08 Chapter IV Mother Hears of Murder - Leo Frank Case 1913

Memorial Day dawned gloomy, foggy, and overcast and witnesses recounted Mary's actions on that final Saturday of her life. We were on vacation.

For weeks, she had been the first of the little factory girl who worked so hard from dawn to night. After dinner, she was going to town, getting her dollar twenty at the factory, and then spending the rest of the day watching the parade of veterans down Peachtree Street. She left the house, which she would never see again, just before noon, having hastily eaten her simple dinner of cabbage and biscuits.

By midday, she got on a streetcar and headed into the city. George Epps, the freckle-faced, toe-headed NEWSBOY who lived close to Mary and whom she had always liked, was on the car. Before they parted, Mary had promised to meet her little friend at 1:00 and watch the boys march in grey at Marietta and Forsyth Street, which is just over a block from the factory, where they had sat together on the car.

George Epps reported that Mary got out of the car and proceeded down Forsyth Street, claiming to be heading to the factory. At twelve-07:30 p.m., this car was supposed to arrive at the intersection of broader Marietta streets, one block away from her previous location. me. When Mary had not met George Epps as promised, late that night, George Epps ran over to the Fagan house to find out why.

Mary had not been home at all, and he found her mother frantic with worry.

At Mrs. Coleman's request, J.W. Coleman, Mary's stepfather, ventured into the city to see if he could locate Mary anywhere she might have gone to the Bijou Theatre with a few of her girlfriends. Mary's Mom said to her husband, "See if you can't find her down there?" after he left. Upon arriving at the Bijou, Mr. Coleman waited for the show to end and observed the line of people leaving, but he was never able to catch a glimpse of the young girl he was looking for.

When he got back to the house at 146 Lindsay Street, he offered the bereaved mother comfort by speculating that Mary might have visited her grandmother in Marietta. According to Mr. Coleman, she was always beginning to do that; it's likely that she simply made the decision to leave after receiving her paycheck.

Saturday the mother's heart was aching, but she managed to quiet all outward fears. And yet, she wondered where her little girl was the entire length of the night. The Fagan residence was knocked on early on Sunday morning, April 27.

A message about Mary arrived at the threshold, as the mother's heart informed her. The door was manned by a pale girl with a sorrowful expression in her eyes and a hard time speaking the terrible words she had come to deliver. She was Helen Ferguson, a neighbor.

She started out as Mary. Mother's heart told the story. but deceased.

Crying, she undressed all the way down. Yes, dead. Gone.

The girl sobbed, breaking into a storm of weeping. Other members of the family came running to the door. The mother swooned and was supported to a couch within the home.

There she lay for days afterwards unable to speak save to ask piteously for her little daughter. The news once broken to the Fagan family. Mr.

Coleman rushed to the town in order to view the body of the young child who had grown to mean even more to him than a daughter. At Bloomfield, the undertakers, Will Geesling, an assistant, showed him the body and the old man positively identified it. Just one of many people who examined the body out of morbid curiosity that day and the next day.

The same that caused hundreds to stare at the empty walls of the pencil factory and then gather for hours outside the courtroom where the trial was held caused thousands to steal a glance at the corpse of a girl who had been brutally and enigmaticly murdered. The largest crowds looked on the body of Mary Fagan that have ever seen a dead body in the history of the city of Atlanta. It is estimated that 20,000 saw the remains while they were at the undertaking establishment while many hundreds viewed them at the funeral at Marietta.

The funeral took place Tuesday afternoon. Before that, however, physicians made an examination of Mary Fagan's body although the result of their probe was kept a profound secret until the trial. On Tuesday afternoon, April 29 the body of the little girl was laid to rest in the old family cemetery at Marietta, Georgia 20 miles from Atlanta while members of family and scores and friends stood by weeping bitterly.

Dr. H.F. Harris ordered the body to be exhumed on May 7 so that he could perform a minute examination of the stomach and other important organs from the California Board of Health. What he found out was known only to himself as the state solicitor until he testified on the witness stand at the trial nearly three months later.