Sunday, 3rd May 1914: Duffy Now Recants And Says He Was Bribed, The Atlanta Journal

After giving a new affidavit to the state, Leo M. Frank was released. The hearing of his extraordinary motion for a new trial resumed on Monday and is expected to conclude by Wednesday before Judge B. H. Hill. It is anticipated that Judge Hill will announce his decision on the motion before the end of the week. Subsequently, probably sometime during the following week, the court will address the motion to set aside the verdict because Frank was not in court when it was rendered. This motion was filed by Attorney Tye and others.

A significant development in the case occurred on Saturday afternoon when Witness J. E. Duffy recanted his previous statement. Duffy, who was arrested Friday night on an attachment issued at the solicitor's request by Judge Hill, had spent Friday night and Saturday under arrest. He then made a sensational affidavit for the state, asserting that his original testimony at the trial was the truth. Duffy declared that he was bribed by agents of the defense to make the affidavit quoted in Frank's extraordinary motion for a new trial. He further claimed that he was spirited away from the city to evade the defense's agents and spent an entire night in an automobile between Austell and Atlanta. The solicitor is closely guarding the name of the man against whom Duffy makes specific charges, though the affidavit will likely be read and its full contents disclosed at Monday's hearing.

The defense claims to have discredited the blood-spot claims through Duffy. At the original trial, Duffy was used by the state to testify about an accident in the factory near the spot where the state claims Mary Phagan was killed. During the trial, Duffy swore that he spilled very little, if any, blood there. However, in the affidavit made for the defense, he criticized Solicitor Dorsey, stating that due to the solicitor's leading questions and insistence, he did not give the exact story. He further mentioned that possibly and probably much blood was spilled there as a result of the accident in which he was involved. Duffy was released immediately after making the affidavit for the state.

On Monday, the court resumed the hearing of the extraordinary motion. Dan S. Lehon, lieutenant of Detective W. J. Burns, was subpoenaed to appear in court at 10 o'clock and was subjected to a number of questions by Solicitor Hugh Dorsey. It is assumed that these questions primarily dealt with Lehon's knowledge of the Ragsdale affair, in which the Baptist minister C. B. Ragsdale swore he heard a Negro confess, and another man swore he identified that Negro as Jim Conley, a sweeper in the pencil factory and accuser of Frank.