310 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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278 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

That fitted. And Conley changed things every time he had a visit from Dorsey and the detectives. Are you going to hang a man on that? Gentlemen, it's foolish for me to have to argue such a thing.

The man that wrote those murder notes is the man who killed that girl. Prove that man was there and that he wrote the notes, and you know who killed the girl. Well, Conley acknowledges he wrote the notes, and witnesses have proved he was there, and he admits that, too. That negro was in the building near the elevator shaft; it took but two steps for him to grab that little girl's mesh bag. She probably held on to it and struggled with him. A moment later, he had struck her in the eye, and she had fallen. It is the work of a moment for Conley to throw her down the elevator shaft.

Isn't it more probable that the story I have outlined is true than the one that Conley tells on Frank? Suppose Conley were now under indictment and Frank out, how long would such a story against Frank stand the pressure?

In the statement of May 29, there are any number of things that are not told of which later were told on the stand. In the May 29 statement, Conley never told of seeing Mary Phagan enter; he never told of seeing Monteen Stover enter, nor of seeing Lemmie Quinn enter; now he tells of having seen all of them enter. Don't you see how they just made it to fit witnesses and what the witnesses would swear? It was, "Here, Conley, swear that Quinn came up, swear that the dead girl came up, and swear that Miss Stover came up; they all did, and it's true, swear to it!" And Conley would say, "All right, boss, Ah reckon they did." And it was, "Conley, how did you fail to hear that girl go into the metal room? We know she went there, because by our blood and hair we have proved she was killed there," and the poor negro thought a minute, and then he said, "Yes, boss, I heard her go in." The state's representatives had put it into the negro's head to swear he heard Frank go in with her, and that he heard Frank come tiptoeing out later, and that by that method they made Conley swear that Frank was a moral pervert. Now, I don't know.

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