The Mary Phagan trial was the Trial of the Century before there was a Trial of the Century. But the aftermath is what history remembers.
Phagan, only 13, was murdered April 26, 1913 in the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta. The night watchman found her body the next morning in the factory’s basement.
Two illiterate notes were found next to her, supposedly pinning the crime on the night watchman. Police found the notes bogus. They focused the investigation on Leo Frank, the factory superintendent.
Frank was Jewish, and antisemitism was rampant in Georgia. He was indicted for the murder a month later, in large part thanks to the testimony of janitor Jim Conley. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Then came chapter two, and the reason why books, movies and television shows retell the story.
Frank and his lawyers lost appeal after appeal, for two years. Gov. John Slaton believed Frank was innocent, and he commuted his sentence from death to life in prison in 1915.
The backlash was swift. Seventy-five men calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan raided the prison where Frank was being held, kidnapped him and hanged him.
Alonzo Mann, who was an office boy at the pencil factory, came forward 69 years later and said Conley had killed the girl. Conley had threatened to kill him if he told the police. The state pardoned Frank posthumously in 1986.
Fiddlin' John Carson wrote our Song of the Day, “Little Mary Phagan,” in 1915. The song tells the story of the murder and what followed. His daughter Rosa Lee Carson sang it.
Carson was so angry after the governor commuted Frank’s sentence, he wrote new lyrics accusing Slaton of taking a million dollar bribe from a New York bank. Carson was jailed after being found guilty of slander.
Song of the Day is created by Sheldon Zoldan, and produced by Pam James for WGCU. To receive the Song of the Day in your inbox every day, email shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.
