Monday, August 18, 1913: Unsworn, Oral Statement of Leo M. Frank in the Fulton County Superior Court, Atlanta, Georgia
Now, with reference to those spots that are claimed to be blood that Mr. Barrett found, I don't claim they are not blood, they may have been, they are right close to the ladies' dressing room, and we have had accidents there, and by the way, in reference to those accidents, the accidents of which we have had records, are not the only accidents that have happened there; for instance, a person cuts a finger; that is an accident, we give first aid to the injured in the office, and we don't have any report on that, the only reports we have are of those accidents that incapacitates the health, where they demand the money for the time that they have lost due to the accident, and we will have our Employers' Liability Insurance Company to pay the employees, but where people just cut their fingers and they go back to work, we don't make any record of that, and we have people cutting their fingers there very often, and when they cut their fingers, their line of travel is right by that place where Mr. Barrett found those spots, right to the office.
Now, we use paint and varnish around there, a great deal of it, and while I don't say that this is not blood, it may be, but it could also have been paint, I have seen the girls drop bottles of paint or varnish and have them break there on the floor, I have seen that happen right close to that spot, but the main point about it is this, gentlemen: when I got down and looked at it, you could have scratched away from the top of those dark stains an accumulation of dirt that was not the accumulation of a day or two days or three days or three weeks, but it was at least three months, from off the top of those spots, without touching the spot itself.
Moreover, that white stuff was unquestionably, in my opinion, haskoline compound, and it was dry and it had to be put on, because it showed all evidences of having been swept, so it had to be put on the wood in a liquid state; if that had been fresh red paint, or if that had been fresh red blood, and that haskoline compound, that soap in it, which is a great solvent, should have been put on there in a liquid state, it would not have showed up white, as it showed up then, but it would have showed up either pink or red, and where the spot of blood was, or whatever it was, that stuff was white, and not pink or red.
I returned after making this examination from which I noticed two or three or four chips had been knocked up, the boys told me, by the police that morning; I returned to my office and gathered up what papers I had to take over to Montag Brothers, and I took over the financial report which I had made out the Saturday afternoon previous, and I talked it over with Mr. Sig Montag.
I had a good long conversation with Mr. Montag with reference to the occurrences that morning and we decided that since the papers had stated that I was being detained at headquarters, it would be best to let my uncle, who was ill, and who is an elderly man, being over 70 years of age, and who was on the point of taking a trip to Europe, and I didn't want him to be unnecessarily alarmed by seeing in the papers that I was detained, and I wrote a telegram to Mr. Adolph Montag informing him that I was no longer in custody, that I was all right, and that he could communicate that to my uncle.
That was so that my uncle should not get hold of an Atlanta paper and see that I was in custody and be unnecessarily alarmed.
I returned from Montag Brothers to the pencil factory, being accompanied by one of the traveling men, Mr. Hein, Mr. Sol Hein, and on my arrival at the factory I went up into the office and distributed the various papers all over the factory to be acted on the next day.
In a few minutes Mr. Harry Scott of the Pinkerton detectives came in and I took him aside into my office, my private office, and spoke to him in the presence of Mr. N. V. Darley and Mr. Herbert Schiff.
I told him that I expected that he had seen what had happened at the pencil factory by reading the newspapers and knew all the details.
He said he didn't read the newspapers and didn't know the details, so I sat down and gave him all the details that I could, and in addition I told him something which Mr. Darley had that afternoon communicated to me, viz.:
that Mrs. White had told him that on going into the factory at about 12 o'clock noon on Saturday, April 26th, 1913 she had seen some negro down by the elevator shaft.
Mr. Darley had told me this and I just told this to Mr. Scott.
After I told Mr. Scott all that I could, I took him around the building, took him first back to the metal room and showed him the place where the hair had been found, looked at the machinery and at the lathe, looked at the table on which the lathe stands, and the lathe bed and the floor underneath the lathe, and there wasn't a spot, much less a blood spot underneath.
I showed him the other spot in front of the dressing room, and I took him to the fourth floor and showed him where I had seen White and Denham a little before one the first time and about three the second time.
Then I took him down into the basement and made a thorough search of the basement, and that included an examination of the elevator well which was at bottom of elevator shaft, and I noticed Mr. Scott was foraging around down there and he picked up two or three or may be four articles and put them in his pocket, and one of them I specially noticed was a piece of cord exactly like that which had been found around the little girl's neck.
We then (went) back and I showed him where the officer said the slipper had been found, the hat had been found and the little girl's body was located.
I showed him, in fact, everything that the officers had showed us.
Then I opened the back door and we made a thorough search of the alleyway and went up and down the alleyway and then went down that alleyway to Hunter Street and down Hunter to Forsyth and up Forsyth in front of the Pencil Factory.
In front of the Pencil Factory I had quite a little talk with Mr. Scott as to the rate of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
He told me what they were and I had Mr. Schiff to telephone to Mr. Montag to find out if those rates were satisfactory.
He phoned back the answer that he would engage them for a few days at any rate.
Mr. Scott then said:
"Well, I don't need anything more," and he says "The Pinkertons in this case, according to their usual custom in ferreting out the perpetrator of this crime will work hand in hand with the city officers.
"
I said:
"All right, that suits me. "
And he went on his way.
About that time my father-in-law joined the group over in front of the factory and after talking for some time my father-in-law and I left and we arrived home about 6:30 I should judge, and found there my mother-in-law and my wife and Minola Mc Knight, and we had supper.
After supper my two brothers-in-law and their wives came over to visit with us and they stayed until about 10 o'clock, after which my wife and I retired.
On Tuesday morning I arose sometime between seven and seven-thirty, leisurely dressed and took my breakfast and caught the 8:10 car coming towards town, the Georgia Avenue car, and when I went to get on that car I met a young man by the name of Dickler and I remember paying the fare for both of us.
When I arrived at the pencil factory about 8:30, I immediately entered upon my routine work sending the various orders to the various places in the factory where they were due to go, and about 9:30 I went on my usual trip over to Montag Brothers to see the General Manager.
After staying over there a short while I returned in company with another one of their traveling men, Mr. Jordan.
At the corner of Forsyth and Hunter Street I met up with a cousin of my wife's, a Mr. Selig, and we had a drink at Cruickshank's soda fount at the corner of Hunter and Forsyth.
Then I went up into the factory and separated the papers I had brought back with me from Montag Brothers, putting them in the proper places, and sending the proper papers to the different places.
I was working along in the regular routine of my work, in the factory and about the office, and a little later detectives Scott and Black came up to the factory and said:
"Mr. Frank, we want you to go down to headquarters with us," and I went with them.
We went down to headquarters and I have been incarcerated ever since.
We went down to headquarters in an automobile and they took me up to Chief Lanford's office.
I sat up there and answered any questions that he desired, and I had been sitting there some time when detective Scott and detective Black came back with a bundle under their arm.
They showed me a little piece of material of some shirt, and asked me if I had a shirt of that material.
I looked at it and told them I didn't think I ever had a shirt of that description.
In the meantime they brought in Newt Lee, the night watchman brought him up from a cell and showed him the same sample.
He looked at it and immediately recognized it; he said he had a shirt like that, but didn't remember having worn it for 2 years, if I remember correctly, that is what he said.
Detectives Scott and Black then opened the package they had and disclosed the full shirt (State's Exhibit F) of that material that had all the appearance of being freshly stained with blood, and had a very distinct odor.
Newt Lee was taken back to the cell.
After a time Chief Langford came over to me and began an examination of my face and of my head and my hands and my arms.
I suppose he was trying to hunt to see if he could find any scratches.