Index of Previous Student Briefing Pages

2 Murders in Georgia A Low Note for Justice By Michael Dorman, Staff Writer AP Photo Leo Frank, left, during his trial in the murder of Mary Phagan, 13. Frank's conviction was tainted by anti-Semitic feeling in Atlanta and, in 1915, a mob stormed the prison where he was serving a life sentence and lynched him. In 1982, a man who had worked in Frank's factory came forward to say he had seen Frank's accuser with Mary's corpse, but had been afraid to speak out. Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photo "Parade," a musical based on the Leo Frank case, plays through Sunday at Lincoln Center. Above, Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello as Leo Frank and his wife, Lucille. Many musical plays do not try to offer more than light entertainment. But "Parade," playing until Sunday at the Lincoln Center Theater, hardly fits that category. It is a chilling true story dealing with the lynching of a small, nervous Jewish man named Leo Frank by a Georgia mob in 1915 -- a complex case described ever since as bearing stark evidence of anti-Semitism. Frank was born in Paris, Texas, in 1884, and his family moved to Brooklyn while he was still a baby. After graduation from Cornell University, Frank went to work for an uncle who owned the National Pencil Co. In 1907, he was sent to Atlanta, Ga., as superintendent of the firm's local factory. Girl Found Dead in Factory By 1913, Frank was regarded as one of Atlanta's leading citizens -- even though his factory, like many others at the time, employed child labor. One such employee was a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan. On April 26, 1913, Mary -- who had just been laid off from her job -- went by the factory to collect $1.20 in wages from Frank. By Frank's account, he handed her the money and she went on her way. But that night a watchman at the factory discovered the bound body of Mary Phagan in the building's basement. She had been sexually attacked and murdered. Police showed up within hours at Frank's home, took him to the crime scene and then to the police station for several days of questioning. They said he was nervous and trembling -- arousing suspicion. Simultaneously, detectives were questioning Jim Conley, a janitor at Frank's factory. Conley said Frank had confessed to him before leaving the factory that he had assaulted Mary Phagan. Leo Frank Confessed, Janitor Said He claimed Frank had made sexual advances to the girl and that she had refused him. Conley quoted Frank as saying: "I struck her and I guess I struck her too hard and she fell and hit her head against something." Frank adamantly denied Conley's story and other accounts purporting to connect him with the killing. But, 13 days after the crime, he was arrested and charged with murder. The trial took place in a small, packed courtroom. Mobs of spectators unable to fit in the court climbed atop outdoor construction sheds that offered views through the windows. Many shouted: "Hang the Jew -- or we'll hang you." Jim Conley was a chief prosecution witness. He testified that Frank had not only admitted the murder but tried to enlist his help in disposing of Mary Phagan's body. Frank took the stand to deny the allegations. "The statement of Conley is a tissue of lies from first to last," he said. "I know nothing whatever of the death of Mary Phagan and Conley's statement as to his helping me dispose of the body, or that I had anything to do with her or to do with him that day, is a monstrous lie." Anti-Semitism an Issue Leading members of Atlanta's Jewish community testified to Frank's good reputation -- at the same time lending support to the contention that he was being prosecuted because of anti-Semitism. But the jury, after deliberating for only four hours, found Frank guilty. The next day, a judge sentenced him to death. A campaign to overturn the conviction was launched by Jewish leaders in New York and Atlanta -- who supported the anti-Semitism arguments. They raised a fund to hire celebrated private detective William Burns to reinvestigate the case. Burns uncovered several pieces of evidence that seemed to back Frank's claims of innocence. But appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court were unsuccessful. Frank was scheduled to be hanged on Jan. 22, 1915. His lawyers delayed the execution, however, while they appealed to Georgia Gov. John Slaton to reduce Frank's sentence through a procedure called commutation. Slaton eventually commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment. "Two thousand years ago, another governor washed his hands of a case and turned over a Jew to a mob," Slaton said. "If today another Jew were lying in his grave because I had failed to do my duty, I would all through life find his blood on my hands." A Lynching and, Finally, a Pardon Leo Frank's reprieve would not last long. Two months later, on Aug. 16, 1915, a vigilante mob shouting anti-Semitic epithets broke into a prison farm near Macon, Ga. and overpowered the guards. The mob seized Frank from his cell, drove him to Marietta, Ga. -- Mary Phagan's hometown -- and lynched him from a tree limb. His killers were never prosecuted. When Frank's body was discovered, it was taken back to his former hometown, New York, and buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Queens. In 1982, almost 70 years after the Phagan murder, a man named Alonzo Mann came forward to say he worked in Frank's pencil factory at the time and saw Jim Conley drag the victim's corpse to the factory basement but kept silent because Conley threatened to kill him. Four years later, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles posthumously pardoned Leo Frank. Copyright © Newsday, Inc. Produced by Newsday Electronic Publishing.