The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, part 22

by Philip St. Raymond for The American Mercury ONE OF the weirdest aspects of the Leo Frank case was the — shall we say — strained effort of the Frank team to make some human excrement found in the National Pencil Company elevator shaft into a “proof” that Leo Frank was innocent of murdering Mary Phagan. This so-called “shit in the Continue Reading →

The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, part 21

by Philip St. Raymond for The American Mercury THE “death notes” left beside Mary Phagan’s body when she was murdered in 1913 have been the subject of endless speculation. Were the notes written by James Conley at the direction of Mary’s convicted killer, Leo Frank? — or were they Conley’s creation alone? — or were they purpose-written by Frank, using Conley’s Continue Reading →

The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, part 20

by Philip St. Raymond for The American Mercury ONE OF the most mysterious aspects of the Leo Frank case is the series of “death notes,” four of which were written, according to testimony, but only two of which were ever found. They were discovered right next to the dead body of Frank’s victim, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. If taken at face value, Continue Reading →

The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, part 19

by Philip St. Raymond for The American Mercury THE TESTIMONY of Black men and women was pivotal in the trial of Leo M. Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan, and was so regarded by both the prosecution and defense. But little-heralded then, or now, is the horribly bad treatment these Black witnesses repeatedly received. The prosecution often “sweated” or gave Continue Reading →

The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, part 18

by Philip St. Raymond for The American Mercury WHICH GETS MORE coverage in the media: the singular instance of one solitary Jew, Leo Frank (who was duly convicted of the sex murder of a young girl), being lynched — or the literally hundreds of Black men lynched around the same time in the South without even the pretense of a trial, Continue Reading →