My name is Alonzo McClendon Mann. I am 83 years old, born near Memphis, Tennessee, on August 8, 1898, later raised in Atlanta. In 1913, at age fourteen, I was office boy for Leo M. Frank at the National Pencil Company when Mary Phagan, a girl my age, was murdered and Frank was convicted. I testified at his trial but did not reveal everything I knew, because I was not asked and I was frightened. I now state that Leo Frank did not kill Mary Phagan; Jim Conley, the janitor and main witness against Frank, lied under oath and was the real killer.
On Confederate Memorial Day, 1913, I arrived at the factory about 8 a.m. and saw Conley drunk under the stairwell asking me for money. I left shortly before noon to meet my mother, saw Conley still there, then returned in less than half an hour. When I came back in the front door, I saw Conley near the trapdoor to the basement holding a small girl’s limp body in his arms, later known to be Mary Phagan. She appeared unconscious or dead; I saw no blood. Conley turned, threatened, “If you ever mention this, I’ll kill you.” Terrified, I fled home.
I told my mother, and later my father, what I had seen and of Conley’s threat. They insisted I remain silent to protect me and the family. When questioned by detectives and later on the witness stand, I described only events before leaving to meet my mother and did not reveal my return or Conley with the body. I have lived for decades knowing my silence helped allow an innocent man to be convicted and later lynched.
Leo Frank was a proper, decent manager, falsely accused amid lies and prejudice. I suffer from a heart condition and wear a pacemaker, and I now make this statement to clear the record and warn that courts and juries can make terrible mistakes. All I have said is the truth, and I place it on the record before God and history.
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