Sunday, 25th May 1913 Others Will Be Involved In New Bribery Charges Intimates Chief Lanford

Sunday, May 25th, 1913

The probability of bribery charges to be made against others as well as Colonel Felder was intimated last night by Chief Lanford to a Constitution reporter.

Documentary evidence involving one or more men is rumored to be in Lanford's possession. Also, his dictagraph [sic] is said to have reported secret conferences relating to the use of bribe money in the Mary Phagan case.

This new phase of the bribery charges is said to pertain only to the bribing of witnesses in the Phagan investigation. Rumors to this effect have been coming to police headquarters for several days. Corroboration of the reports came recently from Mrs. Mima [sic] Famby [sic], of 400 Piedmont avenue, a witness in the case.

Offered Money to Leave City.

Mrs. Famby declared to a reporter for The Constitution that she had received six offers of large sums of money to leave the city until the Mary Phagan trial has been finished. It is said that she has made an affidavit, naming the men who approached her, and that the document is in the hands of Chief Lanford.

Lanford declared to a Constitution reporter that he would not reveal his new bribery evidence until the trial. He would not state the nature of affidavits said to be in his hands.

Solicitor Dorsey has been apprised by Harry Scott of the position of the Pinkerton agency in the Phagan investigation. The solicitor said last night that Scott had told him that, primarily, the detective organization was in the employ of Frank's defense, in that it was paid by the National Pencil company, and that reports of his progress were turned over to the suspect's counsel.

Saying that he was retained purely to learn the truth of the murder, the solicitor avers Scott told him that the evidence he had so far unearthed pointed to Frank, and that he was directing his investigation to that end. Scott's opinion, as it is said to have been expressed before the grand jury Saturday, was that the imprisoned superintendent was guilty.

Affidavit of Connally [sic].

The following is the affidavit signed by James Connally, the negro sweeper who confessed to having written the murder notes at Frank's dictation:

"On Friday evening before the holiday, about four minutes to 1 o'clock, Mr. Frank came up the aisle and asked me to come to his office. That was the aisle on the fourth floor, where I was working, and when I went down to the office, he asked me could I write, and I told him yes, I could write a little bit, and he gave me a scratch pad and told me to put on there, dear mother, a long, tall black negro did this by himself, and he told me to write two or three times on there. I wrote it on a white scratch pad, single ruled.

"He went to his desk and pulled out another scratch pad, a brown-looking scratch pad, and looked at my writing and wrote on that himself, but when I went to his office he asked me if I wanted a cigarette, and I told him yes