- 1 week ago
Monday, July 14, 1913
*Editor's Note: This article also appeared in the Night Edition under the headline "Mincey Tells of Confession."
Tells How Conley Confessed Killing Girl
‘I AM SEEKING ONLY TO DO MY DUTY FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE'
The Georgian Secures Remarkable Statement From Chief Witness for Defense in the Trial of Frank. Declares Belief in Conley's Guilt.
On Thursday, July 10, The Georgian published the exclusive story of an affidavit in the possession of the lawyers for Leo M. Frank, accused of the murder of Mary Phagan, made by W.H. Mincey, an insurance agent, the substance of which was to the effect that Jim Conley, the negro sweeper at the pencil factory, had confessed that he killed the little girl.
In his affidavit, Mincey declared that he met the negro Conley at Electric avenue and Carter street on the afternoon of the murder; that Conley was intoxicated and when approached by Mincey for insurance became angry and exclaimed, threateningly: "I have killed a girl to-day; I don't want to kill nobody else."
The Georgian has now secured from Mincey a complete statement of his connection with the Phagan case. It is as follows:
By W.H. MINCEY
If Jim Conley told the truth at a time he was most likely to do so, that is, when he was drunk, then I know he killed Mary Phagan, and I have known this for weeks.
I am not an insurance agent, as some of the papers have me, but I am a teacher by profession. I am a graduate of a branch of the State University, A.B. degree, hold a Georgia State Teacher's license, and have been teaching in Georgia every year for the past twenty-five years. I am now teaching. But during my vacation I worked for an insurance company in Atlanta for ten weeks.
By this company I was assigned a territory west of the Terminal Station. Saturday, April 26, I worked in the office till noon. In the afternoon I went out on Peachtree street and saw the parade. After the parade I went over beyond Davis street on "back calls" and to make an effort to close some "prospects" I had.
I passed down Rhodes street, and when I turned back, I had calls to make back on Electric avenue and Mitchell street. From Rhodes street there is a trailway up a bluff to the junction of Carter street and Electric avenue. I went up this.
Passing the house that sits just on the brow of this bluff I noticed a negro man sitting with his head leaning down on his chest as if asleep. I passed on some twenty feet when this negro raised his head and said: "Who is that?" The sharp, quick, excited manner in which he said this attracted my attention. A negro woman passing by Conley said, "It is a policy man," meaning an insurance man.
Said He Was Jim Conley
I stopped and got into a conversation with the negro about insurance. He told me his name was Jim Conley. He told me he lived at 172 Rhodes street. I saw at once there was something wrong with him. He was nervous and excited, and tried to put me off and get rid of me by telling me
*Editor's Note: This article also appeared in the Night Edition under the headline "Mincey Tells of Confession."
Tells How Conley Confessed Killing Girl
‘I AM SEEKING ONLY TO DO MY DUTY FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE'
The Georgian Secures Remarkable Statement From Chief Witness for Defense in the Trial of Frank. Declares Belief in Conley's Guilt.
On Thursday, July 10, The Georgian published the exclusive story of an affidavit in the possession of the lawyers for Leo M. Frank, accused of the murder of Mary Phagan, made by W.H. Mincey, an insurance agent, the substance of which was to the effect that Jim Conley, the negro sweeper at the pencil factory, had confessed that he killed the little girl.
In his affidavit, Mincey declared that he met the negro Conley at Electric avenue and Carter street on the afternoon of the murder; that Conley was intoxicated and when approached by Mincey for insurance became angry and exclaimed, threateningly: "I have killed a girl to-day; I don't want to kill nobody else."
The Georgian has now secured from Mincey a complete statement of his connection with the Phagan case. It is as follows:
By W.H. MINCEY
If Jim Conley told the truth at a time he was most likely to do so, that is, when he was drunk, then I know he killed Mary Phagan, and I have known this for weeks.
I am not an insurance agent, as some of the papers have me, but I am a teacher by profession. I am a graduate of a branch of the State University, A.B. degree, hold a Georgia State Teacher's license, and have been teaching in Georgia every year for the past twenty-five years. I am now teaching. But during my vacation I worked for an insurance company in Atlanta for ten weeks.
By this company I was assigned a territory west of the Terminal Station. Saturday, April 26, I worked in the office till noon. In the afternoon I went out on Peachtree street and saw the parade. After the parade I went over beyond Davis street on "back calls" and to make an effort to close some "prospects" I had.
I passed down Rhodes street, and when I turned back, I had calls to make back on Electric avenue and Mitchell street. From Rhodes street there is a trailway up a bluff to the junction of Carter street and Electric avenue. I went up this.
Passing the house that sits just on the brow of this bluff I noticed a negro man sitting with his head leaning down on his chest as if asleep. I passed on some twenty feet when this negro raised his head and said: "Who is that?" The sharp, quick, excited manner in which he said this attracted my attention. A negro woman passing by Conley said, "It is a policy man," meaning an insurance man.
Said He Was Jim Conley
I stopped and got into a conversation with the negro about insurance. He told me his name was Jim Conley. He told me he lived at 172 Rhodes street. I saw at once there was something wrong with him. He was nervous and excited, and tried to put me off and get rid of me by telling me
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Mincy's Own Story. The Atlanta Georgian Monday, July 14, 1913.
00:06Editor's Note. This article also appeared in the night edition under the headline
00:10Mincy Tells of Confession. Tells how Conley confessed killing girl I am seeking only to
00:15do my duty for truth and justice. The Georgian secures remarkable statement from chief witness
00:20for defense in the trial of Frank. Declares belief in Conley's guilt. On Thursday, July 10,
00:26the Georgian published the exclusive story of an affidavit in the possession of the lawyers for
00:31Leo M. Frank, accused of the murder of Mary Fagan, made by W. H. Mincy, an insurance agent,
00:37the substance of which was to the effect that Jim Conley, the Negro sweeper at the pencil factory,
00:43had confessed that he killed the little girl. In his affidavit, Mincy declared that he met the
00:47Negro Conley at Electric Avenue and Carter Street on the afternoon of the murder, that Conley was
00:53intoxicated, and when approached by Mincy for insurance, became angry and exclaimed threateningly,
00:58I have killed a girl today. I don't want to kill nobody else. The Georgian has now secured from
01:04Mincy a complete statement of his connection with the Fagan case. It is as follows, by W. H. Mincy.
01:10If Jim Conley told the truth at a time he was most likely to do so, that is, when he
01:14was drunk,
01:15then I know he killed Mary Fagan, and I have known this for weeks. I am not an insurance agent,
01:20as some of the papers have me, but I am a teacher by profession. I am a graduate of a
01:25branch of the
01:26State University, A.B. degree, hold a Georgia State Teacher's License, and have been teaching
01:31in Georgia every year for the past 25 years. I am now teaching, but during my vacation I worked for
01:37an insurance company in Atlanta for 10 weeks. By this company I was assigned a territory west of
01:42the terminal station. Saturday, April 26th, I worked in the office till noon. In the afternoon,
01:48I went out on Peachtree Street and saw the parade. After the parade, I went over beyond Davis Street
01:53on back calls, and to make an effort to close some prospects I had. I passed down Road Street,
01:58and when I turned back I had calls to make back on Electric Avenue and Mitchell Street.
02:03From Road Street there is a trailway up a bluff to the junction of Carter Street and Electric Avenue.
02:08I went up this, passing the house that sits just on the brow of this bluff. I noticed a Negro
02:13man
02:14sitting with his head leaning down on his chest as if asleep. I passed on some 20 feet when this
02:19Negro raised his head and said, Who is that? The sharp, quick, excited manner in which he said
02:25this attracted my attention. A Negro woman passing by Conley said, It is a policy man, meaning an
02:31insurance man, said he was Jim Conley. I stopped and got into a conversation with the Negro about
02:37insurance. He told me his name was Jim Conley. He told me he lived at 172 Road Street. I saw
02:42at once
02:43there was something wrong with him. He was nervous and excited and tried to put me off and get rid
02:47of
02:47me by telling me to come to 172 Road Street next week, and he would take insurance. But as the
02:52Negro had excited my curiosity by his incoherent, scattering way of talking and his nervous and
02:58excited manner, I remained standing there firing questions at him. He told me he was in trouble.
03:03I asked him if they had had him in jail or the stockade. He said no, but he was expecting
03:07to be in
03:08jail and that right away. I asked him what for. He said, Murder, I killed a girl today. I said,
03:13Oh, I see. You are Jack the Ripper. The thought that occurred to me was that he meant he had
03:18continued on page 4, column 1. School teacher tells remarkable story to the Georgian, says he only
03:24desires to prevent a crime as bad as Fagin slaying Negro who declared he had killed a girl. First said
03:29his name was Jim Conley, Mincy declares. Continued from page 1. Killed some Negro woman, and the only
03:35thing that seemed peculiar to me was that he said girl instead of woman. I said, Why did you kill
03:41her? He began to get angry, and I saw he was drunk. He said, Now that is for me to
03:44know and you to find
03:45out. Negro seemed suspiciously nervous. I did not attach much to what he was saying, thinking it was
03:53the babbling of a drunken Negro, but his restless, quick glancing around and his keeping his eyes on me
03:58and the wild, unnatural glare in his eyes caused me to want to press him further to find out really
04:03what
04:03he had been doing. I said, Let me write your insurance this afternoon, and started down to
04:08where he was. He said, Don't you come down here, speaking this in an angry, threatening manner.
04:13This caused me to press him the more. I said, No, I will take your application now, and continued.
04:19He said, I tell you not to come down here. When he saw I was coming on anyway, he jumped
04:25up,
04:25and as he went round the corner of the house, he said, I have killed one today, and I don't
04:30want to
04:30kill another. I said, Well, one a day is enough. That is 365 a year. Turned and walked off. Now,
04:37if Jim Conley did not in fact tell me that he killed Mary Fagan on that day, then I don't
04:41know
04:41what language is, and I am sure I know what language is. I suppose it can be established that Jim
04:46Conley
04:46was nowhere else than in Atlanta on that day. Mary Fagan was murdered in Atlanta that day. No other
04:52girl slain that day. So far as is known, no other girl was murdered in Atlanta that day. Now, did
04:58Jim
04:58Conley not tell me he killed Mary Fagan? If he did not, absolutely. I do not know when I have
05:03reasoned out a proposition in algebra, geometry, or logic, but I am sure I do know when I have
05:08solved a problem. On Sunday morning after the murder, I heard someone saw a 17-year-old girl
05:13had been killed the night before and dragged into a basement somewhere, supposed to be a girl of the
05:18streets and killed by some rowdies. I knew nothing further of this till Monday morning. Passing down
05:23Forsyth Street by the National Pencil Factory, I heard someone say, there is the place where the
05:28girl was killed, and some men standing there said she was seen at 11 o'clock Saturday night on the
05:33corner there. This placed the murder after I had seen and talked to Conley. But during the day Monday
05:39I saw a paper, and as no one about this child's age saw her on Saturday, knowing that she would
05:44seek
05:44companions of near her age had she left the building, I at once decided she had never left the plant
05:50after going there. Tuesday morning, passing the factory, I walked in and up the steps to the second
05:56floor. Some man walked up to me and asked what I wanted. I told him I wanted to see Mr.
06:01Frank.
06:02Mincy calls at the factory. He said Mr. Frank was not in, that he could attend to what I wanted.
06:07I told him I wanted to see where that little girl was killed and how many Negroes worked there.
06:12The man did not want me to look over the building, but told me about the Negroes.
06:15I asked him what Negroes were there on Saturday. He said there were no Negroes there on Saturday.
06:21I asked him if he was there. He said he was, that he was the day watchman. I asked him
06:26what time he
06:27left. He said at 11.45. I said, that was just a few minutes before that little girl came then.
06:33He said, yes. I said, didn't you see a Negro here when you left? He said, no, I told you
06:40there were
06:40no Negroes here. It was holiday and they did not work that day. I kept asking him about Negroes
06:46and talking till he was out of patience. All this time I kept walking and looking. He followed me
06:51everywhere I went. I learned later that the man's name to whom I was talking is Holloway and he is
06:56the only one connected with the plant to whom I ever talked. My talk with Jim Conley on Saturday
07:01afternoon convinced me that he had killed someone or thought he had, but knowing it was impossible for
07:07him to be connected with this unless he was there. I got out of patience with Holloway as much as
07:11he
07:12was out with me. I saw everything was disturbed and torn up and Holloway was mad. I was mad too.
07:18At last I turned on him and told him that that little girl never left that building after she
07:21came in there and that someone in the building who knew the building killed her. Things were becoming
07:26more confused in the building and after another parley with him about a Negro being there,
07:31I turned and left the building thoroughly disgusted. Well, this seemed to me to eliminate Jim
07:36Conley, yet his words, sets, and looks continued to haunt me as if I had seen a ghost. Well,
07:41things rocked on and I worked on, but I believed all the time that there was a missing link somewhere.
07:47Later I saw that some lady saw a Negro in the building the day of the murder,
07:51but I took no further trouble with it. I did not want to get mixed up in it at all.
07:55Goes to the police station. Later, when I learned that a Jim Conley was there on the day of the
08:01murder,
08:01I one afternoon went down to the police station to see if this was the same Jim Conley I saw
08:06the
08:06afternoon of the murder. I did not know any of the detectives, but a very nice, courteous gentleman
08:12came out and I told him I would like to see the Negro they had, to see if he was
08:16the same I saw on
08:17Carter Street the day of the murder. He asked me if he seemed excited anyway. I said very much so.
08:22He told me to come in. I went in. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this was the
08:27Negro I talked
08:28to the afternoon of the murder. I got into a conversation with him. Conley looked just the
08:33same, the same dark clothes, the same hat. The voice had mellowed down much, the glare had faded
08:39from his eyes, but the voice and eyes were there the same. I tried to make Conley remember me,
08:44but he said he had never seen me before, that he was not on Carter Street that afternoon,
08:48that he did not know anyone on Carter Street. Now whether the Negro was lying or was so drunk he
08:54did not remember, I don't know. But it is the one or the other. I did not tell him he
08:58was the Negro.
08:59I told him he looked like the Negro. When I was convinced that Conley was going to deny everything,
09:04I said, Jim, you were pretty drunk that afternoon, were you not? He said he had been drinking,
09:09but was not drunk. At this juncture one of the gentlemen in the room got up and opened the door.
09:15He said nothing, but I understood this to be a signal for me to go, and they had been as
09:19nice to me
09:20as I could have asked. So I said, that is all. I only wished to see him. I told the
09:25detectives
09:26nothing. I just walked in and had a few words with Conley and walked out. I saw they were at
09:30something. I did not know what, but I did not care to butt in. On the outside of the room,
09:35some newspaper boys came up to me at once and began to ask me questions, but the newspaper is
09:39the last place I want to get into, and I said, nothing for the papers. I walked down, writes anonymously
09:46to Dorsey. Later, I wrote Mr. Dorsey a letter, but did not sign my name to it. I asked to
09:52not have
09:52Jim Conley indicted for anything other than murder, as I had from his own lips that he had killed a
09:57girl the afternoon of the murder. I never told any detective or policeman anything. As I stated to
10:03Mr. Dorsey, my conditions were such that I could not afford to be caught up there and held as a
10:07witness. It was my intention to give the information I had to someone, but who was the proper one,
10:13and when was the proper time I had not yet decided. When I noticed a movement as it seemed to
10:18turn
10:18Conley loose, I knew that was not the thing to do, so I went to Mr. Rosser. I told Mr.
10:24Rosser I had
10:24information I would give him, but I would first have to ask him not to hold me there as a
10:28witness,
10:29or give out anything to the newspapers. I was assured that I would be safe on this line.
10:34Mr. Rosser told me he would like to hear the statement, no matter whom it was against,
10:38that he wanted the murderer of Mary Fagan convicted, no difference who he is. After making the statement
10:44he asked me if I objected making the same and swearing to it. I told him I did not. I
10:49stepped
10:49out in another room and made the statement to be written, knows no one in the case. Now I know
10:55none
10:55of the people concerned in this. I saw Jim Conley, I saw one man at the National Pencil Factory, who
11:00I
11:01learn is Holloway. I saw Mr. Rosser but once. I have only done what I believe any true citizen would
11:06do.
11:06I believe any other citizen would do as I have done. I have faith in the people of Georgia.
11:11I suppose I know as many people in Georgia as nearly any other man in the state.
11:15There are no people anywhere more generous, more noble, or more fair. Now so far as I know I have
11:21told it the best I can, and I am willing to leave everything to the courts and the people.
11:25If Jim Conley did murder little Mary Fagan, I will not remain quiet, so far as what I know,
11:30and let him make me and you and every other citizen a party to another crime just as bad.
11:34I am at work and had much rather never be called as a witness, but should I be called,
11:39no power can prevent me from doing my duty as a true citizen. I have criticized no one and shall
11:44not do so, and I, as a citizen of Georgia, claim the right to perform a duty to my state
11:49and fellowman
11:50unmolested, signed W. H. Mincy.
11:52each.
Comments