Newt Lee

Hired by the pencil company to essentially double-check the Atlanta Police Department's work, Detective William J. Burns had been with the Secret Service before becoming household name for solving a famous counterfeiting crime with his unusually calm, sophisticated techniques.

Burns, who was sometimes compared to Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, never used the third degree that Atlanta police had used to torture Newt Lee.

He was methodical, careful, and thorough.

And now Detective Burns felt confident in his investigation of the murder notes.

That's helloalma.com slash get started.

According to Annie, he said he was sitting on a box in the factory when the girl came down, that he told her someone had called her, that she turned back and then he struck her with his fist, knocking her down, that he dropped her through the hold, that he then took her around by the furnace, starting to burn her, but his conscience wouldn't let him.

That he put her down there to make people believe Newt Lee did it.

That afterward he found a piece of blank paper, tears it in two, picks up a pencil and puts the paper on the cellar door and writes the notes.

Mary's mother was quoted in the newspaper saying that she was glad and relieved and she hoped Conley would be let off with a light sentence despite having lied in his statements.

In case you were wondering, Newt Lee had been in jail that entire time and was finally released in August 1913.

Leo's attorneys immediately appealed the jury's decision.

While researching for Leo's new trial, they learned that some witnesses had likely perjured themselves, apparently threatened by the prosecutor's office or the police.

Of course, we're talking about 1913 here and he's at the place.

But her body is not discovered until the night watchman, Newt Lee, another black man, finds her about three in the morning, tries to call Leo Frank.

Not a good call the police.

And then they come over there.

But even to get there, Pete...

Leo Frank tries to pin the murder on a white guy.

He then tries to pin it on Newt Lee.

He then tries to pin it on Connolly.

And down in the basement, Little Mary lay asleep.

Newt Lee was the watchman when he went to wind his key down in the basement.

Little Mary, he could see.

He called for the officers, their names I do not know.

They came to the pencil factory.

Says, Newt Lee, you must go.

They took him to the jailhouse.

They locked him in a cell.

It's been 48 hours since Mary Fagan was last seen alive.

Pencil factory night watchman Newt Lee is being held for questioning, and police are still collecting evidence.

Some accounts say the factory was closed that Monday to accommodate the sensitivities of the women who worked there.

Maybe they were worried women would come to work and faint at the mention of murder, or perhaps women had expressed concern that they would be the killer's next victims.

No blood, no torn clothes, nothing dirty from a struggle in the factory basement.

Once again, officers sent Leo back home.

Newt Lee, however, didn't seem to be going home anytime soon.

Police were confused about Newt's time slip, and I know you're probably picturing a piece of paper that you put into a time clock and punch at the beginning and end of a shift, but what Newt used was more commonly called a watch clock, standard equipment for a watchman or security guards at the time.

She wanted to get her week's pay before going to the parade, so she stopped by the office of the pencil factory to pick up her money.

Newt Lee, the night watchman at the pencil factory, was also at work that day and had arrived early, but his boss Leo asked him to come back later.

Newt, who had been born into enslavement, was understandably not eager to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, so he found a place to take an afternoon nap and then went back a few hours later to start his shift.

None of these little moments, Newt arriving early, an angry employee looking for his shoes, Mary going to pick up her money, would have been significant if not for what happened next.

When the coroner pulled the sheet back, the first thing Grace noticed was hair.

Grace wasn't the only pencil factory employee directly affected by the murder.

Tall, slim Newt Lee had a full mustache and wore a black work cap with a flat top and a short bill.

He was at work earlier than usual on April 26th.

It doesn't really work with how slowly Conley wrote.

And it looks like an attempt to pin the crime on some random black man or on Newt Lee himself.

And the language used is not the language of Leo Frank dictating them to him.

It's Conley's own style.