00:00Officer swears he found Frank with Young Girl, Atlanta Constitution, Sunday, May 11, 1913.
00:06Robert House, now a special policeman, tells the Atlanta detectives of an incident of over a year
00:11ago. Sees Frank in tower and recognizes him. Three more Pinkertons are put on the Fagan case
00:17under the supervision of Harry Scott. Detectives have procured in Robert P. House, a special
00:23policeman, a witness who has testified that he once apprehended Leo M. Frank, the suspect in the
00:29Mary Fagan mystery, and a young girl in a desolate spot of the woods in Druid Hills Park. The policeman
00:35declares he obtained admission from Frank that he and his companion had come to the woods for
00:39immoral purpose. House is a special officer in the employ of the Druid Hills Land Company. Several
00:46days ago he went to the tower in which the suspected superintendent was imprisoned to identify him.
00:52When he emerged from the jail, he declared he recognized the prisoner as the man he apprehended
00:57in Druid Hills. Volunteers, his testimony. He volunteered his testimony. Upon first reading
01:04of the Fagan murder, he recalled the incident in the woods. Recollecting that the man had told that
01:09he was superintendent of the National Pencil Factory, he says he went immediately to the detective
01:14department, and an officer escorted him to Frank's cell in the tower. The policeman says the incident
01:20occurred a year or more ago, sometime after two o'clock one summer afternoon. He declares he had seen
01:26Frank enter the park frequently with a girl, and on that particular occasion decided to shadow him.
01:32As the superintendent and his girl companion stepped from the Ponce de Leon to Druid Hills
01:37trolley car at the end of the line, House says he followed them to a swampy section of the woodland
01:43considerable distance from the roadway. House asserts that the girl was apparently young,
01:48and wore a dress slightly above her shoe-tops. Frank and she, he says, entered a spot concealed
01:54from view by trees and shrubbery. House declares he watched them several minutes, then stepped into
01:59sight. Frank, he states, jumped up and came forward before the policeman could reach the girl.
02:05House quotes him as having said, I don't want you to see the girl. I admit that we came here
02:10for
02:10immoral purpose. Please don't make a case against us or arrest us. It would disgrace us both. We will
02:16leave instantly. Both leave the park. The policeman says that he assured him that no case or arrest would
02:22be made, but ordered both the man and girl to leave the park. Frank, he avers, was profusely
02:28grateful. House states further that he watched Frank and the girl leave the woodland and disappear
02:33over the hill as though they were going to catch the Clifton car for town. He did not see the
02:38girl's
02:38features clearly, he says, and would not be able to recognize her. He was a county policeman for five
02:44years. For the two past years, he has been employed with the Druid Hills Land Company and lives on their
02:51property in Druid Hills. He says that Frank showed no sign of recognition when he went into the tower
02:56to identify the prisoner, and that neither spoke, as it was the intention of the detectives for his
03:01mission in the jail not to be known. House is married and has seven children. He has declared
03:07his willingness to testify before any jury or court at any time and already has made a signed statement
03:13of the incident. The detectives say they will introduce House as a character witness against Frank,
03:18all evidence known. Pinkerton officials asserted Saturday that the public through the newspapers
03:24has been put in possession of all the essential evidence which has been unearthed in the baffling
03:29mystery. They declare satisfaction over the progress made, but are continuing the investigation
03:34with the same energy as heretofore. Newt Lee, the Negro suspect, has employed counsel in Bernard L.
03:41Chapelier of 609 Temple Court Building. He declared to Deputy Sheriff Plenty Minor Saturday that in the
03:48future he would speak with no one relative to his case unless his attorney was first consulted.
03:54Chief Landford told newspaper reporters last night that he believed that the world's most famous
03:59detective whom Solicitor Dorsey declares he has employed is none other but an efficient attach to
04:05the Solicitor's staff. Good men on staff.
04:08He has some mighty good men connected with this office, said the chief, and I see no need why he
04:14should
04:14employ any world beater detective to assist him. I don't think he has.
04:18Mr. Dorsey would not talk of the new officer he has heralded as the nation's best. He would not
04:23even divulge his residence. Nothing, he said, except he's the best in the country. There were few
04:29developments Saturday. The Solicitor and his men were busy throughout the day examining witnesses in
04:34his office in the thrower building. Probably 300 or more witnesses will be summoned in the entire
04:40investigation. Among those questions Saturday was J.M. Gant, who was arrested early last week as a
04:46suspect. Affidavit is denied. The existence of an affidavit from a mysterious woman, to the effect
04:52that she passed the National Pencil Factory on the Saturday afternoon before Mary Fagan was found
04:57murdered and heard a woman's screams coming from the building, is practically denied by Solicitor General
05:03Hugh M. Dorsey. If Chief Lanford has such an affidavit, I have not seen it, he replied, when
05:08asked as to the authenticity of the report that detectives have secured such a sworn statement
05:13from a woman whose name they refuse to divulge. I have a number of affidavits made out and delivered
05:19to me by the detective force, and I have not had time to read all of them, but if this
05:23particular
05:24affidavit is among them, I am not aware of it. Solicitor Dorsey further declares that neither he nor his
05:30special detective, whom he has employed to work on the case, and whom he declares to be among the
05:35best in the country, had turned up any new evidence on Saturday. There is nothing that I can divulge
05:40at present, and to tell the truth, he declared, there have been no new clues secured within the
05:45past 24 hours. Doesn't want delay. We are now working upon the case, and before I present it to
05:51the grand jury, I want to have the tangled ends caught up and have it in such shape that there
05:55will be no
05:56delay on their part. In other words, I want to have the evidence so arranged that the grand jury
06:01will not be delayed in securing evidence that I should have several words illegible when I put the
06:05case before them. Several words illegible, the Fagan mystery, several words illegible before the grand
06:11jury, the solicitor declared that he had no several words illegible, his interrogator. Things are in such
06:16a shape now, he stated, that I cannot say just when the grand jury will take the matter up.
06:21The solicitor held two conferences on Saturday. In the early part of the days, he and Dr. H. F. Harris,
06:28of the State Board of Health, were closeted for nearly an hour. If anything that might tend to
06:33clarify the situation was brought out at their conference, the solicitor refused to divulge it,
06:38and neither he nor Dr. Harris would do more than acknowledge what was already known, namely that
06:43they had held a conference. Late Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Arthur White came to the solicitor's office for a
06:49talk, and this also he covered with the same air of mystery that he has thrown around the State's
06:54attempt to find the murderer of the Fagan girl, since he gave over the duties of his office to
06:59the affair over a week ago, five Pinkertons on case. The forces of the Pinkerton men investigating
07:05the Fagan case were strengthened Saturday with the addition of three more men. This makes a total of
07:10five, all of whom are under command of Assistant Superintendent Harry Scott, formerly in charge of
07:16the Philadelphia Pinkerton branch. There are probably more detectives at work on the mystery
07:21of Mary Fagan's murder than have ever investigated a case in the annals of Southern crime. Private
07:27sleuths, men from police headquarters the entire staff attaches to the solicitor's office, the Pinkertons,
07:33amateur detectives, and others. Chief Lanford has said that his men have traveled approximately
07:381,800 miles since the body of the murdered girl was discovered two weeks ago. Their main energy has been
07:45expended in running down the countless rumors with which headquarters was flooded. More territory has
07:50been covered in investigating the Fagan mystery than has been covered in any three cases with which
07:54the Atlanta police have heretofore been confronted.
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