00:00Dorsey's grill fails to make Conley admit hand in killing. Atlanta, Georgian Sunday, June 1, 1913,
00:06does not deviate in least from detailed story despite traps to snare him. Frank appears pleased
00:12prisoner tells his friends that sweeper's affidavit is good news to him. A grueling cross-examination
00:17of Jim Conley, confessed accessory in the murder of Mary Fagan, in an effort to break down his
00:22charges against Leo M. Frank as the actual slayer of the little girl, was made by Solicitor General
00:28Hugh M. Dorsey late Saturday afternoon. Before the rapid-fire questioning in which every imaginable
00:34snare was set to entrap him, the Negro did not deviate one iota from the detailed account which
00:39he made Friday to the police. Every effort to make him confess that he was the slayer failed.
00:44In amazing contrast to the attitude of the Negro is that of the pencil factory superintendent.
00:50To friends who visited the tower where he is confined, Frank declared Saturday that Conley's
00:55statement was good news to him. Frank had just read the Negro's affidavit in full in the Georgian.
01:00That the Negro was beginning to talk meant that the mystery soon would be cleared, Frank told his
01:05friends. He had said previously that the murderer should be hanged, did not accuse Conley. Frank did
01:11not declare outwardly that he thought Conley guilty of the murder when he spoke with his visitors
01:15Saturday. He stated, however, that he was glad that the Negro had begun to talk and predicted an early
01:21solution of the mystery. Luther Z. Rosser, the noted Atlanta lawyer and counsel for Frank,
01:27also expressed to friends of his client his opinion of Conley's statement Saturday as a most
01:31satisfactory turn in the case. Friends of the accused man declared that Frank was not in the
01:37factory at the time given by Conley. They stated Saturday that Frank would offer five witnesses to
01:42prove an alibi to this effect. Police seek meeting of two. The police will make another attempt this
01:48week to confront Frank with his accuser in an effort to break the deadlock. They look for a possible
01:53solution of the diverging statements should the two prisoners meet face to face. It develops Saturday
01:59that should Conley be declared an accessory after the fact, as he will be a judge should his present
02:04statement prove to be true, his sentence, under the Georgia Code, will be not under one year
02:09imprisonment nor more than three years. It was reported late Saturday night that an effort will be made
02:15to prove Conley an accessory to the fact. Should this be established, and the negro is proved to
02:20have been an actual participant in the murder, he will be liable to the death penalty.
02:25Solicitor General Dorsey tried in vain to wring a confession from Conley that he was alone in the
02:29crime. Time and again during the interview the solicitor cautioned the negro, if you are guilty say
02:35so now, it would be found out later and it's possible it would go much harder with you. You must
02:40tell the
02:40truth for the truth will be known, swears he is telling truth, and the negro's answer was always
02:45the same, before God I am telling the truth. Trying the trap with him, the solicitor often would
02:50completely turn the conversation and discuss with Chief Beavers some case entirely foreign to the
02:56Fagan murder, the new police automobile, the Stevens murder, and a score of other topics. But when the
03:02negro's mind was apparently distracted, he would come back at him with a trip-hammer volley of questions
03:08covering time and again the ground that had been covered in the last affidavit of the negro,
03:12time stressed by solicitor. On one point particularly, the solicitor placed considerable
03:18emphasis the time Assistant Superintendent Darley walked to the factory entrance door with the woman
03:23who was crying. Darley placed the time as between 9.30 and 10 o'clock. The negro told the solicitor
03:29that
03:30he was positive it was as late as 10.30 when this incident occurred and probably later. He said he
03:35would take a positive oath that it was not earlier than 10.30 and that Mr. Darley must have been
03:40mistaken. The time he left the factory he placed as very nearly 1.40. He said he left by the
03:46front
03:46door and crossed the street to a near beer saloon where he got two drinks. He casually noticed the
03:52clock, he said, and his recollection was that it was about 1.40. He was equally as ignorant on the
03:57subject of the condition of the body when he found it. When the negro was taken from the solicitor's
04:02office, he was taken to the police station instead of to the jail and lodged by himself in a private
04:07cell. No one was allowed to see him except those directly interested in the case. He asked the
04:13detective chief to please allow him a short respite from the third degree, and there was every
04:17indication the negro would not be again called before the detectives of the solicitor until Monday.
04:23Following the examination of Conley, the solicitor intimated for the first time the line of his
04:29prosecution. He explained, however, that later developments might make it necessary to change
04:33this plan. He would not comment on how much credence he placed in Conley's story. Frank,
04:39indicted by the grand jury, he intimated, would be tried alone as the principal. Conley, whom he
04:44expects to have the grand jury indict as an accessory after the fact, he will use first as a material
04:49witness against Frank. He may be tried later. Newtley, held for the grand jury on a blank bill of
04:54indictment-charging murder. He expects to see exonerated by a no-bill when the jury meets again.
05:00Lee will be held in jail as a material witness. Negroes' theory of crime. Conley gave for the
05:05first time Saturday his theory of how Mary Fagan met her death. Eliminating his dialect and rearranging
05:11the sequence of events it is, Mary Fagan went to the pencil factory superintendent's office to draw her
05:16pay. She and the superintendent were alone and conversed rather freely. In the course of the
05:22conversation, she asked Mr. Frank something about the metal. She decided to go to the metal department
05:27for some reason. Before going, she placed her purse and pay envelope on the superintendent's desk.
05:33She was followed to the rear of the building where she met her death. He would not express any opinion
05:38as to how. Several minutes elapsed before he was called, probably twenty or thirty minutes. In this time,
05:45Frank had had time to dispose of the purse and pay envelope and decide to call him to help conceal
05:50the
05:50body.
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