Case overview
On April 26, 1913, 13-year-old Mary Phagan was found strangled in the basement of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Factory superintendent Leo Frank was arrested, tried, and convicted for her murder within weeks, sparking what would become one of the most divisive criminal cases in American legal history. The investigation, trial, and aftermath were defined by conflicting testimony, disputed forensic evidence, and intense public pressure that continues to shape how the case is understood.
The last confirmed hours
Mary Phagan left her home on the morning of April 26, 1913, wearing a lavender dress and carrying a small purse. She traveled by streetcar to downtown Atlanta to collect her weekly wages at the National Pencil Company, where she worked in the metal room assembling erasers onto pencils. Her shift had been paused due to a metal shortage, and she was owed $1.20 in back pay.
Leo Frank, the 29-year-old superintendent, testified that Phagan came to his second-floor office around 12:05 p.m. to collect her wages. He said she left within minutes, and he assumed she had exited the building. That was the last time anyone admitted seeing her alive.
At approximately 3:00 a.m. the following morning, night watchman Newt Lee discovered Phagan’s body in the basement near the building’s rear. She had been strangled with a cord. Her face was bruised, and her underclothing was torn. Two handwritten notes were found near the body, both crudely written and appearing to implicate a Black man in the crime.
The investigation begins
Atlanta police arrived at the scene within the hour. The notes found near Phagan’s body read, in part, “he said he would love me and land down play like the night witch did it but that long tall black negro did boy his slef.” The second note contained similarly disjointed language. Investigators initially treated the notes as genuine evidence, though their inconsistencies and placement would later fuel debate.
Newt Lee, the night watchman who discovered the body, was immediately arrested. Police also detained Arthur Mullinax, a streetcar conductor, and several other individuals with potential access to the factory. On April 29, three days after the body was found, Leo Frank was taken into custody after investigators noted inconsistencies in his timeline and behavior during questioning.
Police also questioned Jim Conley, a Black janitor employed at the factory, after he was seen washing what appeared to be blood from a shirt. Conley initially denied being at the factory on the day of the murder. On May 18, after repeated interrogations, Conley changed his account and provided a detailed statement implicating Frank in the crime.
Conley’s testimony and the case against Frank
Jim Conley’s testimony became the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case. Conley claimed that on the day of the murder, Frank had asked him to wait downstairs while Frank took Phagan to his office. Conley said he heard a scream and a thud, then was instructed by Frank to help move the body to the basement. Conley also claimed Frank dictated the notes found near Phagan’s body to deflect blame.
Prosecutors argued that Frank had killed Phagan during a sexual assault and then enlisted Conley to help dispose of the body. Handwriting experts testified that the notes appeared consistent with Conley’s writing, though defense attorneys argued Conley had written them independently to deflect suspicion.
The defense challenged Conley’s credibility, pointing to his criminal record and the multiple revisions in his statements. Frank’s legal team introduced time-stamped affidavits and witness testimony suggesting Frank had remained in his office during the period when the murder likely occurred. Factory workers testified that Frank’s demeanor on April 26 was consistent with his usual routine, and that he had interacted normally with other employees throughout the day.
The trial and verdict
Leo Frank’s trial began on July 28, 1913, in Fulton County Superior Court. The proceedings were marked by intense public interest and inflammatory media coverage. Crowds gathered outside the courthouse daily, and anti-Semitic rhetoric appeared in newspapers and public discourse, casting Frank as a wealthy Northern industrialist preying on Southern working-class women.
The prosecution emphasized forensic evidence found in the metal room where Phagan had worked, including strands of hair and what was described as blood on the floor near a lathe. The state argued this indicated the crime had occurred on the second floor, near Frank’s office, before the body was moved. Defense attorneys disputed the forensic analysis, noting that the substance identified as blood was never conclusively tested, and that the hair samples were not definitively linked to Phagan.
On August 25, 1913, after less than four hours of deliberation, the jury found Leo Frank guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Frank’s attorneys immediately filed motions for a new trial, citing procedural errors and the hostile atmosphere inside and outside the courtroom.
Appeals and commutation
Frank’s defense team pursued appeals through the Georgia Supreme Court and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the trial had been conducted under mob pressure and that Frank had been denied due process. In April 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the conviction, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Charles Evans Hughes dissenting, noting concerns about the fairness of the proceedings.
On June 21, 1915, Georgia Governor John M. Slaton commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment after reviewing the case record and concluding there was reasonable doubt about his guilt. Slaton’s decision triggered widespread outrage and threats against his life. He left office days later and eventually relocated from Georgia under armed protection.
The lynching
On the night of August 16, 1915, a group of approximately 25 men, calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan, abducted Leo Frank from the state prison farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. They transported him over 100 miles to Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown, and hanged him from an oak tree near present-day Frey’s Gin Road. Photographs of Frank’s body were taken and circulated widely. No one was ever prosecuted for the lynching.
Re-examination and unresolved questions
In the decades following Frank’s death, historians, legal scholars, and investigative journalists re-examined the evidence in the murder of Mary Phagan. In 1982, an elderly man named Alonzo Mann came forward with a statement claiming he had been a 14-year-old office boy at the factory in 1913 and had witnessed Jim Conley carrying Mary Phagan’s body alone. Mann said he had been threatened into silence by Conley and later by his own family, who feared retaliation.
Mann’s account was never tested in court, but it renewed attention to inconsistencies in Conley’s testimony and raised questions about whether Conley had acted alone. In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a posthumous pardon to Leo Frank, citing the state’s failure to protect him and bring his killers to justice. The pardon did not address the question of Frank’s guilt or innocence.
Key evidentiary disputes remain unresolved. The forensic analysis conducted in 1913 was rudimentary, and much of the physical evidence, including the alleged blood samples and hair, was either lost or never subjected to modern testing. The notes found near Phagan’s body continue to be debated, with some analysts suggesting they were written by Conley as misdirection, while others argue they were dictated under duress or fabricated entirely.
Where to look next
- Documentary: “The People v. Leo Frank” (PBS)
- Book: “And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank” by Steve Oney
- Book: “The Murder of Little Mary Phagan” by Mary Phagan Kean
- Podcast: “Leo Frank” (“Criminal”, Vox Media)
