The Leo Frank case is one of the most notorious and highly publicized cases in the legal annals of Georgia. A Jewish man in Atlanta was placed on trial and convicted of raping and murdering a thirteen-year-old girl who worked for the National Pencil Company, which he managed. Before the lynching of Frank two years later, the case became known throughout the nation.
Leo Frank, the superintendent of the factory, paid her. He was the last person to acknowledge having seen Phagan alive. In the middle of the night, the factory watchman found her bruised and bloodied body in the cellar and called the police. The city was aghast when it heard the news. Rumors spread that she had been sexually assaulted before her death. The public demanded quick action and swift justice. Frank denied knowing Phagan by name, but police reported that he seemed nervous.
Under pressure to solve the case, detectives re-examined information they had been given earlier. A young worker said she did not see Frank when she came in shortly after Phagan to receive her pay, despite Frank saying he had stayed at the factory for at least twenty minutes after Phagan left.
The night watchman said Frank called the factory later in the day on April 26 to see if everything was alright, which he had never done before. On the basis of this evidence, Leo Frank was arrested. On May 1 Jim Conley, a Black janitor at the pencil factory, was arrested after he was found rinsing what appeared to be bloodstains out of a shirt.
Based mainly on the testimony of the janitor, who had been held in seclusion for six weeks before the trial on orders from Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey , the jury convicted the defendant. They also allowed evidence to be introduced suggesting that Frank had many dalliances with girls, and perhaps boys, in his employ.
