Yes,' I replied, 'and I want you to come with me.'"

"'May I ask your name?'"

"'Burns is my name.'"

"'Burns?'"

"'Yes, Burns.'"

"'William J. Burns?'"

"'Yes, William J. Burns.'"

"'Well, Mr. Burns, I am very glad to meet you but not under these circumstances. I know of you, but have never seen you before.'"

"'Are you quite sure that you never saw me before?'"

"'Never in my life.'"

Then Remembers Him.

"'Do you remember engraving a picture of Governor William Allen on a circular saw blade in Columbus?'"

"'Yes, I remember that very well.'"

"'Well, I used to live in Columbus and I used to go out to see you there.' And we shook hands."

Then Burns started in on Ulrich with his psychological method:

"It was one betrayal after another, Charley. There never has been a man who has profited by your work who has ever helped you out. The man who let you do the work has always got big money while you went to prison to live."

"Your wife had to come from Europe alone and wash clothes early and late. When you came home, you found that she had made good friends, had worked hard, and had brought up your children well. You, like a big loafer, were willing to sit around and allow your evil friends, who were not friends at all, to get you into trouble again and put you in prison."

"You never take a thought of those young girls, just becoming women, that your wife has worked so hard for. You don't mind them being pointed out as the daughters of Charley Ulrich, the 'notorious counterfeiter.'"

Moves Him to Tears.

"I handed talk out like that to Charley until tears began to roll down his cheeks," said Burns later.

"'What's the use of reminding me of all that?' cried Ulrich."

"'Because you need it. I want to ask you a question. Do you want to go to New Jersey and take the fifteen years that's coming to you, or do you want to come in with us help us round up these crooks that have never done anything but play you false and live right with God and man and your family?'"

"'By Gott! I want to go with you. Mr. Burns, I'll be absolutely loyal to you.'"

Ulrich WAS loyal. The entire Brockway gang "went up." Burns and Ulrich became fast friends. Ulrich lived honestly, dying about three years ago.

The essence of Burns' method, showing in every brilliant bit of work Burns ever did, is this: He works carefully, silently, to obtain evidence enough against the man he has decided is guilty to put that man in his power. Then he plays adroitly upon the emotions of the man, inducing him to furnish the balance of the case and make a clean breast of his guilt.

The Orchard Confession.

This was the method Burns used when he got the confession of wholesale murder from Harry Orchard in the notorious Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone case.

This was the method Burns used when he got the confession from Ortie Mc Manigal which sent J. J. and J. P. Mc Namara to San Quentin Penitentiary and forty-three labor leaders in the dynamite conspiracy to the Federal Prison at Leavenworth, Kans.

This was the method Burns used when Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock assigned Burns to some land fraud cases. After a time, Hitchcock called upon Burns for a report.

"How far have you gone?"

"Far enough," answered Burns, "to know that is taking graft and is chiefly instrumental in protecting the frauds."

The name Burns mentioned was that of a Republican leader in the West and a man high in Washington's official circle, and a personal friend of Hitchcock's.

Produces the Evidence.

"Stop right there," said Hitchcock. "You can't accuse a man of that sort unless you have the evidence. Have you got it? If not, get out of my office."

Burns put on his hat and walked out.

But 30 minutes later, Burns walked in again with the man he had named and had him repeat to Hitchcock the confession he had made to Burns an hour before.

Chief Wilkie once said Burns gets confessions from practically every criminal he goes after "because of his marvelous knowledge of the case, which enables him to catch the criminal upon his slightest slip."

Burns' "third degree" substitutes psychology for brutality.

A pointed example of how Burns employs the much-talked-of "process of elimination" in finding unfindable persons is found in this extract from Dana Gatlin's story of the Abe Ruef San Francisco case, quoting Burns:

Tracing a Letter Writer.

"The public sees only outside facts and results, and the missing links make the outcome appear mysterious. I'll illustrate:"

"One morning in 1905, while I was investigating the Oregon land fraud cases, I walked into the office of Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock. He seemed excited, and, as he was usually very placid, I asked him what was the matter."

"'There is a letter' he fairly brandished it 'with valuable information. And from such a coward!'"

"I read the letter."

"'Mr. Secretary,' I said, 'there'll be no trouble in getting this man.'"

"'But he doesn't sign his name. How are you going to find him?'"

(Here Burns dropped into the voice and manner of the second speaker, without prefatory comment.)

"'We have a way sometimes,' I spoke with purposeful mystery. The Secretary looked at me, and I seemed to hear him thinking; but all he said was:"

"'You think you can do it?'"

"'Yes, I think so.'"

How It Was Done.

"In a few weeks we got the letter writer, and subsequently he was indicted in connection with the land frauds."

"Now, let's see how this particular mystery pans out." (Burns leaned forward, his hand uplifted, preoccupied again by the pleasure of the chase.)

"The letter was from San Francisco. You can get an anonymous letter mailed anywhere, but this letter came from someone who, when the land frauds were committed, was close in with Benson and Hyde of San Francisco, the principal defendants. He was delivering goods that not more than twelve persons could have handed out."

"Taking up the letter by the process of elimination, I came to the conclusion that the letter was from some person who had actually participated in the work. He told things he could not otherwise have known, and his information was accurate. The letter went on to say that Burns was on the right track, but that he should keep up his work. The writer thought I had quit."

"I was able also by the process of elimination to narrow the possible list of twelve down to five or six, including the defendants themselves, though it wasn't likely they were giving out information on themselves."

"Personal" Traps Him."I inserted a personal in the San Francisco papers to the effect that the letter had been received, and the information it contained was valuable, that further information was desired, and would the writer communicate with the Secretary and give his address?"

"The personal got the right man, but he was discreet. He advertised that he could communicate only through personals in the newspapers. I took a chance on the biggest of the men I had in my eye. I formulated some questions that could be answered only by Hyde, Benson, or an attorney who had acted for them. The reply came with the correct answer. My theory had worked. The anonymous letter writer proved to be Hyde's former attorney, who proved to be trying in this way to collect $10,000 from Hyde, which he claimed was due him."

"He was a most surprised gentleman when he was later called to the stand at the preliminary hearing of Hyde and Benson and confronted with his anonymous letters by Francis J. Heney. There are no mysteries; every criminal leaves a track behind him. It is the ability to see and follow traces so slight that others do not perceive them that makes the successful detective."

He Never Quits.

Burns never gives up. In the famous Philadelphia-Lancaster counterfeiting case, he was offered $25,000, then $40,000, to stop. In the San Francisco graft case, Burns was offered $100,000 to leave the city. Another later offer guaranteed Burns $125,000 if he would take up work elsewhere.

"To one who is accustomed to tracing the authorship of anonymous letters, it is a well-known fact that when a person undertakes to write an anonymous letter, he starts out with the intention of disguising his handwriting, but that as he proceeds with his composition, he unconsciously returns to his normal manner of writing. He may catch himself at this and resume his disguised hand, but he is sure to incorporate some of his peculiar characteristics in the letter, through which it is possible to identify him."

Another Letter Case.

"There was an anonymous letter containing valuable information sent to Secretary Hitchcock in the land fraud cases. After reading it, I said to the Secretary: 'Yes, this letter was mailed in Boston. It was sent there to be re-mailed, but it was written from the West. The letter indicates that the writer has an ax to grind and it is this: He is giving information about certain persons who are selecting lands in Oregon; unquestionably he has lands there himself and is being interfered with. Now, we will look at the plat and see who is interested in these Oregon lands.' I was well up on the details of the plats in those days."

"We found that one man was buying lands in this vicinity when he could, and by the then-popular method, acquiring lands fraudulently from the Government. I looked this man up and found that he had an office in Chicago. I wrote a letter to him there and asked him what he would take for certain lands I knew he owned, and I had the letter mailed from Portland, Oregon. He replied to me there, and the typewriting was just the same as that of the anonymous letter written on a typewriter of the same make and with a purple ribbon."

"The man was flabbergasted when I called upon him in his office at Chicago and thanked him, on behalf of the Secretary, for the anonymous information he had been giving us."

No Real Mysteries.

"To get back to the question of mysteries, the finding of writers of anonymous letters illustrates only a little of what I mean when I say there are no mysteries."

"After you get him, the criminal understands that he has left a track, though he laid his plans ever so carefully. It all seems so simple afterward. It always seems that the particular track left might have been avoided."

"For example, United States Senator Mitchell of Oregon was convicted of participation in the land frauds. Senator Mitchell's law partner, Judge Tanner, while being interrogated by Mr. Heney, stated that there was a partnership agreement, drawn up at the time of the formation of the partnership between Senator Mitchell and himself, which contained a stipulation whereby all moneys received by the firm for practicing before the departments at Washington were to go to Judge Tanner, it being, of course, a violation of the Federal statutes for Senator Mitchell to accept money earned in this way."

"Here was the track wide, broad, and deep, yet both these shrewd lawyers overlooked it. Why the necessity of such a clause? This suggested suspicious circumstances, and therefore led me to make a close scrutiny of the contract, which was produced by Judge Tanner and was given me by Mr. Heney."

Traced by Watermark.

"On investigation, I found a watermark in the paper and two misspelled words in the document; I also noticed that a dark ribbon had been used in its typewriting. And how simple was the procedure that led to the undoing of these men!"

"My investigation disclosed the fact that this particular brand of paper had not been manufactured until 1903, while the date of the contract written thereon between Senator Mitchell and Judge Tanner was dated 1901. A physical impossibility!"

"A further investigation showed that Judge Tanner's son was, at the time of the investigation, acting as the stenographer of the law firm. It was fair to assume that if the contract had been written as a blind, this young man did the typewriting. He was immediately called before the Grand Jury and denied typewriting an agreement between his father and Senator Mitchell."

"He was asked then and there to write a letter dictated by Mr. Heney, in which Heney used the two misspelled words found in the partnership agreement: the word 'salary' was spelled 'salery' and the word 'constituent' was spelled 'constituant.' Judge Tanner's son misspelled these two words in Heney's letter just as he had misspelled them in the fake contract between his father and Senator Mitchell."

"When confronted with this evidence, Judge Tanner came into open court and confessed to perjury."

Of catching a liar in his lies, Burns has this to say:

Trapping a Liar.

"It is a curious thing, but human nature invariably acts in the same way under similar impulses. When a man is lying, he uses the gestures of a lie; his attitude, the movements of his body, little ungovernable expressions of various sorts, betray him by being 'off normal.' After a little experience, you recognize them at once. You can see behind the movements of his mind, and you can trap him easily. You may not be as clever as he is, but you can beat him at your own game. Naturally."

PAGE 1, COLUMN 8

WAS AT HIS HOUSE DAY OF CRIME, HE SAYS

Following the sensational affidavit of George Epps, a 15-year-old newsboy, repudiating the testimony he gave against Leo M. Frank and charging a police frame-up, the Frank case took another startling turn late Wednesday when a new witness against Jim Conley appeared in La Grange, Ga.

This new witness tells a story that is somewhat problematical in its bearing, but may be of greater value to the defense.

The story, told by Ed Ross, a Negro to Gus Reed, a bailiff, and E. B. Edmondson, a constable, in La Grange declares that Conley came into Reed's boarding house on the afternoon of the murder and washed blood from his hands.

"Ross says that Conley came into the house, and as he washed his hands, remarked that he had had some trouble at the factory," said Reed over the long-distance telephone Wednesday. He said that Ross seemed to be a hardworking, truthful Negro, and said that he hadn't told the story previously because he did not want to be mixed up in the case, and had not been asked about it by anybody.

Reed and Edmondson already have communicated with Frank's lawyers and were to have been in Atlanta Monday, but were held up by the press of court business. Reed said he would probably come to Atlanta Thursday.Next to the accusations made against Roy Craven by Albert Mc Knight, the Epps charges are the ugliest of those made since the ending of the famous Frank trial. The lad declares in his affidavit that Black suggested the larger part of his testimony and forced him to swear to it on the stand.

Probably the most hurtful of the Epps testimony was that Mary Phagan had told him that Frank had acted "suspiciously" toward her, that he had walked downstairs ahead of her and waited for her at the door where he winked at her and endeavored to attract her attention, and that she was afraid of him.

All False, He Says. All of this was false and perjured testimony, Epps declares in his new statement, and was concocted out of nothing by Detective Black.

Other developments in the Phagan case Wednesday were the request by Solicitor Dorsey for the resentencing of Frank, the positive declaration by members of Frank's counsel that there would be no effort to have Judge Hill pronounce a sentence of life imprisonment instead of the death sentence, and the signing of the habeas corpus papers, which will bring Frank before Judge Hill.

Judge Hill is expected to reimpose the death sentence upon the prisoner within a day or two. The habeas corpus writ was given into the hands of Deputy Sheriff Plennie Miner, but no time was set for the bringing of Frank from the Tower.

Sentence was first pronounced upon Frank within less than 24 hours after his sentence. It was anticipated that the prisoner might be brought from the Tower late Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, when few persons are about the courtrooms.

Epps Now in Reformatory. George Epps, the author of the affidavit charging a "frame-up" on the part of Detective Black, now is in a reformatory at Milledgeville and is represented as thoroughly repentant for what he declares was his perjured testimony.

The lad goes into great detail as to the manner in which his testimony was built up, and asserts that he told Black repeatedly that it was a lie, but that the detective's invariable reply was that it would be "all right" and that he would give Epps some money to get out of town after the trial if he wished to go.

Black is the witness who wilted under the terrible fire of Luther Rosser's cross-examination during the Frank trial and became so confused that he was compelled to leave the stand.

Here is the Epps Affidavit in full: Epps Boy's Affidavit "State of Georgia County of Baldwin." "Now comes George Epps, who, upon his solemn oath, deposes and says: I am 15 years of age. I reside at No. 246 Fox Street, in the city of Atlanta, but at present I am at the reformatory at Milledgeville, Georgia. In August 1913, I was a witness for the State against Leo M. Frank, who was at that time on trial for the murder of Mary Phagan.

"I was also called as a witness by the Solicitor General before the Coroner's inquest over the death of Mary Phagan." "I now state that at both the Coroner's inquest and the trial of Leo M. Frank, I swore falsely. I now state that I was persuaded to give the false testimony in both of the before-mentioned hearings by Detective John Black. I am glad of the chance to tell the truth and relieve my mind and conscience and clear myself of the perjured testimony given at both hearings. I have prayed to God for forgiveness, and I now want to explain all of the circumstances and influences that made me swear falsely at both of those hearings. I will say that the only statements in my testimony that are of truth are that I knew Mary Phagan and that I rode on the streetcar with her on April 26, 1913, which was the last time I ever saw Mary Phagan alive."

"To explain all of the particulars as to how I became led to give false testimony in the Mary Phagan case, I will begin with my first meeting with Detective John Black, of the police force. My home is in the neighborhood in which Mary Phagan lived, and I knew her and most of the neighborhood knew her, and it was known throughout the neighborhood that John Black was making inquiries there for boys and girls or neighbors that knew her."

Tells of Black Seeing Him. "It was known generally in the neighborhood that I played with Mary Phagan and talked with her around the streets of the neighborhood. In May 1913, I was employed at Hirsch-Spitz Bed Factory in the city of Atlanta, and one day in May I was told by my boss in the factory there was somebody out at the front who wanted to see me, and I went out and the man who was there and who wanted to see me was Detective John Black. He then told me that he understood that I knew something about the Mary Phagan case. I told him I didn't know anything about the Mary Phagan murder case, but in reply to his further questions, admitted that I knew Mary Phagan."

"I also told him that I rode downtown on the same car with Mary Phagan on April 26, 1913. He asked me what time I boarded the car, and I told him it was between 10 and 15 minutes to 12. He asked me how I knew the time, and I told him I had seen the time on a clock that is in Mr. Bryan's store. There is in this store a clock, and while standing in the door of this store I noticed that clock. The minute hand was then between the hours of 9 and 10 and the hour hand was nearly to 12 o'clock. I know that this clock is not reliable as to time; sometimes it doesn't run at all, but it is the only clock that I saw; that is how I knew the time that I was boarding the car."

"I had been playing ball, and, being Saturday, I did not work at the factory, but went downtown and sold newspapers, and I generally left home to go downtown about 11 o'clock, but I was afraid I would be late this day, April 26. Black further questioned me if I saw Mary Phagan on the car, and I told him I did; that she sat in the front seat on the left-hand side, facing forward, and I sat three seats behind her."

Spoke to Her on Street. "I did not speak to Mary Phagan on the car, but when we got off the car at Marietta and Forsyth streets Mary got off ahead of me, and I said, 'Hello, Mary. Where are you going?' Mary answered, and said, 'I'm going to get my money and go to see the parade,' this day being Decoration Day and a holiday. This was all of the conversation that I had with Mary on that day. I last saw Mary as she was going over the viaduct south on Forsyth street, and I went under the viaduct to The Journal building where the boys receive their papers to sell, and when I arrived at The Journal building the extra issue of The Journal was coming out, and I immediately got my papers, and went over to Five Points, where I sold them. To fix the time that I must have arrived at The Journal building, I will state that the extra generally comes out from about 12:20 to 12:30, and I told all of these circumstances in detail to Detective Black when I first met him, as I am telling them now."

"Black wanted me to say that I sat in the seat with Mary on the car, but I told him that this was not true; that I sat three seats behind her. But Black said, 'That will be all right. You do as I tell you.' And then the whistle blew for noon at the factory, and Black went away, and the factory hands came out for dinner."

"Detective Black asked me to come down to his office the next day to see him, and I told him that if he would see my boss and get me off I would come. He then handed me a subpoena, and read it to me, and told me how much I would have to pay or go to jail if I didn't come down to his office, and that I could show the subpoena to my boss. I did show the subpoena to my boss, and the next day went to Black's office at police headquarters."I arrived there about 2:30 in the afternoon. At that time there were several newspaper men in his office. He at once carried me to another room, where we were alone together. He then questioned me again about coming downtown on the car with Mary, and told me that I got on the car at 10 minutes to 12 o'clock, and that I sat on the seat with Mary, and that we got off the car about 5 to 7 minutes after 12, at Marietta and Forsyth streets. I again told Black that was not true, and that I didn't want to lie about it.

Agreed to Perjure Himself.

He told me that that was all right. 'You go ahead and tell it just like I tell you.' I told him that I didn't know anything about what time we got off the car, and Black says 'Oh, you was raised in the country, you can tell the time by the sun, and it was about five or seven minutes after twelve,' and he said it just like that. I told him that that was not true, but he made me agree to say it was as he told me, and I said 'All right, if you say I got to say it that way, all right, but it is not true,' and he further said 'You do as I tell you and I will give you some money when this trial is over, and you can leave town if you want to.'

I told him that I hated to leave town and leave my mother, and he said 'That is all right, I will fix it with your mother.' I told Black, 'All right, if you say so, I suppose I can do it.' He then told me that I must say that I talked to Mary on the car coming downtown, and told me to say I deviled Mary about her sweetheart, and told her she must have a sweetheart at the pencil factory, and that I should say that Mary said 'She didn't have any sweetheart, but Mr. Frank down there acted suspicious toward her, that he came out ahead of her at nights when she would leave the factory and would look at her and wink at her,' and I should say that Mary said she was 'Afraid of Frank,' and that she asked me to come to the factory every night to meet her because she was afraid of Frank.

I told Black when he had told me all of this to say 'that he had me scared and that I would be afraid to go to the pencil factory,' and besides 'I didn't have time to go to the pencil factory to meet her if she wanted me to.' He said, 'That is all right, you just say that just like you say it now, that is, you did not have time to go to the factory to meet her, but don't say anything about being afraid or what I told you scaring you.'

He then urged me to go ahead and tell the story just like he told it to me, and I said 'All right, if you say I got to do, I suppose I can do it.'

After this talk with Detective Black in a private room at police headquarters, he gave me a nickel to buy a drink, which I did, and he told me after I had my drink to come back to the inquest, which is being held on the second floor at police headquarters. I did as he told me, and waited on the second floor near where the inquest was being held, fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Detective Black and Mr. Donehoo came out to where I was.

Told Lie to Coroner, He Says.

Mr. Donehoo was blind and Black told him who I was, that I was George Epps and 'he knows something about the Phagan case,' and Mr. Donehoo told me that I would be the next witness.

Detective Black and Mr. Donehoo then returned to the inquest room and in a minute or two my name was called, and I went in and was sworn and took the witness stand and told the story on the stand that Detective Black had told me to tell, which I knew then was mostly a lie, but felt that I was obliged to tell lies, because Detective Black had told me it was all right for me to do so when I left the witness stand at the Coroner's inquest, I went out into the hall and Detective Black came out and saw me, and he said, 'George, you done all right, now stick to that story, for there may be other men come out to see you and question you about what you know, and you tell them that you don't know anything about it, and that you have been told not to say anything to anybody about the Mary Phagan case.' He then carried me down to a soda fountain by the side of the police station and bought me a drink and told me to go on home, and I met Mr. Watkins, a man who lives in my neighborhood near the police station and we rode home together on the car.

After I got home I realized then that I had sworn to lies under the direction of Detective Black, and I felt mighty bad about it, and when I was getting ready to go to bed I cried, and I said my prayers and I asked God to forgive me for the crime I done that day, and my mother saw me crying and I said my prayers longer than I usually do. Mother asked me what was troubling me that I prayed so long and cried, and I did not tell or explain to my mother what I had done. The next morning after I had been to the Coroner's inquest, my father came home. He works at night, and he had the newspaper in which the testimony I had given before the Coroner's inquest was printed, and that was the first that he or my mother knew of my having been before the Coroner's inquest and what I had testified to.

Both my mother and father talked to me about the evidence as published in the newspapers that I had given. They said they knew I did not know anything about the case, and that the evidence published in the newspapers given by me was false. My father was very mad, and he tied my legs and whipped me for lying. He whipped me with the strap. I went to work at the factory after my whipping in the afternoon of that day. Detective Black and another detective named Scott came to the shop where I worked and sent in for me. I went out to see them, and they sent me back into the shop to get a boy named Boyd Towns to get him to say what he knew about the Mary Phagan case. Scott and Black claimed that Boyd Towns had heard somebody say that they had heard Mr. Frank say something about being sorry he killed Mary Phagan, but Boyd Towns denied that he knew anything or had heard anything about it, and nothing came of it.

Black Calls Him Again

The next day following, when I went back to the shop to go to work, I was told that they had a boy in my place. I did not hear anything more from or see Detective Black for some time. One evening Detective Black came out to where I lived and told me to come to Solicitor Dorsey's office at 10:30. My mother was present when Black called on me that evening, and Black did not say anything to me about the case, further than to tell me to come to the Solicitor's office the next morning.

I went to Solicitor Dorsey's office the next day as instructed by Black. I arrived there at 10:30 o'clock. When I arrived I was told that Mr. Dorsey was busy and couldn't see me just then, and I waited a few minutes in the hall near his office; then Black opened the door from Dorsey's office, and said, 'hello, George, come in.'

There was no one in the room but Solicitor Dorsey, Detective Black and myself. Black and Dorsey sat near each other at a desk, and I sat over in a corner. Mr. Dorsey said to me, 'George, we have got you down here to refresh your mind on the testimony that you have given at the coroner's inquest.' He then questioned me about the time I had got on the car on April 26, and I then told him that Detective Black had directed me to say that I got on the car at ten minutes to twelve. He asked me if I sat on the seat with Mary Phagan on the way downtown, and I told him I sat three seats behind her, and Black looked at me very hard. Detective Black and Mr. Dorsey, while I was being questioned by Mr. Dorsey, would have private conversations between them that I could not overhear, and after one of these conversations, Dorsey said, 'You sat in the seat with her, didn't you?' I then told him, 'Yes, I changed my seat and sat with her.' He wanted to know whereabouts on the route we were when I changed my seat, and I told him Chestnut Street.

Says Dorsey Said, "All Right."Then he asked me what conversation Mary Phagan and I had on the car, and I told him that I was tired of talking about this case, that I had told all that at the Coroner's inquest. Mr. Dorsey, while he was talking to me at this time, had a kind of book before him, and there was typewriting on the pages of it, and he looked at this book all the time he was questioning me and when I had told him that it was just like I had said at the Coroner's inquest, he said, "That is all right, you just stick to that."

After this conversation in Mr. Dorsey's office, with him and Detective Black, Detective Black followed me out in the hall and told me he wanted me to be sure about the time and not forget it when I got off the car with Mary on April 26th. He said, "You stick to it, as about seven minutes after twelve," and said that the reason he wanted me to remember this and stick to this was that it supported Jim Conley's story as to time; he wanted my time to be the same as the time Conley had said it was, and to agree with it. I promised Black that I would do as he told me to. Detective Black also said at this time that he had found a man by the name of Page, who was on the car with me on April 26th and had seen me sitting with Mary Phagan. I told Black that that man must be a liar, because I didn't sit with her. He said, "That is all right, George, you do as I tell you; this fellow saw you in the seat with Mary." At this time I told Detective Black that I didn't want to get into any trouble and I wished I had not gone into this case, and he told me to go right on and do just like he said, and he would see that I didn't get into any trouble.

And then I left Black in the hall and went out. When I got out on the street, I met a boy I know who lives in the neighborhood, but I can't just recall his name. He drives a horse and buggy and carries wallpaper samples for the Piedmont Wall Paper Company. I got in the buggy with him and rode around while he delivered some samples and came back out of town. I got out of his buggy at the corner of Mitchell and Forsyth Streets, and I then went on home. I heard nothing more of Black for some little time, and then one evening a man named Hunter from Mr. Dorsey's office came to my house and left me two subpoenas: one of which called me to Mr. Dorsey's office the next morning, and the other one to appear at Mr. Frank's trial when it began. I do not know the dates.

Swore to Lie on Stand, He Says.

The next morning I went to Mr. Dorsey's office and was told that I could not see him; that he was at the jail with Mr. Black. They telephoned him at the jail from his office and then directed me to go to the jail to see him, and I did so. Arriving at the jail, I saw Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Black. They said, "Hello, George," and Mr. Dorsey felt through his pocket for something and said he had something to ask me about, but he didn't have the papers with him and would have to let it go to another time, and told me I could go home. The next day I went directly to the courthouse. In the courthouse, I met Detective Black, and he told me to go ahead and, when I got on the stand, to "do just as well as I done up to his office." When I went on the stand at the trial, I was only allowed to tell about riding on the car with Mary at the time that I got on the car, as instructed by Black, and the time I got off the car. The day following, I was recalled by the defense and was cross-examined by Mr. Rosser, but was asked practically the same questions that I was asked the day before and gave practically the same answers.

The above statement I give as correctly as I can recall in its details, and do so in the hope of making myself clearly understood and in explaining how I was persuaded by Detective Black and encouraged by Solicitor Dorsey to swear falsely. I have been sorry for this false swearing ever since the trial of Mr. Frank, and I say again I am glad of the chance to explain it and relieve my mind of the falsehoods I have told in this case. I am willing and hope that this sworn statement will be delivered to Mr. Rosser, who was the attorney for Mr. Leo M. Frank, as it is every word true.

GEORGE W. EPPS, JR.

Frank, Wednesday, read the published accounts of Luther Rosser's statement to New York newspapers and proceeded to make the Formby woman's latest affidavit public.

"I received the affidavit late yesterday," he said, "and a careful reading of it throws much light on one phase of my case that has puzzled me from the beginning."

Understands Attacks Now.

"I never have been able to understand how all at once vile rumors and the most vicious type of slander began to be circulated about me. Never before in all my life had I been made the subject of any kind of gossip. This is not strange, for my whole life has been clean. But all of a sudden, the most horrible stories were circulated, and it was those charges of unspeakable vileness that turned the public against me. Of that, I am sure."

"Now, I begin to see the light, and this affidavit is the source."

"For example, Chief Lanford is quoted as saying that Harry Latham was responsible for this very affidavit, being in New York and not in New Orleans. I am curious to know what Chief Lanford will say when he is handed the very affidavit made by Mrs. Formby for The New York Times and duly authenticated, The Times assuring itself of her identity before giving credence to the document."

"That may be taken as a sample of detective 'methods' in this case."

Reads From Affidavit

"Now, let me read from this affidavit:"

"'We know that man is guilty, and you know he is guilty, and we have got to get him, and we are going to get him.'"

"That is what Nina Formby swears two detectives from Lanford's office told her, admitting freely that they had to 'get me,' and that she was to be used as a tool in 'getting me.'"

"Is it not a marvelous thing that these detectives 'knew I was guilty' within ten days after my arrest, when the whole investigation was in its most chaotic state, and long before Conley had made his alleged 'confession,' implicating himself and furnishing the basis of the so-called evidence on which I was convicted? I repeat, is it not a marvelous thing that these detectives 'knew' I was the guilty man?"

"Exposes Detectives."

"I might say a good many things about a detective department, some of the members of which used methods such as are outlined in this affidavit; in fact, the principal significance of this feature of the case is its exposure of the weapons with which the department fought to convict me."

"If they were at such pains to make out a slanderous charge to turn public opinion against me, is it not reasonable to assume they would go even further in framing up evidence for use in the trial?"

"A true case, based on real evidence, requires no 'bolstering.' The fact that this case was so carefully bolstered and propped up makes it certain that it was no true case."

"As to the detective department, I don't know if the public approves of its methods as exhibited in this case. But I don't believe the public is in favor of these methods, used by men paid by the citizens of Atlanta and sworn to protect their lives, their honor, and their property. When a City's Detective Department construes its sworn duty into framing up a horrible slander to bolster an impossible case in court, it seems to me that thinking people will deem it time to look into the matter."