Thursday, May 8th, 1913 J. L. Watkins Says He Did Not See Phagan Child on Day of Tragedy

Witness recants earlier testimony after detectives produce the girl he actually saw that afternoon

J. L. Watkins, called to the stand after Miss Hattie Hall the stenographer was excused, walked back his earlier testimony that he had seen Mary Phagan near her home on the afternoon of Saturday, April 26th, declaring that he was now certain he had been mistaken.

"Mr. Watkins, on last Thursday, did you not swear before this inquest that between 4 and 5 o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday, April 26th, you saw Mary Phagan walking along Bellwood Avenue toward her home?" asked Coroner Paul Donehoo.

"Yes, that's so," the witness answered. "I was honestly mistaken."

Asked how he had come to realize his error, Watkins replied that Detectives Starnes and Campbell had located the young woman he had actually seen. He said he was now absolutely certain of the mistake. The detectives had brought the girl before him dressed in the same clothes she had worn that afternoon and had her cross a vacant field just as she had done on that day.

The girl he had mistaken for Mary Phagan, he said, was Daisy Jones. He pointed her out among those present in the room.

He was excused from the stand.