Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Burns Man Quits Case; Declares He Is Opposed

Tuesday, May 27th, 1913

C. W. Tobie, chief criminal investigator for the Burns Detective Agency, formally withdrew from the Phagan investigation Tuesday morning. The calling off of the Burns forces was announced by Dan P. Lehon, superintendent of the Southern branch, after Tobie had stated explicitly that he would not withdraw from the case.

Colonel Thomas B. Felder, who brought the Burns detectives into the Phagan case, would make no statement relative to their withdrawal but announced that it did not mean the end of his investigation or connection with the case.

Tobie made up his mind last Friday to drop the Mary Phagan investigation so he said Tuesday—but deferred action until, Monday night, when he announced his intention to withdraw to Solicitor General Dorsey.

Disgusted With "Fuss."

Acute disgust at the "four or five cornered fuss" raised by the Phagan investigation was assigned by Tobie as the cause. This disgust was superinduced by the direct charge and general impression that the Burns Agency was pretending to ferret out the Phagan case, when in reality its purpose in Atlanta was to investigate the police department.

Tobie said to-day that while he has quit and was going to leave Atlanta, still the withdrawal of the Burns Agency need not be permanent.

"If certain features of this case are not developed, then there will be one, and maybe two, Burns men back here. I will send them here, but they will work in secret. There will be no more public investigation."

Tobie explained he believed Leo M. Frank was guilty of the Phagan murder and that the "certain features" meant additional clinching evidence not yet published that will make Frank's conviction certain.

"How can any house have harmony," said Tobie, "when the old man is fighting the old woman, and the old woman is fighting the children, and they are all fighting the hired girl? That's the shape this affair has gotten into, only worse.

"We came here to investigate this Phagan case, and for no other purpose. But the charge was made that in reality we were investigating the police department. The way things were shaped up the police could not help believing that charge to be true. Colonel Felder's attitude bore that out, so I decided last Friday to quit."

"Do you mean, then, that you were dissatisfied at Colonel Felder's attitude?" [he] was asked.

"We were dissatisfied with that part of it, yes," was Tobie's reply.

Tobie Himself Through;

Tobie reiterated he ended the investigation himself. "I called myself off," he said. "Dan S. Lehon, our Southern superintendent, was close to Atlanta. It was as near for him to pass through here on his way back to New Orleans as it was for him to go any other way. I was in charge here, but, as you know, I do not belong to this territory. As a pure formality and a matter of courtesy, and because I knew he was coming here to visit his wife's relatives.