- 19 minutes ago
uesday, April 29th, 1913 Pinkertons Hired to Assist Police Probe the Murder of Mary Phagan
For Hours Detectives Labor With John M. Gantt, Former Employee of National Pencil Company and Alleged Admirer of Pretty Mary Phagan
Sister of Prisoner Admits She Deceived Atlanta Detectives
Told Them Gantt Had Not Been Home When He Declared He Was in Bed. Now Admits Story Untrue. Gantt Caught in Marietta, With Suit Case Filled With His Clothes.
Despite four suspects already being held at the police station, two white men and two negroes, the detective department remains unsatisfied and the city is being thoroughly searched for evidence that will lead to the arrest of the guilty party.
Late Monday night, Leo M. Frank, president of the National Pencil Company, engaged the Pinkerton Detective Agency to assist local officers in hunting down the man responsible for the brutal murder committed Sunday morning inside his company's plant on Forsyth Street.
Detectives worked tirelessly throughout Monday searching for anything that might shed light on the mysterious killing, but by nightfall they remained at a loss. Despite exhaustive investigation, no one could be found who had seen the girl after she left the factory with her pay on Saturday afternoon. Several people believed they may have spotted her, but none could say so with certainty. All evidence gathered, however, confirmed the good character of the victim, with family members, neighbors, and fellow workers alike speaking highly of her.
Gantt Given Third Degree
Determined to force a confession, third degree experts at police headquarters worked late into Monday night with John M. Gantt, the young bookkeeper arrested in Marietta on a direct charge of murder. He refused to break, steadfastly insisting on his innocence.
"I was at home Saturday night by 10 o'clock, in bed and asleep."
His sister, Mrs. F. C. Terrell of 248 East Linden Street, with whom he lived, had told detectives Sunday night that Gantt had left for California a month prior and had not been home in four weeks.
Sister Admits Deceiving Detectives
On Monday afternoon, however, she told a reporter for The Constitution a very different story, admitting that Gantt had in fact been at her home both Saturday and Sunday nights and that she had deliberately misled the detectives.
"I knew they were detectives and I lied. John was here Saturday night. He was here Sunday night too. I just did not want the detectives to know it."
For Hours Detectives Labor With John M. Gantt, Former Employee of National Pencil Company and Alleged Admirer of Pretty Mary Phagan
Sister of Prisoner Admits She Deceived Atlanta Detectives
Told Them Gantt Had Not Been Home When He Declared He Was in Bed. Now Admits Story Untrue. Gantt Caught in Marietta, With Suit Case Filled With His Clothes.
Despite four suspects already being held at the police station, two white men and two negroes, the detective department remains unsatisfied and the city is being thoroughly searched for evidence that will lead to the arrest of the guilty party.
Late Monday night, Leo M. Frank, president of the National Pencil Company, engaged the Pinkerton Detective Agency to assist local officers in hunting down the man responsible for the brutal murder committed Sunday morning inside his company's plant on Forsyth Street.
Detectives worked tirelessly throughout Monday searching for anything that might shed light on the mysterious killing, but by nightfall they remained at a loss. Despite exhaustive investigation, no one could be found who had seen the girl after she left the factory with her pay on Saturday afternoon. Several people believed they may have spotted her, but none could say so with certainty. All evidence gathered, however, confirmed the good character of the victim, with family members, neighbors, and fellow workers alike speaking highly of her.
Gantt Given Third Degree
Determined to force a confession, third degree experts at police headquarters worked late into Monday night with John M. Gantt, the young bookkeeper arrested in Marietta on a direct charge of murder. He refused to break, steadfastly insisting on his innocence.
"I was at home Saturday night by 10 o'clock, in bed and asleep."
His sister, Mrs. F. C. Terrell of 248 East Linden Street, with whom he lived, had told detectives Sunday night that Gantt had left for California a month prior and had not been home in four weeks.
Sister Admits Deceiving Detectives
On Monday afternoon, however, she told a reporter for The Constitution a very different story, admitting that Gantt had in fact been at her home both Saturday and Sunday nights and that she had deliberately misled the detectives.
"I knew they were detectives and I lied. John was here Saturday night. He was here Sunday night too. I just did not want the detectives to know it."
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Pinkerton's hired to assist police probe the murder of Mary Fagan, Atlanta Constitution, Tuesday, April 29, 1913, for hours detectives
00:08labor with John M. Gantt, former employee of National Pencil Company and alleged admirer of Pretty Mary Fagan.
00:14Sister of Prisoner admits she deceived Atlanta detectives told them Gantt had not been home when he declared he was
00:19in bed. Now admits story untrue. Gantt caught in Marietta with suitcase filled with his clothes. Despite the fact that
00:27four suspects in the Mary Fagan case are held at police station, two white men and two Negroes, the detective
00:33department is not satisfied, and the city is being scoured for evidence that will lead to the arrest of the
00:39guilty party.
00:39Last night, the Pinkerton detective department was engaged by Leo M. Frank, president of the National Pencil Company, to aid
00:47the local officers in the search for the man responsible for the brutal murder committed Sunday morning in the plant
00:53of his company on Forsyth Street.
00:55All day, Monday detectives worked diligently for evidence, which would throw light upon the mysterious killing, and when night came,
01:03they were baffled.
01:04The most careful investigation failed to show that anyone had seen the girl since she left the factory, where she
01:11drew her pay Saturday afternoon.
01:13Several people said they thought they had seen her, but none were positive. All the evidence, too, proved the good
01:19character of the victim.
01:20Members of her family, neighbors, and her fellow workers united in paying tribute to her good qualities.
01:26Gantt given third degree. Desperately striving to force the confession that he is the murderer of Mary Fagan,
01:33third-degree experts of police headquarters labored until midnight Monday with John M. Gantt,
01:38the young bookkeeper arrested in Marietta yesterday afternoon on the direct charge of murder.
01:43He stoutly protests innocence.
01:45I was at home Saturday night by 10 o'clock in bed and asleep.
01:49His sister, Mrs. F.C. Terrell, of 248 East Linden Street, with whom he lived, told detectives Sunday night,
01:57Mr. Gantt left here a month ago for California. I haven't seen him since.
02:01He has not been here at any time within the past four weeks.
02:04Sister admits deceiving detectives.
02:06Monday afternoon, however, she told a reporter for the Constitution that Gantt had been at her home Saturday and Sunday
02:12nights.
02:13She also admitted having told the detectives a story to the contrary.
02:17I knew they were detectives. I lied.
02:19John was here Saturday night. He was here Sunday night, too.
02:22I didn't want the detectives to know it, though.
02:24Gantt left Atlanta early Monday morning.
02:27Police headquarters learned he had caught a Marietta trolley car.
02:30The police of that place was notified.
02:32He was arrested the moment he stepped from the car.
02:35Detective Hazlitt rushed him to police headquarters at four o'clock in the afternoon.
02:39Immediately he was closeted with Chief Lanford.
02:42A squad of detectives and criminal experts pulled off their coats, rolled their sleeves, and prepared for a determined siege,
02:48which they vowed would not end until they had been convinced that Gantt was either guilty or innocent.
02:53They were still locked with the suspect at midnight.
02:56Evidently he was undergoing the ordeal with fortitude.
02:59Had an admission been made, he undoubtedly would have emerged from the office.
03:03The charge against him is murder.
03:05He will not be allowed one-word illegible or communication with the outside world.
03:10Developments in the one-word illegible mystery came thick and fast Monday.
03:14Arrest followed arrest.
03:16Five were made in all.
03:17Three were made Monday.
03:18The first of them was the taking into custody of Leo M. Frank, president of the pencil factory.
03:24His detainment was made in the nature of a one-word illegible.
03:28After an hour's interrogation, he was released.
03:30Upon his appearance at one-word illegible, he was accompanied two words illegible and refused to talk ten words illegible.
03:37It was several paragraphs illegible.
03:39They were being assisted by P.Y. Brent of the W.E. Treadwell Company.
03:44The negro one-word illegible was an employee of Mr. Brent's who had volunteered to assist in the investigation.
03:50After three hours of grueling third degree, Mr. Brent said to the prisoner,
03:54I know what's the trouble.
03:55Someone you are faithful to killed that girl.
03:57You know all about it.
03:58I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have a hand in it yourself.
04:01You don't want to tell because you want to shield whoever murdered her.
04:04Your loyalty or neck.
04:05I'm going to tell you this.
04:07It's just a question of loyalty or your neck.
04:09You can't keep but one.
04:11Yes, sir, Mr. Brent.
04:12That's a fact.
04:12I know that.
04:13His lips were trembling and he shifted nervously.
04:16It was apparent that he was collapsing.
04:18His questioners waited eagerly for an expected confession.
04:21The negro checked himself, moistened his lips, realized the import of his words and recovered.
04:27But I don't know nothing.
04:28I don't know a thing.
04:29His replies to the thousands of questions hurled at him was an incessant reiteration of his first story,
04:34the story of the body's discovery.
04:36When this failed to check the onslaught of queries, he fell to answering them with the stereotyped reply,
04:42I don't know.
04:43I don't know a thing.
04:44He was sent back to prison.
04:45Hereafter, he will be confined to the dungeon.
04:48The police are confident of their suspicion.
04:50The negro either was implicated in the murder, they say, or was acquainted with the slayer.
04:55After an all-night hunt for Gantt, police headquarters was notified early Monday morning that the hunted man was seen
05:01at an early hour,
05:03departing hurriedly from a saloon directly across the street from the building in which the murder occurred.
05:07Herbert Schiff, assistant superintendent of the plant, was sitting in his office when he spied the ex-bookkeeper hurrying from
05:14the saloon.
05:15Schiff calls police station.
05:17Schiff called police station.
05:18The trail was lost, though, before sleuths could reach Forsyth Street.
05:22Detectives were sent to every street and railway station equipped with a description of Gantt.
05:26An acquaintance notified the police that the wanted man had boarded a Marietta car at the transportation building on Walton
05:33Street.
05:33Marietta was wired and ordered to arrest Gantt by all means.
05:37He was caught and detained in the Cobb County Jail until the arrival of Detective Hazlitt.
05:42He was equipped for a long journey carrying a well-filled suitcase.
05:45He used it to shield his face from the battery of newspaper cameras that attacked him upon his arrival at
05:50police headquarters.
05:51Mary Perk, a girl employee of the pencil factory, said Monday that she had often heard gossip concerning Gantt's infatuation
05:59for the Fagin girl.
06:00The Negro watchman told detectives that Gantt had remained in the factory building twenty or thirty minutes Saturday night.
06:07While searching for the shoes, Lee said, he had gone to the office on the second floor and talked over
06:11the telephone in low tones with a girl or woman.
06:14The conversation was a lengthy one, the watchman declared.
06:17Mrs. Terrell told detectives Luther Brooks and Y.T. Allen Sunday night that Gantt had been to California for a
06:23month and that she had not heard from him any whatever during that time.
06:27Worried over failure to write.
06:29She expressed worry over his failure to write.
06:32Usually, she declared, he had always sent her weekly letters or postcards whenever leaving the city.
06:37The story she told the Constitution reporter Monday, though, is contradictory to the statement she made to the detectives.
06:43Telling the reporter that she intentionally had misled the detectives, she said it was done because she did not want
06:49them to arrest her brother.
06:51Another phase was added to the tragedy when a sleeping couch was discovered in the basement in which the girl's
06:56mutilated body was found.
06:58It is an improvised couch, constructed of boxes and covered with a number of cracker and toe sacks.
07:04Recent tracks of a woman's shoe were found nearby in the sawdust flooring.
07:08The murder evidently occurred upon the first or second floors.
07:11Strands of bloody hair of a shade comparing with the hair of the dead girl were found on a lathe
07:16machine on the second floor.
07:18The instrument was also splotched with crimson.
07:21Because of the intense feeling and excitement naturally prevailing among the hundreds of female employees of the plant,
07:27the management Monday morning deemed it prudent to shut down for the day.
07:31The doors were closed and a policeman stationed at both the Forsyth and Hunter Street entrances.
07:36Until dusk, large crowds of the morbidly curious flocked around the place,
07:41discussing the murder and seeking entrance to the basement in which the corpse was discovered.
07:46Inquest set for Wednesday.
07:48Inquest set for.
07:50The only persons allowed in the basement, however, were those who accompanied the coroner's jury on its tour of investigation
07:56early Monday morning.
07:57Coroner Donohue, after empaneling a jury, postponed the hearing until detectives were able to gather more definite evidence.
08:04The inquest will be held Wednesday morning at ten o'clock in the Bloomfield undertaking establishment.
08:09Mrs. Coleman better.
08:11Mrs. Coleman, mother of the slain girl, although not entirely recovered from the shock of Sunday, was much improved Monday.
08:18She was feeble and had to be confined to her home.
08:21Pleading with her husband to escort her to the undertaking establishment to view her daughter's corpse,
08:26she insisted that she be carried there.
08:28Her physician would not permit it.
08:30It is thought, however, that she will be able to attend the funeral today.
08:34Throughout Sunday and Monday neighborhood, friends of the bereaved family flocked to the modest little home on Lindsay Street,
08:40consoling the parents and brothers and sisters of the dead girl.
08:44For a time, Sunday afternoon and early that night, fears were felt for the safety of the Negro watchman suspected
08:50of complicity in the crime.
08:52Reports that a mob of white men was being formed caused Chief Beavers to hold a reserve of a half
08:58-hundred-mounted policemen in headquarters until late at night.
09:01The only trouble encountered, however, was by Chief Lanford, Detective Starnes and Black,
09:06Boots Rogers, driver of the automobile in which the sleuths visited the factory,
09:11and a reporter for the Constitution who accompanied the party.
09:14It occurred shortly after daybreak.
09:16The Constitution's exclusive extra had drawn a huge crowd of men and boys to the pencil factory.
09:22The Negro was being taken from headquarters to the scene of the crime.
09:26When he came from the building and was placed in the automobile,
09:29threatening remarks came from the crowd that thronged around the machine.
09:33He ought to be lynched, said a heavyset man who edged close to the rear seat,
09:38in which sat the detective chief and his prisoner.
09:41Yes, said another, and I'd help do it.
09:43The engines were running.
09:45Starnes and Black had not climbed into the machine.
09:48Lanford called to Rogers to hurry away.
09:50Without waiting for the two detectives or the reporter, the machine rushed down Forsyth Street.
09:55White slavery theory advanced.
09:57Equipped with evidence indicating that Mary Fagan was the victim of a white slavery plot that was foiled only by
10:03her brutal murder,
10:04detectives have turned their investigation to an entirely new phase of the baffling mystery.
10:09Police headquarters has been informed of a garishly attired woman seen shortly before midnight Saturday,
10:15in company with two youths and a reeling, weeping girl answering the dead girl's description convincingly.
10:21They were seen at Alabama and Forsyth Streets, only a short distance from the building in which she was murdered.
10:26The girl was sobbing and was being led by the mysterious woman.
10:30The two youths followed close behind, murmuring coaxing words in her ear.
10:34The woman was saying,
10:36Come along now, dearie.
10:37Don't create a scene.
10:38You'll attract the cops.
10:39The girl was sobbing.
10:41I don't care.
10:41I don't care.
10:42The strange quartet turned down Forsyth Street in direction of the pencil factory.
10:46They disappeared in the darkness of the plant building.
10:49W.I. Gray, a conductor on the Buckhead trolley line, however, notified the detective department Monday afternoon of the mysterious
10:57quartet.
10:58Detectives were sent immediately to question him.
11:00Energy is being concentrated to investigation along this line.
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