00:00Arrested as Girl Slayer, John M. Gantt accused of the crime. Former bookkeeper taken by Police
00:05Atlanta. Georgian, Monday, April 28, 1913. J. M. Gantt, arrested in Marietta for the murder of
00:12Mary Fagan, gave to a reporter for the Georgian his story of his actions that led to his arrest.
00:17He protested his innocence and declared he was home in bed at the time the crime is supposed
00:21to have been committed. In striking contradiction to this statement is the assertion of Mrs. F.
00:26C. Terrell of 284 East Linden Street, where Gantt said he slept Saturday night, that she had not
00:32seen Gantt in three weeks. I watched the Memorial Day parade in Atlanta, said Gantt as he sat in the
00:38Marietta police station, and after the parade was mostly over I went out to the ball game. After the
00:43game I remembered that I had left some old shoes at the pencil factory and decided to go over and get
00:47them. I went over there at six o'clock and Superintendent Frank let me in. He told the
00:52Negro watchmen to help me find my shoes, and both of them saw me get them and also saw me leave the
00:57building. Then I went back to town and met Arthur White, who is employed in the pencil factory,
01:02O.G. Bagley, an employee of the Atlanta Milling Company, and Bagley's brother. With them I played
01:07pool in the Globe Pool Parlor on Broad Street until 10.30 o'clock, and then I caught a car and went home.
01:13Yes, I knew the girl. I knew Mary Fagan quite well, but I swear to you I had not seen her since I left
01:18the plant as an employee three weeks ago. I am innocent, and developments will prove it.
01:23Gantt answers the description of the man Edgar L. Centell, says he saw with the Fagan girls shortly
01:28after midnight to a remarkable degree. He is about six feet tall, of slender build and dark complexion.
01:35His hair is dark and inclined to curl, and he wore a blue suit and a straw hat. He said that he is 24
01:42years old and that his name was James, and not John, as Superintendent Frank had stated.
01:47Gantt was arrested by Deputy Sheriff Hicks on the one o'clock car. He did not appear particularly
01:52nervous, and was confident that he would be able to demonstrate his innocence, but the detectives
01:57with him were equally certain that the Slayer had been captured. Here is told in chronological order
02:02the story of the mystery. One Mary Fagan, fourteen years old, was strangled to death in the National
02:07Pencil Cozies factory, 37 South Forsyth Street, 2 Newt Lee, Negro night watchman, found her body in
02:14the basement a little after three o'clock Sunday morning and notifies the police. He was arrested.
02:19Three Arthur Mullinax, identified by E. S. Centell, 82 Davis Street, as the man who was with Mary Fagan
02:26at twelve thirty o'clock Sunday morning, was arrested Sunday afternoon, and is held in solitary
02:31confinement at police headquarters. Four Leo M. Frank, Superintendent of the National Pencil Cozies
02:37factory, was summoned to police headquarters this morning, and detained there to tell what he knows of
02:43the girl and of her terrible fate. Five hair, tangled and matted but identified positively as the dead
02:49girls, was found clinging to a lathe on the third floor of the factory, which leads the police to
02:54believe that someone who had access to the factory is responsible for the crime. Six Geron Bailey, the
03:00Negro elevator boy employed in the factory, was also arrested. Seven E. S. Skipper, 224 Peter Street,
03:07says he saw a girl answering the description of Mary Fagan being forced to accompany three flashily
03:12dressed youths, who took her to Whitehall near Mitchell Street at about ten o'clock Saturday night.
03:17The girl was weeping and seemed weak and dazed. Eight. When the girls employed at the National
03:22Pencil Cozies factory assembled for work this morning, they were so upset and excited from reading
03:27of the murder of Mary Fagan that the factory had to be closed. Nine J. M. Gant, former bookkeeper in
03:34the pencil factory, arrested in Marietta and accused of the murder. Ten Gant tells the Georgian he was home
03:40and in bed at 28 East Linden Avenue when the crime occurred. His landlady says he has not been there in three weeks.
Comments