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The Atlanta Georgian,
Saturday, 25th April 1914,
5th Edition,
PAGE 1, COLUMN 1.
Find Nothing About Accused to Prove Conley's Story State's Case Crumbling, Says Burns.
Detective W. J. Burns made public Saturday for the first time the fact that the Atlanta physicians delegated by him to visit Leo Frank in his cell at the Tower all had reported that they found the prisoner entirely normal in every respect, and that they could find no indications of degeneracy of the type the negro Jim Conley described on the witness stand.
Among the specialists engaged by Burns to visit Frank were R. R. Daly, an alienist of wide reputation: Hansell Crenshaw, J. Cheston King, E. Bates Block, L. W. Gaines and W. A. Gardener.
The visits of the physicians to the Tower caused considerable speculation several weeks ago. None of them would tell their mission there and none would give any hint of the result of their examination.
Burns, in commenting Saturday upon the sensational "confession" affidavits whose submission brought to a close the defense's case in the hearing on the extraordinary motion for a new trial for Frank, declared that the State's case was crumbling, and that this fact would be made apparent by his complete report.
Says State Withdraws Charge.
He said his interview with Chief of Detectives Lanford indicated that the State, at least in so far as it was represented by the police and detective forces which had gathered the evidence, had withdrawn completely its accusation of perversion against Frank, the charge which was largely instrumental in bringing about the conviction for murder.
The detective branded the introduction of the story into the case as the most cowardly thing that could have been done, especially in view of the fact that the State was unable to support it, and virtually withdrew its charges after it had obtained the conviction.
"I went yesterday to the police station in company with Dr. Marx and Attorney H. A. Alexander," said Burns. "We called on Chief Lanford and I asked him for the affidavits of perversion which he had said he had against Frank."
Case Crumbled, He Says.
"I had offered $1,000 and then $5,000 for satisfactory evidence of degeneracy on the part of the prisoner, and no one had come forward to claim the money."
"I was astounded when Chief Lanford insisted and repeated that the State did not now and never had charged that Leo Frank was a pervert. If this is true, then the main prop of the prosecution falls and the case crumbles to pieces, as will be shown even more clearly when my report is made public."
"It was on the charge of perversion that Frank was convicted, and not on the charge of murder. This is made clear by the sworn affidavit of Juror Henslee, who said, 'Early in the trial
EXPERT REPORT AIDS FRANK, SAYS BURNS
Continued From Page 1.
I became convinced that Frank was a pervert.'"
Strongly Accuses Conley.
"Anyone who is acquainted with the manifestations of perversion would have known at once, if not from the circumstances of the tragedy then from the notes themselves, that the crime was committed by a pervert. I recognized this at once and so it was necessary for me to find the pervert."
"I have found him in Jim Conley and he is the man who killed Mary Phagan. There is no doubt about this."
"When my attention was first called to this matter I believed, with many others, that justice had been done and I declined the first invitations to enter into an investigation. Later when urged strongly by prominent people who were not satisfied with the verdict I again declined, for I did not think that a man could be railroaded to prison and to the gallows in the way it was said Frank had been."
Calls Charge Cowardly.
"On reaching Atlanta on a lecture tour the details of the case were explained to me and it was represented that conviction had come from popular excitement and prejudice, due to the nature of the crime and the fact that it had come at the end of a long series of atrocious murders culminating in two murders in both of which persons were put on trial and acquitted."
"The police had been held up to ridicule for their failures. They were on their mettle. Frank was arrested and then the charge of perversion was made. Everyone knows that this charge, unless it is proved, is the most cowardly thing that can be done for it divests the defendant of every particle of sympathy and respect and arouses toward him only hostility and abhorrence."
Stories All False, He Says.
"When I entered the case my first inquiry and my first investigation was to determine if Frank was abnormal as had been charged."
"I called personally on the prisoner and then and there decided that there was not the slightest trace of this type of abnormality, and neither by talk nor act did Frank betray any of the characteristics that are strong in a degenerate type and are exhibited under certain questioning."
"I put to work the best men I had in my agency and I think there are no better in the United States and they were instructed to run down every story and rumor that had arisen throughout the case. They were unable to find the slightest foundation for the stories."
Doctors' Report Favorable.
"I then insisted that some of Atlanta's eminent physicians see the prisoner and they put him to the severest tests known to the medical fraternity. Their reports were just what I thought they would be. After the most rigid and careful examination they reported that Frank not only is not a pervert, but that he is perfectly normal and unusually healthy. Indeed, we were surprised in our thorough investigation to find that in his moral life Frank was far beyond the ordinary."
"Then it was that in our failure to find any clews on this matter I invited anyone who had any information to visit me. This was without result. No one came. Then I offered a reward of $1,000. This also failing, I raised the offer to $5,000 and not even those who have cried their stories of perversion the loudest from the police station and from scurrilous periodicals have come to collect this money."