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File Name: 1914-05-03-w-j-burns-on-stand-for-frank-is-pressed-hard-by-prosecutor-the-atlanta-georgian.mp3
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The Atlanta Georgian,
Sunday, 3rd May 1914,
PAGE 3, COLUMN 1.
Describes His Work on the Case, and Says Record Is Everything Needed to Prove Man's Innocence
Admits Not Seeing State Witnesses.
Detective William J. Burns underwent more than an hour's severe examination at the hands of Solicitor Dorsey Saturday before Judge Ben Hill. The hearing on the extraordinary motion was not to have been resumed until Monday, but it was necessary for Burns to leave town for a few days and the hearing was hastily called for Saturday forenoon.
The Solicitor went into every phase of Burns' investigation since the detective entered the case more than a month ago. He inquired closely as to the terms of the contract which he had with his clients, and asked if it were not true that he would get a larger sum in the event that Frank should be liberated. Burns denied this.
Dorsey went deeply into the circumstances which led up to the signing of affidavits by the Rev. C. B. Ragsdale, R. L. Barber and Annie Maude Carter, and indicated his suspicion that money had passed in all of these instances. He was unable, however, to show that Burns had taken any other than an innocent part in any of the transactions should the affidavits develop to have been obtained by improper influence.
Close Tab on Burns' Moves.
He inquired as to Burns' ability to tell that Frank was not a pervert by a conversation of only a few hours and his certainty that Conley was a degenerate of the worst type when he had not seen the negro at all.
Solicitor Dorsey was extremely insistent in his efforts to get the detective to say what evidence he had unearthed not already made public, what he had accomplished, whom he had seen and what new witnesses, if any, he had discovered. "If you had no part in the Ragsdale matter and did not turn up the Annie Maude Carter letters, will you please tell the court one thing that you have done in this investigation. You have been here 60 to 90 days, Mr. Burns; what have you been doing all this time?"
Burns replied that he had gone thoroughly over the briefs of evidence; that he had examined important witnesses; that he had visited the National Pencil Factory and had visited the Solicitor in his office. "And what was the result of all this work?" asked Dorsey.
Didn't Need New Evidence.
"I made a report to my clients," said Burns, "in which I told them that they didn't need any evidence aside from that which was submitted at the first trial; that this showed beyond a doubt that Conley was the man guilty of the crime."
"Of all these witnesses whose testimony appears in the briefs of evidence, how many have you interviewed?"
"I interviewed Herbert Schiff," began the detective.
"And Darley and Holloway and Quinn," supplemented Dorsey. "Now, whom else did you see, Mr. Burns?" the Solicitor continued.
"Well, I saw Frank, and I don't recall who else just now," said Burns.
Didn't See State's Witnesses.
"Who of the State's witnesses did you see? What single one did you interview?" persisted the Solicitor.
Burns said that if Dorsey would call them off he could probably recall them.
"Did you see John Black?"
"No."
"John Starnes?"
"No."
"Newt Lee?"
"No."
"Did you try?"
"No."
The Solicitor asked how many times he had tried to see Monteen Stover, and Burns said twice. He was asked to give the circumstances of these two times.
Dorsey then asked him if he had seen Dr. Claude A. Smith, City Bacteriologist, who testified in regard to the supposed blood spots near the dressing room on the second floor of the pencil factory. He said he had not.
Examined Factory Floor.
"Didn't you think this was important?" asked the Solicitor.
"Yes, I examined the place where the floor had been chipped up, and talked to a number of witnesses at the factory."
Examining Burns upon his statement that there were blood spots on the first floor of the pencil factory near the place where Conley was sitting the afternoon of the murder, Dorsey asked him if he really believed that this was the case. Burns said that he had been so informed and had seen the spot where the pieces of wood were chipped up.
"I understand," said Burns, "that these chips were turned over to the Pinkertons and by them thrown away."
The Solicitor brought out that the discovery of the blood spots and the bloody club on the first floor were made by Whitfield and Mc Worth, then Pinkerton operatives and now in the employ of the Burns agency.
All Evidence Reported.
"Have you any evidence of which you have not informed counsel for Frank?" Dorsey asked the witness. Burns said that he had told his clients everything and that he had reported to them from day to day. Dorsey asked him if he were going to make a formal written report, and Burns said that he was.
"Is it going to be published?" continued the Solicitor.
"I advised them not to," said Burns, and added that he gave this advice because of the practice of "bamboozling and browbeating" the witnesses of the defense by the detectives and others concerned in the prosecution of Frank.
Sent Carter Woman Away.
Dorsey asked if he had had Annie Maude Carter sent out of town. Burns replied that it was at his suggestion and that it was done for fear that she would be found and intimidated by the State's agents.
"Where did you send her?" Dorsey inquired.
Burns appealed to Judge Hill. "Do I have to answer that, your honor?" he said. The judge replied he did. Burns then admitted the Carter woman is in New Orleans. Dorsey asked him at what address, and Burns said he did not know.
"Isn't she at No. 314 Lower Line?" Dorsey insisted. Burns did not know.
"Do you know what was paid Annie Maude Carter?" the Solicitor continued. Burns said that she was paid nothing, and that George Wrenn was paid nothing, so far as he knew."
Calls Case His Hardest.
The Solicitor concluded his first examination by getting from Burns another admission that he had no particle of evidence, physical or documentary, tending to expose the murderer that he had not turned over to the attorneys for the defense, and that he had no witnesses to whom he had not turned the attention of Frank's counsel.
Reuben Arnold, of counsel for the defense, then briefly cross-examined the witness and had him testify to the height of feeling against the defense and the difficulty he had met in getting persons to testify to the truth because of this prejudice. Burns said that he never had been in a case where it had been so difficult to hold witnesses to the simple truth.
Calls Incident Outrageous.
Burns branded the Minola Mc Knight incident as the most outrageous of which he ever had heard. The Mc Knight woman was held at the police station until she signed an affidavit there which was damaging to Frank. He testified to talking with Albert Mc Knight when the negro told him that he had lied upon the stand.
Burns told Attorney Arnold that the brief of evidence covered the case completely and that a sane, reasoning person would not care to go further in search of evidence to show that Conley was the murderer.
"What conclusion did you reach from the reading of the murder notes?" asked Arnold.
Notes Showed Conley Guilty.
"I knew that Conley was the writer and judged from them, in connection with other circumstances of the crime, that he unquestionably was the slayer of the little girl," answered the detective.
Judge Hill stopped Attorney Arnold from this line of questioning as Burns was telling of his conclusions after reading in the brief of evidence as to the number of times Conley had changed his testimony. Burns said that he had not interviewed Conley because he knew his mission would not be successful under the conditions imposed by Conley's lawyer, who insisted that he be present at the interview. He described the Annie Maude Carter letters said to have been written by Conley as showing Conley's perversion beyond a doubt.
Dorsey Asks for Instances.
Dorsey, in resuming his examination of the detective, asked him to relate specific instances where obstacles had been thrown in his way, and where he had found it difficult to get at the truth. Burns cited the Conley incident and classed it as outrageous. He spoke in the same manner of the refusal of Monteen Stover to talk with himself or representatives from his agency.
"Why is it outrageous for a private individual not to submit to a cross-examination by four or five men in the employ of a convict or his friends?" Dorsey asked.
Burns explained that there should be no obstacles set in the way of getting at the truth, and that even the lawyers concerned in the prosecution had seen fit to obstruct him in his investigation.
Replying to a series of questions, Burns said he had been employed by Herbert and Leonard Haas, of counsel for the defense, and had been given full freedom in his investigation. He said the question of freeing Frank did not enter into the contract, and did not affect his pay in any way.
No Restrictions Whatever.
Burns emphasized the fact that there were no restrictions whatever on his inquiry.
The detective admitted that he had concluded that Frank was not a pervert after a few hours' conversation, and said that subsequent interviews had strengthened that impression. He said in an answer to a question as to what training he had to make him an expert on that line that he had come in contact with large numbers of criminals and had more or less acquaintance with perverts.
Burns testified that he had not seen Conley, declaring that he considered it useless, in view of the restrictions that had been placed on any proposed visit. He was asked how he knew Conley was a pervert, and replied that the letters written to Maud Carter and the condition of Mary Phagan's clothes showed it. He said the letters had all the characteristics of the "murder" notes. He denied posing as a handwriting expert, but said the resemblance was very plain.
Denies Employing Isom.
Under continued questioning, the detective said he thought Bob Adams was employed by his agency, also W. W. (Boots) Rogers, but not Charlie Isom. Dorsey asked if Burns did not have Isom get a statement from Aaron Allen, a negro in Chicago, who was supposed to have acted as a stool pigeon for the police at the county jail. Burns denied it, but said Herbert Haas had informed him in Chicago that a man would come to get the statement. He said he had an employee named O'Neill in Chicago who had gone to Indian to get Allen, who was sick at the time.
He denied abusing Allen and said there was no money on the table when he questioned him, and that the negro had not been paid anything. He denied that Isom had paid the negro $100 in his behalf for a false story. Burns also said that he did not get all of the final reports of his men, some of them going to Sears.
The detective said C. C. Tedder, who figured in the Ragsdale sensation, was employed by Dan Lehon to work on the Conley case. He admitted paying a visit to Will Smith, Conley's lawyer, to find out if Tedder was trustworthy.
Shunned Ragsdale Story.
Burns testified that Lehon had told him of the Ragsdale statement, and that as soon as he had heard it was about a story overheard in an alley, he had said he didn't want to hear any more of it.
The Solicitor asked him if a man in Chicago hadn't claimed he found Mary Phagan's purse.