Leo Max Frank was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia.
73 Facts About Leo Frank
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Leo Frank's kidnapping from prison and lynching two years later, in response to the commutation of his death sentence, became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns, particularly regarding antisemitism.
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Today, the consensus of researchers is that Frank was wrongly convicted and Jim Conley was likely the actual murderer.
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On May 24,1913, Leo Frank was indicted on a charge of murder and the case opened at Fulton County Superior Court, July 28,1913.
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In 1986, Leo Frank was posthumously pardoned by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, although not officially absolved of the crime.
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Leo Frank's case spurred the creation of the Anti-Defamation League and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.
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Leo Max Frank was born in Cuero, Texas on April 17,1884 to Rudolph Frank and Rachel "Rae" Jacobs.
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The family moved to Brooklyn when Leo Frank was three months old.
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Leo Frank attended New York City public schools and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1902.
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Leo Frank then attended Cornell University, where he studied mechanical engineering.
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At the invitation of his uncle Moses Frank, Leo traveled to Atlanta for two weeks in late October 1907 to meet a delegation of investors for a position with the National Pencil Company, a manufacturing plant in which Moses was a major shareholder.
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Leo Frank accepted the position, and traveled to Germany to study pencil manufacturing at the Eberhard Faber pencil factory.
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Leo Frank became superintendent of the factory the following month, earning $180 per month plus a portion of the factory's profits.
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Leo Frank was introduced to Lucille Selig shortly after he arrived in Atlanta.
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Leo Frank came from a prominent, upper-middle class Jewish family of industrialists who, two generations earlier, had founded the first synagogue in Atlanta.
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In 1912, Leo Frank was elected president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith, a Jewish fraternal organization.
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Leo Frank worked across the hallway from Leo Frank's office.
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Leo Frank's dress was up around her waist and a strip from her petticoat had been torn off and wrapped around her neck.
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Leo Frank's face was blackened and scratched, and her head was bruised and battered.
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Leo Frank's underwear was still around her hips, but stained with blood and torn open.
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Leo Frank's skin was covered with ashes and dirt from the floor, initially making it appear to first responding officers that she and her assailant had struggled in the basement.
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Leo Frank said he was not familiar with the name Mary Phagan and would need to check his payroll book.
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Leo Frank explained that Lee's time card for Sunday morning had several gaps that Leo Frank had missed when he discussed the time card with police on Sunday.
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At Rosser's insistence, Leo Frank exposed his body to demonstrate that he had no cuts or injuries and the police found no blood on the suit that Leo Frank said he had worn on Saturday.
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Darley, his assistant, and Harry Scott of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, whom Leo Frank hired to investigate the case and prove his innocence.
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Unbeknownst to Leo Frank was Scott's close ties with the police, particularly his best friend, detective John Black, who believed in Leo Frank's guilt from the outset.
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Leo Frank testified about his activities on Saturday and other witnesses produced corroboration.
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Several former employees spoke of Leo Frank flirting with other women; one said she was actually propositioned.
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Leo Frank said that, on the day of the murder, he had been visiting saloons, shooting dice, and drinking.
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Leo Frank said he had met Frank on the street on Saturday, and was told to follow him to the factory.
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Leo Frank told him to hide in a wardrobe to avoid being seen by two women who were visiting Leo Frank in his office.
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Leo Frank said Frank dictated the murder notes for him to write, gave him cigarettes, then told him to leave the factory.
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Leo Frank said he did not learn of the murder until he went to work on Monday.
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Leo Frank exercised his right not to meet without his attorney, who was out of town.
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Leo Frank said Frank decided to withhold the money until Conley had burned Phagan's body in the basement furnace.
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Leo Frank had taken an elderly black woman's civil case as far as the Georgia Supreme Court.
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Leo Frank arranged for Conley to be moved to a different jail, and severed his own relationship with the Georgian.
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The governor, noting the reaction of the public to press sensationalism soon after Lee's and Leo Frank's arrests, organized ten militia companies in case they were needed to repulse mob action against the prisoners.
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The prosecution argued that Conley's statement explaining the immediate aftermath of the murder was true, that Leo Frank was the murderer, and that Leo Frank had dictated the murder notes to Conley in an effort to pin the crime on Newt Lee, the night watchman.
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Leo Frank then said he dozed off; when he woke up, Frank called him upstairs and showed him Phagan's body, admitting that he had hurt her.
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Conley repeated statements from his affidavits that he and Leo Frank took Phagan's body to the basement via the elevator, before returning in the elevator to the office where Leo Frank dictated the murder notes.
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The prosecution, to support Leo Frank's alleged expectation of a visit from Phagan, produced Helen Ferguson, a factory worker who first informed Phagan's parents of her death.
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Ferguson testified that she had tried to get Phagan's pay on Friday from Leo Frank, but was told that Phagan would have to come in person.
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The defense called a number of factory girls, who testified that they had never seen Leo Frank flirting with or touching the girls, and that they considered him to be of good character.
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Leo Frank had said at the coroner's inquest that Quinn arrived less than ten minutes after Phagan had left his office, and during the murder trial said Quinn arrived hardly five minutes after Phagan left.
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Hattie Hall, a stenographer, said at trial that Leo Frank had specifically requested that she come in that Saturday and that Leo Frank had been working in his office from 11:00 to nearly noon.
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The prosecution labeled Quinn's testimony as "a fraud" and reminded the jury that early in the police investigation Leo Frank had not mentioned Quinn.
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Newt Lee, the night watchman, arrived at work shortly before 4:00 and Leo Frank, who was normally calm, came bustling out of his office.
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Leo Frank told Lee that he had not yet finished his own work and asked Lee to return at 6:00.
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Newt Lee noticed that Leo Frank was very agitated and asked if he could sleep in the packing room, but Leo Frank was insistent that Lee leave the building and told Lee to go out and have a good time in town before coming back.
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Leo Frank allowed Gantt in, although Lee said that Leo Frank appeared to be upset by Gantt's appearance.
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Leo Frank arrived home at 6:25; at 7:00, he called Lee to determine if everything had gone all right with Gantt.
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On March 7,1914, Leo Frank's execution was set for April 17 of that year.
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An analysis of the murder notes, which had only been addressed in any detail in the closing arguments, suggested Conley composed them in the basement rather than writing what Leo Frank told him to write in his office.
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The next step for the Leo Frank team was to appeal the issue through the federal system.
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Leo Frank defended the trial court's decision, which he felt was sufficient for a guilty verdict.
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Leo Frank's attorney rebutted this by quoting Conley, who said that the elevator stops when it hits the bottom.
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Leo Frank said that the first person would have been more logical since they were intended to be the final statements of a dying Phagan.
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Leo Frank argued this was the type of error that Conley would have made, rather than Frank, as Conley was a sweeper and not a Cornell-educated manager like Frank.
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Leo Frank analyzed "speech and writing patterns" and "spelling, grammar, repetition of adjectives, [and] favorite verb forms".
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Leo Frank said that Phagan's nostrils and mouth were filled with dirt and sawdust which could only have come from the basement.
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Leo Frank told reporters that he was certain that Conley was the actual murderer.
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Leo Frank persuaded prominent figures such as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Jane Addams to make statements supporting Frank.
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Leo Frank received at final count close to a hundred thousand letters of sympathy in jail, and prominent figures throughout the country, including governors of other states, US senators, clergymen, university presidents, and labor leaders, spoke up in his defense.
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Leo Frank's body was then transported by rail on Southern Railway's train No 36 from Atlanta to New York and buried in the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, Queens, New York on August 20,1915.
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Leo Frank's case was mentioned by Adolf Kraus when he announced the creation of the Anti-Defamation League in October 1913.
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The consensus of researchers on the subject is that Leo Frank was wrongly convicted.
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Local newspaper coverage, even before Leo Frank was officially charged, was deemed to be inaccurate and prejudicial.
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Some claimed that the prosecutor Hugh Dorsey was under pressure for a quick conviction because of recent unsolved murders and made a premature decision that Leo Frank was guilty, a decision that his personal ambition would not allow him to reconsider.
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Later analysis of evidence, primarily by Governor Slaton and Conley's attorney William Smith, seemed to exculpate Leo Frank while implicating Conley.
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Websites supporting the view that Leo Frank was guilty of murdering Phagan emerged around the centennial of the Phagan murder in 2013.
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Leo Frank supporters submitted a second application for pardon, asking the state only to recognize its culpability over his death.
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The Leo Frank case has been the subject of several media adaptations.