Jim Conley

Unquestionably, the hand that wrote these two notes tied the cord around poor little Mary Fagan's neck.

Leo had a thing or two to say about Jim Conley in this statement as well.

Conley was the star witness in Leo's trial, giving hours of sworn testimony that Leo was a perverted man who forced Conley to help him deal with Mary's body after Leo killed her.

Leo's anger about All of that was clear when he wrote, I say with the assurance of my innocence that the truth, the ultimate unchangeable truth that must vindicate me in the eyes of the world, that the simple facts show that Jim Conley's recital is not only a vicious lie, but was impossible.

Yet I am condemned on Conley's statement, a statement that has been altered and changed to suit each new phase in the working up of the case against me.

Less than a week later, Jim Conley went on trial not for Mary Fagan's murder, but for being an accessory after the fact because he said he had helped Leo dispose of the body.

The same prosecutor who got Leo convicted made only a half-hearted effort to convict Conley in this trial, saying, "'Conley was just Leo's fool and ought not to be punished.'" Conley's conviction was a slap on the wrist compared to Leo's death sentence.

After deliberating for only 12 minutes, the jury found Conley guilty of being an accessory to the murder of Mary Fagan and sentenced him to one year of hard labor on a chain gang.

But the South has not thus suddenly forgotten the fact that Negro evidence is as slight as tissue paper.

The South has not forgotten that when a white man's word is brought against a Negro's word, there is no question as to the winner." The person testifying against Leo is a man named Jim Conley, who did odd jobs around the Pencil Factory.

He was seen rinsing a red stain out of a shirt on the weekend Mary was murdered, and lied to the police about being able to read and write.

Conley claimed that Leo forced him to help cover up Mary's murder.

But the prosecuting attorney in Leo's case definitely did not want Conley indicted, because it would weaken their case against Leo, and because the grand jury had all new appointments, so these were not the same people who had indicted Leo.

Leo's lawyers lobbied the members of the grand jury to hear the case against Conley, and the foreman agreed with them so strongly that he visited the prosecuting attorney and asked him to call the grand jury into session.

Remember, Jim Conley's name had not even come up in the grand jury's hearing about Leo Frank, so all of the evidence against Conley was new.

It was already remarkable for a grand jury foreman to ask a prosecutor to call a session, but then something even more remarkable happened.

But Leo Frank had heard this, and he didn't push that.

The only reason he's not, and there's multiple chances he has to pin the tail on the donkey of Jim Connolly, but he doesn't do it, and you know why, Pete, is because he had implicated him already, and they had their deal going that he can't say, Jim Connolly, oh yeah, he's the Negro that did this, now go check him out, because if you're gonna go do that, Jim Conley is gonna say, well, I wrote these notes.

I helped him take care of the body.

So for me, that's a fascinating thing.

They're saying, hey, he was kind of a creepy guy.

And also, Lee tells investigators that Frank acted nervous that day.

May 1, Jim Conley, an African-American sweeper at the factory, is arrested after being found in the basement trying to rinse out a blood-stained shirt.

Now, this is important.

My family was very close to them in the 1970s.

But when Alonzo Mann came forward in 1982, stating that he saw Jim Conley with the body of Mary Fagan on the first floor, that's when we lost all respect because they started doing things in secret.

And to this day, it's all secret.

So.

He killed Little Mary Fagan.

It was on a holiday.

And he called on Jim Conley to take her body away.

He took her to the basement.

On Thursday, May 1st, another black man was arrested on suspicion of Mary Fagan's murder.

Jim Conley was 27 years old and often drunk, but he was able to maintain employment doing odd jobs and sweeping at the pencil factory.

Conley had a police record resulting in two sentences to chain gangs.

He lived with a woman he had never married, a strike against him at that time.

They also took photographs of the bite mark and fingerprints on Mary's body, intending to match the photos with the fingerprints of suspects.

Prosecuting attorneys also ordered testing of the shirt found at Newtley's house and the spot of blood found on the pencil factory floor.

But no one ordered any testing of the shirt Jim Conley was seen washing red stains out of.

Even as officers collected evidence pointing to Conley, lawyers continued moving forward with Leo's case.

Mann was only 14 at the time of Mary Fagan's murder and was working as Leo Frank's office boy.

Mann came forward after nearly 70 years saying that he saw Jim Conley carrying the body of Mary Fagan.

He claimed that Conley had threatened to kill him if he told anyone what he saw.

So in response to this, attorneys Charles Wittenstein.

So most people now agree that Frank was innocent and rampant anti-Semitism and unfair trial and Southern workers general anger towards Northern factory owners.

all played a role in his conviction and ultimately his murder.

Jim Conley is widely thought to be responsible for Mary Fagan's murder, though technically it remains an unsolved case.

Her case was reopened in 2019 along with several other cases, but so far nothing seems to have come of that reopening.