Dr. Thomas Hancock, a Columbia University
graduate and chief of medicine for the Georgia Railway and Power
Company, conducted a physical examination of Leo Frank. He was called
by the defense to cast doubt on the testimony of Jim Conley, who
claimed on the stand that Frank had told him he was "not built
[sexually] like other men."
Examination by Luther Rosser
Frank: "To the
best of my knowledge, it must have been from ten to
fifteen minutes after Miss Hall left my office, when this little girl,
whom I
afterwards found to be Mary Phagan, entered my office and asked for her
pay
envelope. I asked for her number and she told me; I went to the cash
box and
took her envelope out and handed it to her, identifying the envelope by
the
number. She left my office and apparently had gotten as far as the door
from my
office leading to the outer office, when she evidently stopped and
asked me if
the metal had arrived, and I told her no. She continued on her way out,
and I
heard the sound of her footsteps and she went away. It was a few
moments after
she asked me this question that I had an impression of a female voice
saying
something; I don't know which way it came from; just passed away and I
had that
impression. This little girl had evidently worked in the metal
department by
her question and had been laid off owing to the fact that some metal
that had
been ordered had not arrived at the factory; hence, her question. I
only recognized
this little girl from having seen her around the plant and did not know
her
name, simply identifying her envelope from her having called her number
to me...."
Frank: "Gentlemen,
I was nervous. I was completely unstrung. Imagine
yourself called from sound slumber in the early hours of the morning,
whisked
through the chill morning air without breakfast, to go into that
undertaking
establishment and have the light suddenly flashed on a scene like that.
To see
that little girl on the dawn of womanhood so cruelly murdered-it was a
scene
that would have melted stone. Is it any wonder I was nervous?...."
Frank: "The
date I was taken into custody, my wife was there. But I thought
I would save her the humiliation of seeing me in those surroundings. I
expected
any day to be turned loose and returned once more to her side at home.
Gentlemen, we had to restrain her. She was willing to be locked up with
me...."
Frank: "[After
the detectives failed to get a confession from Newt Lee they] grilled
the Negro
and put words into his mouth that twisted not alone [my] English but
distorted
my meaning. I decided then and there that if that was the line of
conduct they
were going to pursue, I would wash my hands of them..."
Frank:
"I
did not speak to Conley
not because I did not want to ...
but because I didn't want to have things
twisted. I knew that there was
not a word that I could utter that they would
not deform and distort and use
against me...."
Frank:
"Gentlemen, I know nothing whatever of
the death of little
Mary Phagan. I had no part in causing her death nor do I know how she
came to
her death after she took her money and left my office. I never even saw
Conley
in the factory or anywhere else on that date, April 26, 1913...
The statement of the Negro Conley is a
tissue of lies from
first to last. I know nothing whatever of the cause of the death of
Mary Phagan
and Conley's statement as to his coming up and helping me dispose of
the body,
or that I had anything to do with her or to do with him that day is a
monstrous
lie...
The story as to Women coming into the
factory with me for
immoral purposes is a base lie and the few occasions that he claims to
have
seen me in indecent positions with Women is a lie so vile that I have
no
language with which to fitly denounce it...
Gentlemen, some newspaper men have
called me "the
silent man in the tower," and I have kept my silence and my counsel
advisedly,
until the proper time and place. The time is now; the place is here;
and I have
told you the truth, the whole truth...."
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