00:00I Know My Husband Is Innocent, asserts wife of Leo M. Frank, Atlanta, Georgian Thursday, June 5,
00:051913. Following the complete denial by Manola McKnight, Cook and the household of Leo M. Frank,
00:12of the statements she is alleged to have made in the sensational police affidavit given out
00:16Wednesday, Mrs. Leo M. Frank Thursday made her first public statement on the Mary Fagan mystery.
00:21Mrs. Frank makes an eloquently pathetic defense of her husband and attacks Solicitor General
00:25Dorsey's methods in the securing of evidence, charging torture, and a deliberate determination
00:30to distort facts. Mrs. Frank denies absolutely that her husband in any way demeaned himself so as to
00:36indicate he had been involved in a tragedy on the day Mary Fagan was slain or any other day.
00:41Here is Mrs. Frank's complete statement, Atlanta, Georgia, June 5, 1913. Editor, the Georgian Sir,
00:48the action of the Solicitor General in, in arresting and imprisoning our family Cook,
00:53because she would not voluntarily make a false statement against my innocent husband,
00:57brings a limit to patience. The wrong is not chargeable to a detective acting under the
01:02necessity of shielding his own reputation against attacks in newspapers, but of an intelligent,
01:07trained lawyer, whose sworn duty is as much to protect the innocent as to punish the guilty.
01:13My information is that this Solicitor has admitted that no crime is charged against this Cook,
01:18and that he had no legal right to have her arrested and imprisoned. The following statement from the
01:24Atlanta Journal undertakes to give the history of the arrest up to the time the woman was carried to
01:29the police station in the patrol wagon, weeping and shouting in a hysterical condition. The Negress
01:35was arrested at the Selig residence shortly after noon Monday upon the order of Solicitor General
01:40Hugh M. Dorsey. She was carried to the Solicitor's office, and that official with Detectives
01:45Campbell and Starnes examined her for more than an hour. The woman grew hysterical during the
01:50vigorous examination, and finally was led from the Solicitor's office to the police patrol,
01:55weeping and shouting, I am going to hang and I don't know a thing about it. They tortured her for
02:01four hours with the well-known third-degree process, in the manner and with the result stated in the
02:06Atlanta Constitution of June 4th as follows. Her husband, who was also carried to the police station
02:11at noon, was freed a short while before his wife left the prison. He was present during the third
02:16degree of four hours under which she was placed in the afternoon. After she had been quizzed to a
02:22point of exhaustion, Secretary G.C. February, attached to Chief Lanford's office, was summoned
02:27to note her statement in full. It was the longest statement made by the woman since her connection
02:32with the mystery. It will be used, probably, in the trial. Attacked Solicitor Dorsey. That the
02:38solicitor sworn to maintain the law, should thus falsely arrest one against whom he has no charge,
02:44and whom he does not even suspect and torture her contrary to the laws, to force her to give
02:49evidence tending to swear away the life of an innocent man, is beyond belief. Where will this
02:54end? My husband and my family and myself are the innocent sufferers now, but who will be the next to
03:00suffer? I suppose the witnesses tortured will be confined to the class who are not able to employ
03:05lawyers to relieve them from the torture in time to prevent their being forced to give false
03:09affidavits, but the lives sworn away may come from any class. It will be noted that the plan is to
03:15apply the torture until the desired affidavit is wrung from the sufferer. Then it ends, but not
03:20before. It is to be hoped that no person can be convicted of murder in any civilized country on
03:25evidence wrung from witnesses by torture. Why, then, does the solicitor continue to apply the third
03:31degree to produce testimony? How does he hope to get the jury to believe it? He can have only one
03:36hope, and that is to keep the jury from knowing the methods to which he has resorted. Of course,
03:41if he can torture witnesses into giving the kind of evidence he wants against my innocent husband
03:46in this case, he can torture them into giving evidence against any other man in the community
03:51in either this or any other case. I can see only one hope, and that is to let the public
03:56know exactly
03:57what this officer of the law is doing, and trust as I do trust, to the sense of fairness and
04:01justice
04:01of the people. Says signing is not surprising. It is not surprising that my cook should sign an
04:07affidavit to relieve herself from torture that had been applied to her for four hours according to
04:12the Atlanta Constitution to a point of exhaustion. It would be surprising if she would not, under such
04:17circumstances, give an affidavit. This torturing process can be used to produce testimony to be
04:23published in the newspapers, to prejudice the case of anyone the solicitor sees fit to accuse.
04:28It is also valuable to prevent anyone stating facts favorable to the accused, because as soon
04:33as the solicitor finds it out he can arrest the witness and apply the torture. It is hard to
04:38believe that practices of this nature will countenance anywhere in the world outside of
04:42Russia. My husband was at home for lunch, and in the evening at the hours he has stated on the
04:46day
04:47of the murder. He spent the whole of Saturday evening and night in my company, neither on Saturday
04:52nor Saturday night nor on Sunday nor at any other time did my husband, by word or act or in
04:56any other
04:57way, demean himself otherwise than as an innocent man. He did nothing unusual and nothing to arouse
05:02the slightest suspicion. I know him to be innocent. There is no evidence against him except that which
05:08is produced by torture. Of course, evidence of this kind can be produced against any human being
05:12in the world. I have been compelled to endure without fault, either on the part of my husband or
05:17myself, more than it falls to the lot of most women to bear. Slanders have been circulated in the community
05:23to the effect that my husband and myself were not happily married, and every conceivable rumor has been
05:28put afloat that would do him and me harm, with the public, in spite of the fact that all our
05:33friends and
05:34myself know that my husband is a man actuated by lofty ideals that forbid his committing the crime that the
05:40detectives and the solicitor are seeking to fasten upon him. I know my husband is innocent. I know my husband
05:46is
05:46innocent. No man could make the good husband to a woman that he has been to me and be a
05:50criminal.
05:51All his acquaintances know he is innocent. Ask every man that knows him and see if you can find one
05:57that
05:57will believe he is guilty. If he were guilty, does it not seem reasonable that you could find someone
06:02who knows him that will say he believes him guilty? Being a woman, I do not understand the tricks and
06:07arts of detectives and prosecuting officers, but I do know Leo Frank, and his friends know him, and I know,
06:13and his friends know, that he is utterly incapable of committing the crime that these detectives
06:19and this solicitor are seeking to fasten upon him. Respectfully yours, Mrs. Leo M. Frank.
Comments