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The Atlanta Georgian,
Friday, 1st May 1914,
3rd Edition,
PAGE 1, COLUMN 8.
Negro's Letters to Carter Woman
Filed, but Judge Blocks Reading of Them.
Leo Frank's defense was given its first setback in the hearing of the extraordinary motion for a new trial Friday, when Judge Ben Hill refused to allow the condemned man's attorneys to introduce, as an amendment to the original motion, an affidavit from Detective William J. Burns, embodying the results of a thorough examination of the clothing worn by Mary Phagan when she was killed.
Mr. Burns' affidavit, detailing the mutilated condition in which he found the clothing, tended to support his theory that the crime was the work of a particular kind of a pervert.
Judge Hill allowed the affidavit to be read by Leonard Haas, of Frank's counsel, and then ordered it excluded from the record of the case.
Judge Gives His Reason.
"The clothing was examined by the jury," said Judge Hill. "They had an opportunity to form their own conclusions and judge for themselves as to the condition of the clothing."
Frank's counsel offered to eliminate that part of the affidavit giving Mr. Burns' opinion, and asked that the remainder of it, which told in what condition Mr. Burns found the clothes, remain in the record. This Judge Hill refused to do.
Half a dozen other affidavits were offered by the defense as amendments to the original motion. Among them was one from Anna Maud Carter, the negro woman who was in jail with Jim Conley and who has sworn that Conley confessed to her that he murdered Mary Phagan. The letters which she says she wrote to Conley also were offered.
In her affidavit the Carter woman testified that she saw Conley almost every day while working in the laundry of the jail, and got very friendly with him.
"I got so friendly with him he asked me to marry him," she asserted.
She testified that she was locked up in her cell for violating the Sheriff's orders not to talk to Conley, and that during the period of confinement she wrote letters to Conley and he wrote to her. She asserted she received two and three letters every day, sometimes of six, seven and as high as ten pages each, from Conley, and that she wrote to him about three times a week.
Letters Too Vile to Read.
The defense offered 22 sheets which the Carter woman said she wrote to Conley, and 27 sheets which she said Conley wrote to her, as evidence. Conley's letters were so vile and disgusting that after Attorney Leonard Haas had read one of them Judge Hill suggested that the reading of them be stopped, inasmuch as he would have to read them after the hearing had concluded and there was no necessity of reading them in public.
Mr. Arnold insisted that the letters should be read, as showing Conley's character and therefore having a direct bearing on the case.
"They are disgusting and vile," Mr.
3rd Edition, PAGE 2, COLUMN 1
NEW SENSATIONS PREDICTED IN FRANK CASE
Arnold said, "but they are important."
One more of the letters was read, and then Mr. Rosser suggested that reading of them be halted.
Affidavits were introduced from R. P. Butler, Herbert Schiff, L. A. Quinn and other employees of the pencil factory, who swore that they were familiar with Conley's handwriting and that the writing on the notes placed in evidence was that of Conley.
Tells of Negro Washing Shirt.
The defense also introduced an affidavit made by Mrs. Georgia Denham, who testified that she saw Conley washing a shirt in the metal room of the factory on May 1, and that there were blood spots on the shoulder of it. Conley, she said, told her he had bumped into a door and made his nose bleed. Another affidavit from Mrs. Denham set forth that she was in the metal room when the hair was found in the lathe, and that she does not believe it was the hair of Mary Phagan.
"Mary Phagan's hair was auburn," she said, "and the hair in the lathe was blonde."
A similar affidavit by Mrs. Cora L. Laffen was introduced.
Solicitor Dorsey opened the State's fight on the extraordinary motion with a vigorous attack on the action of the defense in introducing evidence tending to prove that the hair found on the lathe in the metal room was not the hair of Mary Phagan. He contended that the attorneys for the defense had failed to exercise due diligence in cross-examining Dr. Roy F. Harris regarding the hair, and that they could not ask for a new trial on that ground.
One of the revelations expected at the hearing was that of the name of the man whom the Rev. Mr. Ragsdale charges with having given him $200 for signing an affidavit saying that he heard a negro, afterward identified as Jim Conley, confess to the killing of Mary Phagan in the National Pencil Factory.
To the committee from the Plum Street Baptist Church who waited on him, Ragsdale said that he had been given the money in the presence of Detective Burns, C. C. Tedder and his lawyer, Arthur Thurman. He failed, however, to designate the man who gave him the $200 he says he received or even to make clear who persuaded him to make the affidavit.
Dorsey Hints at Solution.
Solicitor Dorsey indicated Friday before the beginning of hearing that Ragsdale had represented to him and to the detectives that Tedder had taken a conspicuous part in the negotiations and that Tedder really appeared to be acting in behalf of the Burns agency although he has been connected with the office of W. M. Smith, lawyer for Jim Conley, for a long time.
Tedder repeated Friday his denial that he had given Ragsdale $200 or any other sum of money for making an affidavit. Detective Burns was even more vehement in his comments on the episode and on Ragsdale's charge that Burns was present when the money passed and the affidavit was signed.
"I never saw the man," said Burns, "and I don't believe he ever saw me. Unless they have him barricaded out there at his home I am going to confront him and demand an explanation. I am going to get at the truth back of this whole cowardly and disgraceful affair.
"I am confident that Ragsdale never involved my name in the affair as a witness of the alleged transaction until he was made to by persons interested in the prosecution of Frank. He was telling the baldest and most direct falsehood possible when he said that I ever was present at any conference or at the signing of any affidavit made by him. If he ever said that I was present, he was coerced into it by persons who have some sort of hold on him."
Was Disgusted, He Says.
"I probably would have talked with him but for one thing. When I learned that there was a preacher that wanted to make such an affidavit, I refused to see him because I was so completely disgusted with an individual a preacher particularly who had not had sufficient manhood to make the facts public before and who had kept his secret buried a year while they were hurrying an innocent man to the gallows."
"No one employed by the Burns agency ever gave or offered this man any sum of money. I say this confidently and positively. I haven't had time to make a thorough investigation of this phase of the case since my hurried return to Atlanta, but I think it will develop that Ragsdale never was paid any money by Tedder or anyone else. Whoever started the report and I do not imagine it was Ragsdale that I even was present while any money was being passed or any improper transaction was made was a coward of the worst sort."
A mystifying feature of the story of Ragsdale is that he relates, according to the church committee members, that he was in the Healey Building when he signed the affidavit.
F. P. Callaghan, the notary public, told The Georgian that he took the affidavits of Ragsdale and his companion, R. L. Barber, in the office of Luther Z. Rosser on the seventh floor of the Grant Building.
Ragsdale's Mind Hazy.
None of the Plum Street Church members could explain this discrepancy when interviewed. They were hazy as to the exact circumstances of the alleged bribery and they indicated that Ragsdale was equally so.
"I was in the office of my lawyer, Arthur Thurman, in the Healey Building," they quote him as saying. "Besides Mr. Thurman there were Mr. Tedder and Mr. Burns. I was persuaded to sign the affidavit, and the next thing I knew I was on the street with the $200."
Frank A. Smith, of No. 13 Corput street, an employee of the Atlanta Casket Company, was asked if any of the committee had inquired who handed the minister the money. Mr. Smith said no one had. Mr. Smith said that no mention was made of an affidavit being made in the office of Luther Rosser, although so far as generally is known, this is the only place that any affidavit was made.
The defense was prepared to ask Judge Hill for an amendment to the extraordinary motion when the hearing began Friday morning. It dealt with evidence developed by Burns and was submitted to show that, considering together the notes written by Conley to Annie Maude Carter and certain physical facts of the murder of Mary Phagan, the negro was pointed out indisputably as the slayer of the little girl.
Judge Limits Defense.
Judge Hill had warned the defense that he would not consider amendments unless they were facts which could not have been ascertained earlier. For this reason his decision on the admission of the new grounds was regarded as problematical.
Another amendment was asked by the defense on the affidavit of Mrs. Georgia Denham, employed at the pencil factory at the time of the crime. Mrs. Denham and another woman at the factory swore that they came upon Conley washing his shirt in the factory the day that he was arrested. They asked him what the spots were on his shirt and they say that he explained to them that he had bumped his head and that his nose had bled. The women added that the negro sought to demonstrate to them how the blood could have dropped on his shoulder.
On the witness stand, Conley testified that he was washing rust spots out of his shirt and denied that there was any blood on it.
4th Edition, PAGE 1, COLUMN 1
Burns Says Pastor Exonerates Him
Detective William J. Burns issued a statement Friday that he had talked with Mr. Ragsdale through a third party.
"I was told that Mr. Ragsdale said he had never seen me," said Burns: "that he had never said I was present when he made the affidavit, and that he has never said I had offered him any money, either personally or through anyone."
8th Edition, PAGE 1, COLUMN 1
DETECTIVE RECOGNIZED WHILE SEEKING CLEWS; IS TARGET FOR BLOWS
MARIETTA, GA., May 1. Detective W. J. Burns narrowly escaped serious physical violence when he came to Marietta this afternoon in search of evidence in the Phagan case.
Burns was in company with another detective and a chauffeur. Robert E. L. Howell, a well known resident, who is said to feel strongly on the Phagan murder, recognized Burns and accosted him, asking if he were the detective. Burns replied that he was, and thereupon Howell is said by eyewitnesses to have divested himself of his coat and struck Burns several times.
Crowd Assembles.
A crowd was attracted by the encounter and a number of persons ran up to separate the two. Burns is said to have made no attempt to strike Howell. While the crowd was increasing to considerable proportions, Burns mysteriously disappeared, and his chauffeur was unable to find him for some time.
After the first excitement another large crowd gathered near the courthouse evidently in the expectation that the detective would reappear. They were disappointed.
Mr. Howell is said to have been discussing the Phagan case daily with acquaintances in Marietta and to have been particularly bitter toward Detective Burns because of his part in the investigation.
Affidavits Forged, Is Dorsey's Charge
Solicitor Dorsey Friday ended a battering attack upon the case of the defense in its motion for a new trial for Leo M. Frank by the submission of affidavits by W. T. Tucker and I. V. Tucker, father and son, both of whom swore they were passing the National Pencil Factory a few minutes after 12 o'clock April 26 of last year and that they heard a girl's screams from the second floor.
The affidavits of the Tuckers are in support of the State's theory that Mary Phagan was killed on the second floor of the factory and in opposition to the defense's contention that she was slain in the basement by the negro, Jim Conley.
Father and son made their affidavits after reading the statement of Mrs. J. B. Simmons that she heard screams coming from the basement at about 2:30 o'clock. They said that they had agreed to say nothing of their experience inasmuch as the State appeared to be prosecuting the right man, but that they decided to make known what they said were the facts when they read the Simmons affidavit.
Calls New Plea Bad Faith.
The Solicitor made charges against C. W. Burke, special agent for the defense; the W. J. Burns Detective Agency, and against counsel for Frank, alleging that the lawyers had made the extraordinary motion in bad faith and merely for the purpose of delaying the execution of their client.
The Solicitor created a sensation by announcing that he would issue subpoenas to bring into court Dan S. Lehon, Burns aide; C. C. Tedder and Arthur Thurman, who, he said, were involved in getting the Ragsdale affidavit, which swore that its signer, a minister, had overheard a confession of the Phagan murder from the lips of Jim Conley. Burns himself was not implicated in any way in the affair.
Two of the affidavits obtained and attested by Special Agent Burke those of Ruth Robinson and the negro Ivey Jones the Solicitor said he believed to be forgeries, and he added that virtually all of them had been obtained by the use of improper influences and misrepresentation. He submitted a sheaf of affidavits to bear out his contentions.
Attacks Story of Screams.
Solicitor Dorsey also read many affidavits attacking the reputation and character of Mrs. J. B. Simmons, the Birmingham woman who was in Atlanta the day of the Phagan murder and swore that she heard screams coming from the basement of the National Pencil Factory between 2 and 3 o'clock that afternoon.
Several affiants swore that Mrs. Simmons at one time was a notorious character in Atlanta and that at all times she was unworthy of belief. The Solicitor also read an affidavit from Mrs. Simmons herself swearing that she passed the factory between 4 and 4:30 o'clock the afternoon of the murder.
Mr. Dorsey sprang another surprise by offering a sworn statement from Samuel A. Pardee, one of the defense's strongest alibi witnesses, in which Pardee withdrew his declaration that he had seen Frank at Whitehall and Alabama streets between 1:03 and 1:05 o'clock the afternoon of the crime.
An affidavit by Mrs. Carrie Smith made the startling declaration that she was offered $20 to make a sworn
Continued on Page 5, Column 1.
8th Edition, PAGE 5, COLUMN 1
Continued on Page 5, Column 1.
NEW FRANK AFFIDAVITS ASSAILED BY THE STATE; FORGERY IS CHARGED
Continued From Page 1
statement for the defense. She said that the man who made her the offer said his name was "Maddox" and that after she had refused to make the affidavit she was induced to go to the seventh floor of the Grant Building, where the supposed "Maddox" again made her the offer. She said she later went to the seventh floor and found that the offices were those of Rosser, Brandon, Slaton & Phillips. She swore that the office in which she met "Maddox" had on the door the name of Mr. Slaton. She did not know the real identity of the man who she said made her the offer, but the Solicitor read a series of affidavits which he contended identified "Maddox" as Jimmy Wrenn, a worker for Burke.
Marie Forst, a character witness for the State, and one of the girls from whom a partial repudiation was obtained by the defense, swore to an affidavit in support of Mrs. Smith and said that she had entered the employ of C. W. Burke a short time ago and that he had paid her $2 a day, although she sometimes did not work more than 15 minutes in a day.
The Solicitor also submitted repudiations of affidavits by others who have sworn by the defense and expressed his belief that Burton Dalton and Dewey Howell never had retracted. Among partial retractions were affidavits by girl employees at the factory who swore they never had stated positively to Burke that the hair found on the second floor of the pencil factory was not the hair of Mary Phagan. In their affidavits to the Solicitor they said they had told Burke that the hair seemed lighter than Mary's, but they could not be sure.
Nellie Wood and R. P. Barrett, both former employees of the pencil factory, made additional charges of being offered money to make statements favorable to Frank.
One of the most remarkable affidavits was that of Miss Ruth Robinson, who utterly disclaimed making the affidavit that recently was accredited to her by Captain Frank Burke. In the affidavit offered by the defense Miss Robinson was quoted as saying that she knew of no attempt at familiarity on the part of Frank toward Mary Phagan; that the Solicitor insulted her in an interview; that Maggie Griffin had coached Dewey Howell and other witnesses to testify against Frank, and that she knew Frank to be of good character.
The affidavit made for Solicitor Dorsey completely repudiated the supposed affidavit offered by the defense and branded the signature as a forgery. Miss Robinson said she never had signed an affidavit of the sort for Captain Burke; that she did not know Maggie Griffin, and did not know of her coaching Dewey Howell.
Miss Wood repeated her assertions that Frank was of bad character and related in greater detail than on the stand alleged circumstances bearing out her statement. Mrs. Maggie Nash, who was Miss Maggie Griffin at the time of the trial, told of the visit to her home of W. W. Rogers and a man who represented himself as a Burns detective. She said she told them that she had told the men that she had told the truth and they could not persuade her to change.
Ragsdale's Character Hit.
Attacking the affidavit of the Rev. C. B. Ragsdale, in which the minister swore to hearing Conley confess to the murder of the Phagan girl, Solicitor Dorsey submitted affidavits from a number of persons in Cherokee County, Ragsdale's former home, all of which testified that the preacher was unreliable and unworthy of belief. The Solicitor accompanied these affidavits by mentioning Ragsdale's repudiation in which he charged he had been given $200 to make the first affidavit and remarking that "the W. J. Burns Detective Agency is familiar with the means by which the Ragsdale affidavit was procured." He charged Dan S. Lehon with engineering the deal, although he made no direct charge of bribery. He put the defense on notice, however, that he would subpoena Lehon, Tedder and Thurman and asked also for an attachment for J. E. Duffy, a witness for the defense, who successfully had eluded agents for the prosecution in their efforts to serve him with a subpoena.
Dorsey also alleged that R. L. Barber, who supported the Rev. Mr. Ragsdale, was a notorious character and had been paid $100 for his part in the transaction. He submitted affidavits from acquaintances of Barber and said it was his belief that Barber had left Atlanta to escape prosecution for the part he had played in the affair.
"The Ragsdale and Barber affidavits," said the Solicitor, "are in keeping with the Mincey and the Fisher affidavits. All of them illustrate the lengths to which the defense is driven."
Mc Knight's New Affidavit.
The Solicitor said he would submit affidavits showing Annie Maud Carter a worthless negress and unworthy of belief. The Carter woman recently swore that Conley confessed the murder to her.
Albert Mc Knight, husband of Minola, negro cook at the Selig home, where Frank lived, swore in affidavits that Burke had pestered him persistently and that he finally had made the affidavit repudiating his testimony against Frank on the stand because of Burke's repeated urging. He said that Burke had promised him several jobs if he would sign the document.
R. L. Craven and Angus Morrison, both employees of the Beck-Gregg Hardware Company, where Mc Knight was working at the time, swore that Mc Knight told his original story of his own volition and had told Craven that his wife, Minola, had overheard that Frank had admitted to killing the girl when he came home Saturday night in a drunken condition.
The defense was given its first setback in the hearing of the extraordinary motion when Judge Ben Hill refused to allow the condemned man's attorneys to introduce, as an amendment to the original motion, an affidavit from Detective Burns, embodying the results of a thorough examination of the clothing worn by Mary Phagan when she was killed.
Mr. Burns' affidavit, detailing the mutilated condition in which he found the clothing, tended to support his theory that the crime was the work of a particular kind of a pervert.
Judge Hill allowed the affidavit to be read by Leonard Haas, of Frank's counsel, and then ordered it excluded from the record of the case.
Judge Gives His Reason.
"The clothing was examined by the jury," said Judge Hill. "They had an opportunity to form their own conclusions and judge for themselves as to the condition of the clothing."
Frank's counsel offered to eliminate that part of the affidavit giving Mr. Burns' opinion, and asked that the remainder of it, which told in what condition Mr. Burns found the clothes, remain in the record. This, Judge Hill refused to do.
Half a dozen other affidavits were offered by the defense as amendments to the original motion. Among them was one from Anna Maud Carter, the negro woman who was in jail with Jim Conley and who has sworn that Conley confessed to her that he murdered Mary Phagan. The letters which she says she wrote to Conley also were offered.
In her affidavit the Carter woman testified that she saw Conley almost every day while working in the laundry of the jail, and got very friendly with him.
"I got so friendly with him he asked me to marry him," she asserted.
She testified that she was locked up in her cell for violating the Sheriff's orders not to talk to Conley, and that during the period of confinement she wrote letters to Conley and he wrote to her. She asserted she received two and three letters every day, sometimes of six, seven and as high as ten pages each, from Conley, and that she wrote to him about three times a week.
Letters Too Vile to Read.
The defense offered 22 sheets which the Carter woman said she wrote to Conley, and 27 sheets which she said Conley wrote to her, as evidence. Conley's letters were so vile and disgusting that after Attorney Leonard Haas had read one of them Judge Hill suggested that the reading of them be stopped, inasmuch as he would have to read them after the hearing had concluded and there was no necessity of reading them in public.
Mr. Arnold insisted that the letters should be read, as showing Conley's character and therefore having a direct bearing on the case.
"They are disgusting and vile," Mr. Arnold said, "but they are important."
One more of the letters was read, and then Mr. Rosser suggested that reading of them be halted.
Affidavits were introduced from R. P. Butler, Herbert Schiff, L. A. Quinn and other employees of the pencil factory, who swore that they were familiar with Conley's handwriting and that the writing on the notes placed in evidence was that of Conley.
Tells of Negro Washing Shirt.
The defense also introduced an affidavit made by Mrs. Georgia Denham, who testified that she saw Conley washing a shirt in the metal room of the factory on May 1, and that there were blood spots on the shoulder of it. Conley, she said, told her he had bumped into a door and made his nose bleed. Another affidavit from Mrs. Denham set forth that she was in the metal room when the hair was found in the lathe, and that she does not believe it was the hair of Mary Phagan.
"Mary Phagan's hair was auburn," she said, "and the hair in the lathe was blonde."
A similar affidavit by Mrs. Cora L. Laffen was introduced.
Solicitor Dorsey opened the State's fight on the extraordinary motion with a vigorous attack on the action of the defense in introducing evidence tending to prove that the hair found on the lathe in the metal room was not the hair of Mary Phagan. He contended that the attorneys for the defense had failed to exercise due diligence in cross-examining Dr. Roy F. Harris regarding the hair, and that they could not ask for a new trial on that ground.
One of the revelations expected at the hearing was that of the name of the man whom the Rev. Mr. Ragsdale charges with having given him $200 for signing an affidavit saying that he heard a negro, afterward, identified as Jim Conley, confess to the killing of Mary Phagan in the National Pencil Factory.
To the committee from the Plum Street Baptist Church who waited on him, Ragsdale said that he had been given the money in the presence of Detective Burns, C. C. Tedder and his lawyer, Arthur Thurman. He failed, however, to designate the man who gave him the $200 he says he received or even to make clear who persuaded him to make the affidavit.
Dorsey Hints at Solution.
Solicitor Dorsey indicated Friday before the beginning of hearing that Ragsdale had represented to him and to the detectives that Tedder had taken a conspicuous part in the negotiations and that Tedder really appeared to be acting in behalf of the Burns agency although he has been connected with the office of W. M. Smith, lawyer for Jim Conley, for a long time.
Tedder repeated Friday his denial that he had given Ragsdale $200 or any other sum of money for making an affidavit. Detective Burns was even more vehement in his comments on the episode and on Ragsdale's charge that Burns was present when the money passed and the affidavit was signed.
"I never saw the man," said Burns, "and I don't believe he ever saw me. Unless they have him barricaded out there at his home I am going to confront him and demand an explanation. I am going to get at the truth back of this whole cowardly and disgraceful affair."
"I am confident that Ragsdale never involved my name in the affair as a witness of the alleged transaction until he was made to by persons interested in the prosecution of Frank. He was telling the baldest and most direct falsehood possible when he said that I ever was present at any conference or at the signing of any affidavit made by him. If he ever said that I was present, he was coerced into it by persons who have some sort of hold on him."
Was Disgusted, He Says.
"I probably would have talked with him but for one thing. When I learned that there was a preacher that wanted to make such an affidavit, I refused to see him because I was so completely disgusted with an individual a preacher particularly who had not had sufficient manhood to make the facts public before and who had kept his secret buried a year while they were hurrying an innocent man to the gallows."
"No one employed by the Burns agency ever gave or offered this man any sum of money. I say this confidently and positively. I haven't had time to make a thorough investigation of this phase of the case since my hurried return to Atlanta, but I think it will develop that Ragsdale never was paid any money by Tedder or anyone else. Whoever started the report and I do not imagine it was Ragsdale that I even was present while any money was being passed or any improper transaction was made was a coward of the worst sort."
A mystifying feature of the story of Ragsdale is that he relates, according to the church committee members, that he was in the Healey Building when he signed the affidavit.
F. P. Callaghan, the notary public, told The Georgian that he took the affidavits of Ragsdale and his companion, R. L. Barber, in the office of Luther Z. Rosser on the seventh floor of the Grant Building.
Ragsdale's Mind Hazy.
None of the Plum Street Church members could explain this discrepancy when interviewed. They were hazy as to the exact circumstances of the alleged bribery and they indicated that Ragsdale was equally so.
"I was in the office of my lawyer, Arthur Thurman, in the Healey Building," they quote him as saying. "Besides Mr. Thurman, there were Mr. Tedder and Mr. Burns. I was persuaded to sign the affidavit, and the next thing I knew I was on the street with the $200."
Frank A. Smith, of No. 13 Corput street, an employee of the Atlanta Casket Company, was asked if any of the committee had inquired who handed the minister the money. Mr. Smith said no one had. Mr. Smith said that no mention was made of an affidavit being made in the office of Luther Rosser, although so far as generally is known, this is the only place that any affidavit was made.