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

Search for:

Reading Time: 4 minutes [595 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

ROBERT McCONAGEY

Brown would kill or shoot him. I then asked him if he and Brown had had any serious quarrel lately. He first said they had, but afterwards he said it was two or three years since they had some pretty bad words. Brown’s horses had gotten into the corn, and he was running after them, and had gotten very angry. He came to the house and told Brown that if he had a gun, he would shoot the horses. Brown told him that he had better take care; that if he shot the horses, he would shoot him. I asked him if he had seen any person at Hare's Valley. He first said no; afterwards, he said that he had; he thought he saw a woman, but did not know if she had seen him, and if she had, he thought she would not know him. His name was Turner. He stated that he had not heard of the murder until the next morning early. He said that he had poked away his time on the road. He said, "Oh, that I had not delayed my time on the road, but had gone to my brother’s husking frolic." He stated that he understood that his dirty shirt was missing. He said he knew where he had left it, but he did not know who had taken it away. He then said he didn’t know what they might do with it to try to make evidence against him. I told him that public opinion was very strong against him. He asked me if I thought he was guilty. I told him that from all that I had heard, I could not believe anything else. He wept bitterly then, and said he wished he had never been born.

At another time, he went on to tell me how he supposed this murder had been committed. He said that there was a couple of strangers who came into that neighborhood two weeks before the murder, who said they were lost. They came to Cornelius’, the man who lives east of Brown’s, and stayed all night. He then said they were women, or men dressed in women’s clothes. They left there, inquiring the road to Hare's Valley. He stated that they had been at his house and Brown’s; they inquired there the way to Hare's Valley, but did not go that way towards Chester Turner's. He stated that he had not seen them, but that his wife told him that it might be them; they had behaved and acted curiously. The next time, two weeks later, he went to account for the murder. He then said that he believed that it was George who did it, and that in shooting, he had missed the old man, who pursued him and killed him, and did not like to tell it. Though when he was first put in jail, he held out the idea altogether that it was Brown; he did not assert positively that it was Brown.

THE WITNESSES FOR THE PRISONER

**William McNite:** I went to Brown's Sunday morning, about 7 o'clock, after the murder. I saw him lying with his arms and feet tied. I told him it was a very unfortunate circumstance that had happened. There was a little dog beside him. He remarked he would give the world if that little dog could speak five words, that it would acquit him. I said I was sorry to see him in that situation. He said his arms hurt him from the tight binding.

---