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James Milton Gantt Protests His Innocence
Discharged bookkeeper says he went to factory Saturday only to retrieve a pair of shoes; Frank corroborates the account

Declares He Knew Mary Phagan But Had Not Harmed Her

His whereabouts on Sunday remain unexplained; purpose of his visit to Marietta unknown

J. M. Gantt, who was discharged three weeks ago from his position as bookkeeper at the National Pencil Company, was arrested shortly before noon Monday at Marietta in connection with the murder of Mary Phagan.

Gantt was the man police had been seeking throughout Monday morning, though they had refused to reveal his name. He was taken into custody by Bailiff Hicks of Marietta just as he stepped off a street car that had brought him from Atlanta.

Gantt maintains his innocence and says he knows nothing of the murder. He acknowledges visiting the pencil factory on Saturday afternoon to collect a pair of shoes he had left behind before his discharge, but denies returning to the factory afterward or being in Mary Phagan's company at any point during the day.

In a brief statement made at Marietta, he said he knew the murdered girl but that they were not close friends. He said that after retrieving the shoes he went home and stayed there through the night, and that he did not learn of the murder until Sunday morning.

What he did on Sunday is not accounted for, and his reason for traveling to Marietta remains unexplained.

Permission Granted

Superintendent Frank of the National Pencil Factory corroborates Gantt's account of the Saturday visit. Frank said that around 6 o'clock that evening, Gantt came to the factory and asked permission to retrieve an old pair of shoes he had left there before his discharge. The Negro night watchman, Newt Lee, asked the superintendent whether Gantt should be allowed in, and permission was granted.

However, after Frank arrived home around 7:30, he grew uneasy and telephoned the factory to find out when Gantt had left. Lee told him the former bookkeeper had departed immediately after collecting the shoes.

That is the extent of what factory officials and employees know of Gantt's movements that day, and police have offered little additional information.

When detectives learned Monday morning that Gantt had been at the factory on the day of the murder and was acquainted with Mary Phagan, they moved quickly to find him. Two detectives, accompanied by a factory employee who knew Gantt personally, went to the Terminal Station in search of him, and the hunt extended to other parts of the city. Nothing came of it until Bailiff Hicks arrested him upon his arrival in Marietta.

Detective Hazelett has since traveled to Marietta to bring Gantt back to Atlanta. Armed with a warrant charging Gantt with the crime, sworn out in Atlanta by Detective Ozburn of the local police force,
Transcript
00:00Frank will take stand at inquest, Atlanta Constitution, Thursday, May 8, 1913.
00:05Mrs. Maddie White tells detectives that on afternoon of killing she saw Negro in factory.
00:11Leo M. Frank will probably be the first witness to take the stand in the Mary Fagan murder inquest
00:16to be resumed this morning at 9.30 o'clock in police headquarters.
00:20He will be examined thoroughly along lines which neither the chief of detectives,
00:24coroner, nor solicitor general will disclose.
00:27He was resting comfortably at midnight, and according to reports from the tower in which
00:31he is imprisoned, he is in fit condition to undergo the ordeal.
00:35In the first interrogation to which he was subjected, he was on the stand for a trifle
00:40more than six hours.
00:41It is not thought that the examination today will last that long.
00:45Headquarters was given a surprise yesterday afternoon, with the report brought back by
00:49detectives Rosser and Hazlitt, who were sent early in the afternoon to interview Mrs. Maddie White,
00:55wife of Arthur White, the mechanic who was in the pencil factory during the time Mary
00:59Fagan entered the building to draw her pay envelope, saw a Negro in factory.
01:04Mrs. White stated that she went to the plant to see her husband shortly before one o'clock,
01:08and that as she came downstairs a few minutes later she noticed a stalwart black Negro,
01:13sitting on a box on the first floor only a few feet from the elevator.
01:17He was seated in the shadow of the staircase and was almost out of view.
01:21This is the first time she has told of seeing the Negro.
01:24It also is the first time it has been revealed that a Negro was in the building between the
01:29hours of twelve noon and four o'clock, the fatal afternoon.
01:33Mrs. White told the sleuths that she did not recollect the incident at first.
01:38Her statement was written and placed on record at headquarters.
01:41She will be summoned to the inquest.
01:43Her residence is at 58 Bonnie Bray Avenue, where she has resided several years.
01:48The Negro was a big man, she said to Hazlitt and Rosser, and was apparently too well-dressed
01:54to be a workman.
01:55He was sitting on a box in the shadows of the stairway and gazing intently at the elevator
02:00shafts.
02:01I thought nothing of his presence and hurried on out of the building.
02:05I don't know whether or not I will be able to identify him.
02:07I possibly could, though.
02:09Searching for Greek.
02:10Detectives are searching for a young Greek who is supposed to have disappeared the day
02:14the body was discovered.
02:15He was an attach of the CAF adjoining the pencil factory, a popular establishment with girl
02:21employees of the plant, at which many of whom ate their lunches.
02:24Chief Lanford stated that when city detectives, following clues they had obtained from girls
02:29of the factory, sought to interview him, they found him missing.
02:33Later, it was reported that he was in Anniston, Alla, in which city Pinkerton men are making
02:38a search.
02:39He was employed as a waiter at the CAF, and had been in America for a good many years.
02:43The officers will not give his name.
02:45The theory on which suspicion is directed toward the Greek is that the girl was murdered on
02:50the outside of the factory building, probably in the alleyway facing Madison Avenue, and
02:56that her body was carried into the basement through the rear door which was broken open.
03:00The bursting of the door would have been an easy matter as the staple could have been
03:04taken out, the detectives say, with the fingers.
03:07It is advanced, too, that the slayer was in love with his victim, and that the deed was
03:11inspired by insane jealousy.
03:14Added energy was injected into the search for the missing Greek at dusk Wednesday, when
03:19W.T. Hunter, a youth living at 250 Grant Street, came to police headquarters and told Chief
03:25Lanford a story of a scene he had witnessed at 3.30 o'clock on the Sunday morning the body
03:29was found.
03:30Hunter told of the appearance of three Greeks in a club at Broad and Hunter Streets at
03:348.30 o'clock the Sunday morning of the discovery.
03:37One of the trio, he said, carried a mysterious package under his arm, obviously containing
03:42clothing.
03:43All three, upon entering the club, went into the washroom where they cleaned their faces
03:47and hands.
03:48Detectives have been detailed to look for the three Greeks answering Hunter's descriptions.
03:53Dorsey talks with Lee.
03:55Solicitor General Dorsey held a lengthy interview with Newt Lee in the Tower Wednesday afternoon.
04:00It was the first opportunity he had gained to talk with the suspect.
04:03He would not divulge the result nor tell of the lines along which the Negro was quizzed.
04:09Immediately after leaving the jail, Mr. Dorsey hurried away in an automobile.
04:13The Negro watchman, Chief Lanford says, will also go on the stand today.
04:18It will be his second examination.
04:20He will be questioned more closely regarding his private interview held with him by Frank
04:24Tuesday, a week ago, when both were allowed to talk in the privacy of the Negro's cell.
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