How Atlanta's most shocking rape-murder mystery at the time was eventually solved by the accused at the Southern trial of the century!
Nervousness, curiosity and excitement all plagued me as I awaited the arrival of the Tennessean staff. My mind flitted back and forth to questions I wanted to ask. I wondered what their response would be to me and whether they would push me to come forward with the statement that Mary Phagan's convicted murderer was …
Continue reading "Chapter 11 – The Phagans Break Their Vow Of Silence Final"
At the end of February 1978, my coworkers at Griffin CESA jokingly told me I was on the front page! Silence fell over the room. The look in my face must have told them something: it couldn't be. Why was it on the front page now? It seemed I could never escape.I picked up the …
Continue reading "Chapter 10 – Alonzo Mann’s Testimony Final"
The Vigilance Committee of Mary Phagan stood guard for at least one day and one night at the tree from which they had hung Leo Frank, apparently expecting that someone—perhaps souvenir hunters or someone on the orders of Governor Harris, who had offered a reward for the conviction of any of the lynch party—might cut …
Leo Frank's removal from Fulton Tower to the Milledgeville Prison Farm was carried out with the utmost secrecy and efficiency.A car pulled up in front of the main doors of the prison and kept its motor running. Reporters kept watch over it; they could not get information in any other way: the telephone lines into …
John Marshall Slaton had begun wrestling with the idea of commutation of Leo Frank's sentence long before June 1915. "Excepting in a general way," he wrote to a Chicago judge in December 1914, "I do not know the facts of the case and abstained from acquainting myself with them because I desire to remain open …
Because Judge Roan feared a public uprising against Leo Frank, he secretly brought Frank and the other principals together in the courtroom for the formal sentencing. The sentence read: Whereupon, it is considered, ordered and adjudged by the Court that the defendant, Leo M. Frank, be taken from the bar of this court to the …
Continue reading "Chapter 6 – Sentencing And Aftermath Final"
HiWhite Privilege is the unearned, mostly unacknowledged social advantage white people have over other racial groups simply because they are white. [Definition, Dictionary]In 1913, Leo Frank was convicted for the murder of Little Mary Phagan based on the direct evidence found at the scene of the crime as well as circumstantial evidence and because he …
Continue reading "Chapter 5 – The Case For The Defense Final"
sonaar_audioplayer playlist_type="feed" artwork_id="" feed="https://www.maryphagan.org/audios/chapters/chapter-4-the-case-for-the-prosecution.mp3" feed_title="Chapter 4 - The Case for the Prosecution" player_layout="skin_boxed_tracklist" hide_progressbar="default" display_control_artwork="false" hide_artwork="false" show_playlist="false" show_track_market="false" show_album_market="false" hide_timeline="false"][/sonaar_audioplayer]Because the ninety-degree heat had already begun to take its toll, the Honorable Leonard Strickland Roan ordered the windows and doors thrown open when he convened the Leo Frank case in the temporary Atlanta court-room on …
Continue reading "Chapter 4 – The Case for the Prosecution Final"
The dream was always the same. The funnel-shaped cloud was the largest I had seen, and it was heading directly for me and those I love. Miraculously, my brother Michael found a cave in which we could be safe. The cloud destroyed everything in its path, but those in the cave remained safe. Screaming and …
And, as my father said, my legacy is a proud one. And if, as he'd exhorted me, I was going to let the world know that I was Mary Phagan, great-niece of little Mary Phagan, I wanted to find out everything I could about my namesake—and our family.By age fifteen, I was certain of one …