00:00Frank indicted in Fagan case, Atlanta Constitution, Sunday, May 25, 1913. He will not go to trial
00:06before the latter part of June, according to Solicitor General Dorsey. Leo M. Frank,
00:11indicted Saturday afternoon for the murder of Mary Fagan, the 14-year-old girl whose dead body
00:17was found at 3 o'clock on the morning of April 27 in the basement of the National Pencil Factory,
00:22will not go to trial before the latter part of June, according to a statement which Solicitor
00:27General Hugh M. Dorsey made last night. Newt Lee, the Negro night watchman who called the police to
00:32the place, was left under consideration by the grand jury. A bill of indictment charging him with
00:37the same murder was presented to the grand jury with the bill against the factory superintendent,
00:42but the grand jury failed to act, and it is believed that his case will be allowed to rest,
00:47pending the trial of the indicted man, both confined in tower. Both Superintendent Frank and the Negro
00:54Lee have been confined in the tower since they were ordered held by the coroner's jury for the
00:58murder of the girl. In discussing the time of Frank's trial, the Solicitor stated that he could
01:03not say when it would be started. It will not be possible to hold it before the latter part of
01:08June,
01:09he asserted, and whether or not it is held then depends on a number of things. I have much work
01:15to do to get the case ready, and there is also the defense to be considered, as they may secure
01:19additional time. I do not know what action will be taken in regard to Lee, he replied to a query
01:25on this point. The grand jury still has his case under consideration, but I do not expect them to
01:31meet again before June 6th. Of course, they meet whenever they see fit and may take any action at
01:36any time. That rests with them. The indictment against Frank, which came after a two-days session,
01:41was secured at 12.20 o'clock Saturday afternoon. In all, the grand jury gave about five hours' time to
01:47the hearing. After the final witness had left the room, the Solicitor remained with them a short
01:52time, not over ten minutes. They then went into executive session, and he retired to his office.
01:58He had barely got to his desk when he was sent for and told that a true bill had been
02:02found.
02:03Frank charged with murder. The true bill formally charges that Leo M. Frank did murder in that in
02:08the county aforesaid Fulton, State of Georgia, on the 26th day of April, in the year of our Lord,
02:131913, with force of arms. He did unlawfully and with malice aforethought, kill and murder one Mary
02:19Fagan by then and there choking her, said Mary Fagan, with a cord that he placed around her neck.
02:24The bill of indictment which the Solicitor asked against Newt Lee is understood to be practically
02:29the same in wording as that which he succeeded in obtaining against Frank. The probe on Saturday
02:34was taken up promptly at ten o'clock, when the jury sent for Miss Grace Hicks, a fellow employee with
02:40Mary Fagan, and the girl who first identified her body. A few minutes later she was excused and E.F.
02:46Holloway, day watchman at the factory, was called to the stand. M.B. Darley was then called into the
02:52room. He was followed by court stenographer Perry, who made an official record of the testimony at
02:57the coroner's inquest. Miss Monteen Stover, who recently told detectives that she visited the pencil
03:03factory on South Forsyth Street at about ten minutes after noon and waited for ten minutes in Frank's
03:08office, was the next witness. She declared that no one was in the office and that she left after
03:13coming to the belief that the place was deserted for the day. Harry Scott, Pinkerton detective, was next
03:19called. He was followed by City Detective B.B. Hazlett and by J.M. Gant, both of whom are believed
03:24to have
03:25testified as to Frank's demeanor on the afternoon before the tragedy was discovered. Gant is one of the men who
03:31was arrested on suspicion shortly after the crime, but was cleared and released within a short time.
03:36Giesling on stand. William H. Giesling, member of the firm of P.J. Bloomfield and Company, the
03:42undertakers who embalmed the body of the Fagan girl, was the next and final witness. A small crowd of
03:48curious people hung about the thrower building on the final day of the hearing. The general impression
03:54was that a decision would be reached during the day and mild excitement prevailed. In the curious
03:59throng was a prototype of the woman who tried to pose as a newspaper reporter at the Grace case.
04:04The make-believe newspaper man on this occasion was a young fellow with thick eyeglasses. His active
04:10efforts in trying to intercept a conversation between Detective Rosser and Deputy Newton Garner led
04:15to his exit from the building half an hour before the true bill was returned.
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