00:00Conley tells, in detail of writing notes on Saturday at Dictation of Mr. Frank, Atlanta
00:05Journal, Wednesday, May 28, 1913. Negro declares he met Mr. Frank on the street and accompanied
00:11him back to the factory, where he was told to wait and watch. He was concealed in wardrobe
00:16in office when voices were heard on outside, it is claimed. Negro looked upon as a tool,
00:21not principal, declare detectives who have questioned him.
00:24Chief Beavers confer with Judge Rohn in reference to taking Conley to Tower to confront Frank,
00:29but is told that it is a question for Sheriff to decide no effort in this direction,
00:33likely until Mr. Rosser returns to City. Right night watchman, the City detectives are said to
00:39have commanded James Conley, Negro sweeper at the pencil factory in jail Wednesday. The result is
00:45said to have been Night Witch, so also the note found beside the dead body of Mary Fagan spelled it.
00:50The detectives regard this strongly corroborative of Conley's admission that he himself wrote the
00:55notes found beside the dead girl. Conley declares that he wrote them, however, at the dictation of
01:00Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the pencil factory, under indictment for the murder.
01:05The detectives are disposed to place full credence in his story now, it is said, since he has declared
01:12that he did the writing on Saturday afternoon instead of on Friday afternoon as he first swore,
01:17and has gone into details. A new and lengthy affidavit, going into detail in sequence throughout the day of
01:23the fatal Saturday, was sworn to by the Negro in the detective headquarters Wednesday morning.
01:28In it the Negro recited, as minutely as he could remember them, his actions and movements upon the
01:34day. Shortly after ten o'clock he was standing at the corner of Forsyth and Nelson Street.
01:39He now swears when Leo M. Frank, superintendent at the factory, his employer, came past,
01:45going toward Montag Brothers. Mr. Frank told him to wait there until he came back, swears the Negro.
01:51Some minutes afterward Mr. Frank returned and took him, the Negro, to the factory.
01:56Mr. Frank sat him down on a box besides the stairs, said the Negro, and told him, the Negro,
02:01to wait there and see what he could see. He would call with a whistle, said Mr. Frank,
02:06when he wanted the Negro. Be careful not to let Mr. Darley see you, the Negro swears,
02:11Mr. Frank told him. Conley continued in detail his affidavit, it is said, describing several people
02:17who entered and left and whose presence at the factory already has been established clearly.
02:21After about an hour the Negro swears he grew sleepy. He had had a beer, and he was in a
02:27comfortable position and everything was quiet. So he dozed off to sleep, he said, and didn't
02:31remember anything more until he heard somebody whistle sharply close at hand and looked up and
02:35saw Mr. Frank standing in the doorway at the head of the stairs. Said Mr. Frank was shaking. He aroused
02:41himself and responded to Mr. Frank's call. At the head of the stairs Mr. Frank caught him under the
02:46arm, swears, the Negro. Mr. Frank was shaking and trembling violently. It gave him the impression,
02:52swears, the Negro, that Mr. Frank wanted to keep him from looking towards the back.
02:56Mr. Frank led him, the Negro, thus into his, Mr. Frank's, office. As they passed the time clock,
03:02the Negro sears. He happened to notice that it was four minutes to one o'clock. According to Mr. Frank's
03:08sworn testimony to the coroner's jury before he himself was accused formally, Mary Fagan, the
03:14murdered girl, had received her pay and gone before that hour. They went clear back into the inner
03:19office, swears, the Negro, Mr. Frank saying nothing but holding tightly to his arm. Hardly had they
03:25entered there and gotten ready to sit down when people were heard approaching in the outer part
03:29of the factory. Mr. Frank put him into a big wardrobe in the office, swears, the Negro, and shut the
03:34doors of it, and then went out and met the visitors or received them in the inner office.
03:38But dismissed them soon and let the Negro out when all was quiet again.
03:45Dictated what Negro wrote
03:47Then, swears the Negro, Mr. Frank told him he wanted to get a sample of his handwriting.
03:51He dictated what the Negro wrote. Mr. Frank was trembling, swears the Negro. His hands shook,
03:57and he ran his fingers through his hair. He said in an undertone as he walked up and down,
04:02swears the Negro, addressing not him but seemingly talking to himself.
04:06There's no reason why I should hang. The Negro said when he had finished writing what Mr. Frank
04:11dictated, Mr. Frank thanked him warmly, and said he wouldn't forget him, the Negro, and called him
04:17a good Negro, good boy, etc., and gave him $2.50, and even led him to the door at the
04:24head of the
04:24stairs. After that, the Negro swears. He didn't see Mr. Frank until Tuesday morning. The Negro swears that
04:30he remembers that one of the notes began, Dear Mother. The Negro reiterates steadfastly, it is
04:35said, that he did not see Mary Fagan at all on the day of the murder. He left the factory
04:39about ten
04:40minutes after one o'clock, swears the Negro, confers with Judge Roan. Chief Beavers has not made
04:46application to Judge L.S. Roan for a formal order on the sheriff to permit him to take Conley to
04:51the
04:51jail for the purpose of confronting Frank with the Negro. The chief did confer with Judge Roan Wednesday
04:56afternoon, and was advised by the latter that the matter was one for the sheriff to decide.
05:01Judge Roan, it is understood, informed the chief that under the law Frank would be entitled to
05:06consult his attorney and have him present should a meeting between the Negro and Frank be arranged.
05:11Attorney Rosser, Frank's counsel, is at present at Clayton, Rabin County, engaged in the trial of
05:17the Tallulah Falls suit. It is not known whether the chief will make any further efforts to get the
05:22Negro face to face with Frank. The fear that he would hang if he had admitted writing the note
05:26after Mary Fagan went to the factory is given by the Negro as his reason for first saying that he
05:32wrote the notes on the day before the crime. Conley still claims that he had no knowledge that a crime
05:38had been committed in the building. The detectives do not regard Conley in the light of an accomplice,
05:43but simply as an unwitting tool. Just after his arrest, it is said that Conley told many different
05:48stories to the police, and they caught him in a number of lies. For the first two weeks of his
05:53incarceration, it is said, he maintained that he could not write. The detectives, however, found
05:58where he had bought two watches on the installment plan and had filled out deeds for them. They
06:03compared this writing, they say, with the writing on the notes found by the slain girl's body and
06:08found it identical. Then they secured other specimens of his handwriting and confronted him
06:13with them. It was a short time after this that he called for Detective John Black and admitted
06:18writing the two notes. Then Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford, Chief J. L. Beavers and Harry Scott
06:24of the Pinkertons, took the Negro from police headquarters to the tower in order that he might
06:29make his statements before Superintendent Frank. Sheriff Wheeler Mangum sent word to Frank, and he
06:35stated that he did not wish to see the officers or Conley unless his attorney, Luther Z. Rosser,
06:40was present. Without Frank's agreement, the sheriff would not allow the officials to visit the
06:45accused Mansell, and the attempt was given up. Do not suspect Conley. Contrary to published
06:51reports, the detectives and others interested in the investigation of the Fagan murder have
06:56never for a moment entertained the suggestion that James Conley, the Negro sweeper, was guilty
07:01of the crime, or that he had any further hand in it than to write the notes, which he says
07:06he wrote at the dictation of Frank. The officers regard Conley as their most material witness.
07:12They declare that he connects up all the circumstantial evidence gathered by them.
07:16They do not believe that he had any hand in the actual murder, or that he knew one had
07:21been committed until after the girl's body was found.
07:25Gentry in Hiding
07:26George W. Gentry, the young stenographer who took the dictograph conversations in the
07:31Williams' house last week, has been reported to the police as missing. According to members
07:36of his family, the young man left his house to avoid the many people who came to question
07:40him about the dictograph conversations, and members of his family do not fear for his
07:45safety and are now in communication with him. Young Gentry left home early Monday morning,
07:50and neither his mother nor other members of his family at 32 East Alexander Street have
07:54seen him since that time. He left following an interview with a man who posed as a newspaper
07:59reporter, and who told young Gentry that he was in danger of being arrested on a trumped-up
08:04charge. Members of his family do not think, however, that his threat was as much responsible
08:09for his resapparance as the general annoyance of repeated questions about the famous dictograph
08:14records. Young Gentry has telephoned his home each day since he left, and his mother heard
08:19from him Wednesday afternoon. Members of the family expect the young man to return when the
08:25excitement over the publication of the dictograph records has subsided. The detectives working
08:30on the case manifestly were pleased with the Negroes' new statements. They declare their firm
08:35belief that he is telling the truth, and point to the corroborative effect of numerous details
08:40already established regarding, for instance, those who entered and left the factory, etc.
08:46Harry Scott, of the Pinkerton Agency, was quoted Wednesday afternoon as expressing confidence that
08:52Frank will be convicted. Alabama police have Newfagan suspect. A. E. Williams, chief of police of Alabama
08:59City Wednesday, telephoned to chief of police James L. Beavers, that there was a man named Bryant in
09:04that town who was acting in a very suspicious manner, and it was intimated that he might know a
09:09great deal about the Fagan case. This message was referred to Detective Chief Lanford, who said that he
09:16had never heard of anyone named Byant in connection with the Fagan case, but that he would look into the
09:21matter. He does not, however, lay any stress on the message from Alabama City. Lanford and Felder
09:27exchange new thrust satire has been emphasized in the controversy between Colonel Thomas B. Felder
09:33and the police department by the issuance by Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford of the following
09:38statement. I will make this proposition to Colonel Felder that I will handcuff Ass Collier and send
09:44him back to Knoxville, Tenning. Without requisition papers, if he, Colonel Felder, will accompany one of
09:50my men to Columbia, S.C., waiving requisition papers. Thereby, I would get rid of two nuisances.
09:56Signed, N. A. Lanford. To the detective's proposition, Colonel Felder has made this reply.
10:02There is only one difference between those crooks. Lanford and Collier, one has been caught
10:06and the other has not.
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