00:00New Fagan witnesses have been found. Atlanta, Georgian, Saturday, May 17, 1913. Solicitor
00:06General Dorsey declares work of his greatest detective has been completed. Welcomes aid of
00:11Burns in clearing up mystery. Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey said Saturday that his greatest detective
00:16in America would not figure again in the Fagan investigation, and that it was extremely doubtful
00:21whether he would be recalled to testify at the trial. He has finished his investigation, said
00:26the solicitor, and we have no further need for him. A detective is one thing and a witness is
00:30another. His investigation led us to witnesses. It is not necessary for him or any detective to tell
00:36the jury what a disinterested witness will tell. He would not say, however, whether his decision not
00:42to put the greatest in America on the witness stand would apply to the city, Pinkerton and Burns
00:48detectives. Grand Jury Meets Wednesday. The solicitor announced that the grand jury would meet next
00:53Wednesday for an extra session, but said it was hardly probable the Fagan case would be considered
00:57then. He said there were a number of cases that demanded attention, and the extra session would
01:02more than likely be called to dispose of everything on the calendar to prepare for the session Friday,
01:07when the Fagan case would more than likely be presented. Mr. Dorsey said that his interview of
01:13Friday, in which he said the Burns men would work under the same conditions as the Pinkertons,
01:18had been misconstrued by some to mean that the services of the great detective were not needed.
01:23Welcomes Burns' aid. He said that he did not intend to create that impression, when, as a matter of
01:28fact, he would welcome Mr. Burns in the case and give him every cooperation, except giving out
01:33information or evidence that had already been secured. He will continue to examine witnesses up
01:38to the day the case goes to the grand duty sick, he said. Bernard L. Chappell, attorney for the Negro,
01:44Newt Lee, said Saturday morning that unless the grand jury acted on the Fagan case next week,
01:49he would bring habeas corpus proceedings in an effort to secure his release.
01:54Pursue writing clues.
01:55With powerful microscopes, magnifying glasses, and a series of reflecting mirrors,
02:01Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey and the city detectives, assisted by a handwriting expert,
02:06who is said to be one of the best in the country, are minutely examining the handwriting clues in the
02:11Fagan mystery. They confidently expect important developments. Solicitor Dorsey would not disclose the
02:18identity of the expert on penmanship, because, he said, the man's services were voluntary and given
02:24with the understanding that he was not to be known unless it became absolutely necessary to place him
02:29on the witness stand. The solicitor said, however, that he was one of the best in the country, and the
02:35great detective agencies considered his tests infallible. The two notes found in the basement of the
02:41pencil factory, specimen of the handwriting of the two men held in the tower in connection with the
02:47murder, letters and notes written by the slain girl, and the handwriting on the books of the pencil
02:52factory are being subjected to rigid tests. Accurate measurements of each letter and each word,
02:58the angle of the slant informing the letters, and the formation of certain letters that experts claim
03:03no two men write alike, are some of the tests applied.
03:07Byrne's man works quietly. The Byrne's investigator who took up the case Friday morning has not yet
03:13reported to the office of the solicitor. He is quietly and systematically working out his own
03:18idea of the case after a comprehensive outline given him by Colonel Thomas B. Felder. He has succeeded
03:23so far in keeping his identity secret. Colonel Felder was confident the Byrne's agency would
03:28satisfactorily conduct and conclude the Fagan case.
03:31We will have the slayer in less than a month, said Colonel Felder. I am confident the Byrne's men
03:37will meet with every success. With Mr. Byrne's in Europe, the man he has sent to Atlanta is certainly
03:42the best detective in America. He has charge of the Byrne's work in this country and is his chief's
03:47right-hand man. Mr. Byrne's himself will be on the scene shortly after June 1st, and then I am
03:53confident the case will be cleared up beyond any shadow of a doubt. Believe Newt Lee Innocent.
03:59Officers working to solve the Fagan strangling mystery Saturday declared they were more firmly
04:04convinced that Newt Lee, the Negro night watchman, had no hand in the tragedy and that he has told
04:10all he knows. As the result of a conversation between the night watchman and two other Negro
04:15prisoners in the tower which was overheard by Deputy Sheriff Drew Liddell, the deputy shadowed Lee's
04:20cell for thirty-five minutes, while the night watchman, unconscious of the fact that an officer
04:25was secreted but a few steps away, casually discussed the great pencil factory crime with
04:31Oscar Dewberry, a Negro under sentence of death, and Jack Wright, a Negro murder suspect brought here
04:37from Gwinnett County for safekeeping. To these fellow prisoners, Lee time and again protested his
04:42innocence, and insisted that he knew nothing more of the tragedy than what he had told the officers,
04:48that he absolutely had no part in it beyond the finding of the slain girl's body in the basement.
04:53Whether this incident will figure in any way in the investigation before the grand jury has not
04:58been announced by Solicitor Dorsey, deputies try strategy. Deputy Liddell first visited the tower
05:04with Deputy Don Burdett and talked with the Negro. Lee related the same story told to detectives and
05:09to the coroner's jury. The detective then determined on a ruse. He told the Negro he would go back and
05:15talk to him again, and the second time returned with Deputy John Owens and J.L. Coogler,
05:20a court officer. When Lee had again reiterated his same story, the trio of officers left the cell.
05:27As Owens and Coogler walked away, Liddell, however, noiselessly stepped behind two big steam pipes just
05:33on the outside of the Negro's cell. The other two officers walked heavily enough to leave the
05:38impression that all three had gone. As the footsteps died away in the distance on the metallic floor,
05:44Jack Wright asked Lee,
05:46Say, why don't you tell them white folks what you know about that killing? If you know who done it,
05:50tell them. That's the best way. Lee replied without hesitation. I ain't gonna tell no lie about it. I
05:57can't help what they do with me. I ain't gonna lie. I've done told them all I know. None secured
06:03information. The Gwinnett Negro then asked Lee if he knew the girl's body was in the basement before
06:07the time he discovered it at three thirty o'clock in the morning. Good gracious, nigger, I'd tore that
06:13building down getting out of there if I'd known that body was in the basement, exclaimed the night
06:17watchman.
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