Mary Phagan
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Mary Phagan (June 1, 1899 - April 26, 1913), born in Marietta, Georgia was an employee of the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, on the premises of which she was raped and strangled on April 26, 1913.
A Jewish-American manager of the factory, Leo Frank, was accused of the crime, based largely on circumstantial evidence and possibly perjured testimony. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Shortly before his execution was to take place, John Marshall Slaton, the governor of Georgia, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. However, a mob kidnapped Frank from prison and lynched him. Mary Phagan was very probably murdered by Jim Conley, an African American working in Frank's factory.[1][2][3] The incident marked a revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States.
On March 4, 1982 Alonzo Mann, a teenager at the time of the murder, admitted, in contradiction to his testimony at the trial, that he saw Conley carry Phagan's body.[4]
In 1986, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Leo Frank a posthumous pardon, not on the grounds that they thought him innocent, but because his lynching deprived him of his right to further appeal.[5]
In 1988, popular interest in this case increased with the broadcast of The Murder of Mary Phagan a made for television film.
[edit] References
- ^ "Indicted For Girl's Murder; Leo A. Frank Accused In Case That Has Taken Political Turn", The New York Times, May 25, 1913.
- ^ Worthy, Larry. "Little Secrets", About North Georgia.
- ^ Waldrep, Christopher (2002). The Many Faces of Judge Lynch. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-312-29399-2.
- ^ Frey, Robert (2002). The Silent and the Damned: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. Cooper Square Press. ISBN 081541188X.
- ^ Leo Frank. Jewish Virtual Library.
