An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank

by Elaine Marie Alphin

Was an innocent man wrongly accused of murder? On April 26, 1913, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan planned to meet friends at a parade in Atlanta, Georgia. But first she stopped at the pencil factory where she worked to pick up her paycheck. Mary never left the building alive. A black watchman found Mary’s body brutally beaten and raped. Police arrested the watchman, but they weren’t satisfied that he was the killer. Then they paid a visit to Leo Frank, the factory’s superintendent, who was both a northerner and a Jew. Spurred on by the media frenzy and prejudices of the time, the detectives made Frank their prime suspect, one whose conviction would soothe the city’s anger over the death of a young white girl. The prosecution of Leo Frank was front-page news for two years, and Frank’s lynching is still one of the most controversial incidents of the twentieth century. It marks a turning point in the history of racial and religious hatred in America, leading directly to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League and to the rebirth of the modern Ku Klux Klan. Relying on primary source documents and painstaking research, award-winning novelist Elaine Alphin tells the true story of justice undone in America.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Crime, Teen, Audiobook, Jewish

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

I was born on 30 October 1955 in San Francisco, California, and attended Lafayette Elementary School in San Francisco. Then my family moved to New York City, where I attended William H. Carr Junior High School. This is a school picture of me from my junior high school days. After that we moved to Houston, and I went to Westchester High School and on to Rice University.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hardly know what to say about this one. An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank is in all probability the best nonfiction book I've ever read. It takes an old, generally forgotten court case from the dusty annals of the history of the American justice system and forms from it a story of gripping tension and twisting, burning intensity that hits hard in the gut as forcefully as any masterful work of fiction. This story of a court case in 1913 Georgia is all the more haunting because it's completely true; a person whom the facts of his criminal case declared innocent of the capital charges brought against him really was madly pursued by a system overridden by "mob justice", tortured and maligned in virtually every way possible by those whose number one job it was to uphold the ideal of practical justice for all Americans, until the day that the mob had their way and Leo Frank was lynched for a murder that he almost certainly did not commit. Honestly reflecting on the whole situation gives me a sick feeling in my stomach, because what happened to Leo Frank happens, to a certain extent, in every criminal trial driven by unusually strong media interest. The true facts of the case become distorted beyond recognition, and a general public out for blood hears every half-truth about the accused and assumes it to be accurate, in their own minds condemning a human being they've never met and know virtually nothing about on the basis of a few pieces of garbled information brought into the open by suspect sources. It's the job of prosecutors to find evidence that makes the accused in a crime look bad, and a professional prosecutor is going to be able to dig up negative information on anyone that can be spun somehow to put that person in the worst possible light. Yet so often we allow our minds to be definitively made up based on these "evidences" of the accused's sundry malfeasances, and then tell ourselves that they must have done something wrong, or they wouldn't be on trial. But what if they didn't do anything wrong? If you were in their position, or in that of Leo Frank, fighting for your future in front of a jury of potentially biased vigilantes who wanted your blood for a crime you didn't commit, wouldn't you want someone to stop the crazy ride and consider, for just a moment, that you're a real person too, and just as deserving of justice as the victim of the crime you've been accused of committing? To consider that if you are wrongly condemned, then yet another unspeakable injustice has occurred?

In April of 1913, a young teenage laborer (this was prior to the days of enforced child labor laws) named Mary Phagan entered the pencil factory where she worked in Atlanta, Georgia, and was never seen alive again. She had been brutally attacked and murdered by a person or persons unknown, and the police quickly began an investigation into the homicide, unearthing several prime suspects. There was Newt Lee, a black man, the night watchman who accompanied the police as they initially examined the body. A handwritten note beside the corpse, scrawled hurriedly to the point of being almost illegible, made it sound as if Newt Lee might be the culprit. There was Jew Leo Frank, as well, supervisor at the pencil factory, on-duty at the time that the murder was estimated to have taken place. There was also Jim Conley, another black man who witness reports linked to the crime scene. More than one finger was pointed at him, and a few people claimed that he had confessed to them offhand that he had committed the murder, but it wasn't long before prosecutors dismissed thoughts that either of the black men were guilty, and began working fervently to build a case against the factory supervisor, Leo Frank. They seemed sure that he had been the perpetrator of the vicious murder of Mary Phagan, and they were going to make sure that he paid for spilling her precious blood with his own.

Almost immediately, public opinion in the Leo Frank trial became whipped up to a level of insanity that can never be a good thing when the ultimate decision about the mortal fate of a human being is at stake. With only a few available "facts" about the case that were leaked by the prosecution team in order to build support for their side, people became enraged with Leo Frank, fixing him as the target of their murderous anger and out-of-control bloodlust. The people had little idea what the case against Leo Frank was really like, and whether or not it had any legitimate merit, but it was as if they didn't even care. It was as if at some point people had allowed their emotions to take them so completely captive that they didn't even care anymore if Leo Frank was innocent; they didn't really even care about Mary Phagan anymore. All that their emotions cared about was being satiated, finding not the right sacrifice, but any sacrifice, to calm their overwhelming desire for blood. It's a bleak, sobering thought that perhaps the same thing could happen to any of us if we allow ourselves to become slaves, as such, to our emotions, so that justice could become meaningless to us because emotional appeasement is the only food we want to consume.

As the trial gets underway, it's fairly obvious to any external observer that most of the scene is a farce of justice. Maddened crowds hang around outside while court is in session, screaming threats against Leo Frank and anyone who dares to take his side. Such a current of emotion had to have an enormous impact on the jurors; if it didn't, then they would have to have been less than human. There's just no way of getting around that. Somehow, though, despite repeated attempts by Leo Frank's lawyers to have the trial thrown out as being patently unfair because of this blatant jury tampering, the judge steadfastly refused to honor their requests. The unfair trial was to go ahead, but Leo Frank's legal team was confident anyway that a conviction would never happen. Reasonable doubt as to their client's guilt bled from every orifice in the prosecution's case, but that was only for starters. On their own, the defense could pretty nearly prove that it was actually Jim Conley who had murdered Mary Phagan, which should have provided more than enough reason to drop the charges against Leo Frank.

"Dorsey [the prosecuting attorney] understood that the way to a jury's heart was to tell a story they could believe, because a convincing story cannot be refuted by fact. He wove a powerful tale that caught up both the jury and the crowd in its emotion. Rosser [Frank Leo's defense attorney] tried to make them think about facts, but it was very difficult to make reason outweigh emotion."

—An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank, P. 65

But the case wasn't dropped, and as the trial went along, those oh-too-human members that invariably make up a jury were clearly being impacted more by the emotional storytelling vibe put out by the lead prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey, than they were by the precision coolness of Leo Frank's team, who relied on the real evidence surrounding the case in order to make their arguments. Leo Frank's lawyers were good at building their assertions and surely created holes in the prosecution's case that should have made a jury wonder why there was ever an indictment issued against Leo Frank in the first place, but Hugh Dorsey was also very good at his job. He understood that with the emotions of this case at such an unreasonable fever pitch, the most damaging blow that he could strike against Leo Frank's cause was to keep the level of emotion always high, to never let it sag to where the jury might let their own volatile passions relax and possibly be persuaded to consider the matter from a perspective of intellectual truth rather than consideration of the anger and burning desire for retribution of an enraged city, county and state. Hugh Dorsey was winning his case against Leo Frank not because he had successfully proven anything that solidly connected the man to the murder of Mary Phagan, but because he had convinced the jury to want the accused to be guilty. And when the heart has a searing wish locked up inside, you can bet it's going to escape and burn someone.

So, how could all of this have been allowed to continue? Why wouldn't some rational soul in power intervene at any point along the way, and tell everyone, "Hey, this isn't justice." Someone with a little bit of clout, perhaps, to back up his or her words with unshakeable authority. The reasons for this puzzling silence from any objective third party may be the most ominous part of the entire bone-chilling affair. Those who could have done something to bring the hideously unjust trial of Leo Frank to a decisive halt either wanted to see him hang regardless of whether or not he was culpable, or they didn't want to ruin their own futures over the fate of a stranger. Influential people in the state of Georgia had whipped everyone up into such hysteria that it was becoming unquestionably dangerous just to express a personal belief that Leo Frank was innocent, even for famous or politically empowered people. It could mean disaster for one's career in the public eye to side with Leo Frank, even if so siding meant that this was a person possessed of the kind of integrity that meant he was willing to take a big personal risk to ensure the smooth flow of justice. The people wanted Leo Frank dead, though, and the sheer force of their will was like a selective natural disaster descending on the people of Georgia: It only ruined the lives of those opposed to railroading the defendant by any means necessary. To think that such an unacceptable situation could have occurred in our very own United States of America is, arguably, the most jarring horror of the whole book.

It didn't take long for the heavily (and quite obviously) tainted jury to return with a "guilty" verdict. Leo Frank was sentenced to die in the space of but a few months, and there was nothing his devoted wife or parents could do to stop it. It was the scythe that would now hang over their heads every day until judgment met injustice.

There were appeals venues to be taken, for sure, but now that Leo Frank had officially been found guilty by a jury of his peers, changing that finding would prove to be nearly impossible. No judge in the land could tell the jury it had been wrong to convict Leo Frank; its decision was final, for better or worse. Judges who heard the appeals could only rule on specific points of the law that had been dealt with incorrectly during the original trial, or important new evidence that hadn't been accessible before, or some kind of violation of U.S. Constitutional policy that would demand a retrial. The appellate judges seemed unable to find a solid basis for any of these technicalities, though it's not clear why; from beginning to end Leo Frank's trial had been an interminable procession of egregious transgressions against his basic human rights; in no wise had his day in court been conducted fairly or in agreement with the standards required by the U.S. justice system. There should have been dozens of points of the law that could have served as grounds for wiping out the whole trial and starting afresh, or even dropping the charges against Leo Frank entirely and releasing him as a free man, but no judge who accepted the responsibility of hearing the appeals was willing to trip any of these technical outs. Leo Frank was going to be hanged, and all of his avenues of reprieve had been exhausted.

Except for one. When Governor John Slaton was given the Leo Frank case for a last-gasp plea that his sentence be commuted to life in prison, the soon-to-be-retired governor took a hard look at the case. Upon his receiving the plea he had quickly been contacted by the politically prestigious Tom Watson, who let the sitting governor know that a lot was going to ride on his decision. If Slaton upheld the sentence, Watson told Slaton, then he, personally, would make sure that the governor won the senate seat that he had his eye on for the next term. If he tried to assert a stay of execution, on the other hand, then Watson would see to it that things did not go well for him politically. A seemingly independent and honest man, Governor Slaton took this bit of illegal pressure as a sign that maybe he should consider this case with particular care, and his instinct was proved true. What Slaton saw when he examined the evidence against Leo Frank was what everyone involved with the case should have seen from the start: There was no evidence against the accused that should have held up in a proper American court of law. This was a case that had been made against a man who was probably innocent, just to satiate the bloodthirsty people who wanted his head regardless of the facts. Faced with this truth, Governor Slaton saw no recourse but to commute Leo Frank's sentence to life in prison, saving the man's life and allowing him time (all the time in the world, basically) to find a way to prove himself innocent of the crimes that had been attached to his name.

Leo Frank's wife was overjoyed that the doomsday deadline for her husband had been wiped away, but some of the most powerful names in Georgia politics and business were disgusted by what they saw as the governor's cowardice in giving in to the last-ditch plea of a cold-blooded killer. Slaton was threatened repeatedly for the decision he had made and riots nearly overtook the governor's mansion, which gives us some idea of perhaps why no one in power had stepped in before this point to speak up on behalf of Leo Frank. The most powerful proponents of Leo Frank's death sentence were not going to let the commutation of his fate go by the wayside so easily, though. A group of influential bigwigs, headed up by former governor Joseph M. Brown, developed an intricate plan to take over by stealth the prison where Leo Frank was being held, abscond with the hated prisoner, and lynch him beside the grave of Mary Phagan. Many of the most horrific moments that surround the entire Leo Frank debacle would eventually come about as a result of the actions taken by this insatiable mob on their night of unspeakably subverted justice.

More than seventy years after the conviction of Leo Frank, evidence continued to come out that supported his innocence. In 1982, one of the witnesses at the original trial, now in his eighties, swore a new affidavit telling the real story of what he saw on the night when Mary Phagan was murdered, a story that could have exonerated Leo Frank had it come out seventy years earlier. This witness claimed to have seen the real murderer in action with Mary Phagan after the gruesome crime had been committed, but said that he had been afraid to step forward and tell what he knew at the time. Not only did he fear the possible revenge of the killer, he also knew that to go against the crimson tide of hate that was sweeping toward Leo Frank was to put himself, and his own family, in jeopardy. Such things happen, I suppose, when the system becomes twisted to the point where people don't really care about the truth of the matter even when the life of a possibly innocent man hangs in the balance.

This book hit me very hard, and had my mind racing a million different directions at the speed of light all at once. The richness of the story's thoughts and ideas are essentially immeasurable and unending. You could read An Unspeakable Crime fifty or a hundred times and get more out of it with each reading. It has so much to say about such a variety of hugely important topics that I could never address them all in the twenty thousand characters allowed for a review here on Goodreads. An Unspeakable Crime is a nonfiction treasure of literature like I have never seen before, and no recommendation I give it could be high enough. It is one of the most important books that I have ever read, and also one of the very best, a distinction that I don't make lightly at all. An Unspeakable Crime is a masterpiece in every way.

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman in Atlanta, who was falsely accused and found guilty of the murder of fourteen year old Mary Phagan in 1914. Initially, he was sentenced to death but that sentence was later commuted to life in prison by the governor of Georgia. After receiving commutation, Frank was sent to a prison farm in Milledgeville where he was to serve his life sentence. But only two months into that sentence, he was taken at gunpoint from the prison by the "Knights of Mary Phagan" (whose ranks included the sheriff who had first arrested him). These so-called respectable citizens of Atlanta appointed themselves as Frank's judge and jury and lynched him.

In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Paroles and Pardons pardoned Leo Frank, stating: "Without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the State's failure to protect the person of Leo M. Frank and thereby preserve his opportunity for continued legal appeal of his conviction, and in recognition of the State's failure to bring his killers to justice, and as an effort to heal old wounds, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, in compliance with its Constitutional and statutory authority, hereby grants to Leo M. Frank a Pardon."

The pardon, in part, resulted from new testimony. In 1982, Alonzo Mann came forward to tell what he knew about the murder of Mary Phagan. Mann, who was only 14 at the time of the murder, had been working as a message boy for Leo Frank. He saw the janitor for the building coming up from the basement with the body of Mary Phagan. The janitor threatened to kill him if he ever told anyone. Mann did tell his mother, who begged him not to get involved; she did not want her sons life placed in jeopardy and did not believe that Frank would be convicted of the murder. Sadly, she was mistaken; prejudice won out.

This miscarriage of justice resulted from the fears, resentments, and biases that shaped life in the Southern United States at that time. Workers resented being exploited by northern factory owners who had come south to reorganize a declining agrarian economy. Frank's Jewish identity compounded southern resentment toward him, as latent anti-Semitic sentiments, inflamed by US Senator Tom Watson of Georgia, became more pronounced. The fact that newspapers from the North demanded a new trial and condemned the lynching only increased Southern resentment and in fact led to the reestablishment of the Klu Klux Klan, led by none other than Senator Tom Watson.

As I read this book, I could not help but think of recent debates over removing the statues of Confederate war "heroes" in the South. I found myself wondering: Is there a statue in Atlanta, Georgia paying homage to Leo Frank? Why did I never learn his story growing up in the South? Is there a statue in Mississippi honoring Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old black boy from Chicago who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 while visiting relatives there? Who commemorates them? After all, their deaths belong to the same historical lineage as that of General Lee and Jefferson Davis. So if we are to commemorate Lee and Davis, let us also commemorate their victims. Let us place their statues alongside those of their victims. Lee and Davis fought against the United States and for the preservation of the racial hierarchies that ultimately killed Till and Frank. Leave the confederate statues, but let us contextualize them by telling the whole story, so that perhaps we will stop glorifying an idealized image of the ante-bellum South that never existed.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard of this murder before reading this book, but I had no idea that it lead to the birth of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and to the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. I will NEVER understand prejudice. It's so illogical. Yet when a mob gets hold of an illogical idea, everyone is afraid to think contrary to it for fear of being attacked themselves, which makes those few, like Governor Slaton, who did speak out all the more heroic. Leo Frank certainly did not get a fair trial and probably did not commit the crime for which he was convicted. What bothered me especially was this (p.97): "Why did every court rule against Leo Frank? For a start, each court's decision had to be based on points of law, not common sense." I thought the law was based on common sense! I've seen in my own workplace strict adherence to rules flying in the face of common sense. I think there are times when common sense, which is God-given, should overrule man-made laws.

This book is written for high school students, and, indeed, should generate much discussion. The last chapter raises questions that will get them thinking. Alphin also includes books and web sites for further research. I think I'll look for Steve Oney's book And the Dead Shall Rise for a deeper look into the case.
Highly recommended!

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Typical ADL piece to proclaim the innocence of Leo Frank. I was surprised that the author had the decency to not portray Mary Phagan as a promiscuous girl as has often been the case with the mainstream media's attempt to shift the blame to everyone but Frank. I also concede that had the author been in any way critical of Frank the book would not have been published.

[SwensonBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The case of Leo Frank—the Cornell-educated, Jewish supervisor of the Atlanta Pencil Factory who was convicted for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan in 1913 and lynched for the same in 1915—has been with me much as of late. In the last three weeks, I have reviewed Steve Oney’s And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (Pantheon, 2003); attended another performance of Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s musical “Parade” (this time with my 13-year-old daughter); and shopped the Austin Jewish Book Fair where I bought a young adult book by Elaine Marie Alphin: An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank (CarolRhoda Books, 2010).

Would that for every superb work of adult nonfiction (such as Mr. Oney’s), there were another equally compelling, young adult version (such as Ms. Alphin’s). Let’s face it: We can’t all invest the time to read the definitive work on every topic of interest. And the Dead Shall Rise is over 700 pages long. An Unspeakable Crime is only 152.

If you want concise, yet substantial information on an important subject, look to the young adult section of your bookstore or library. You may even find, as I have, that reading the young adult version enhances your experience of the adult version. For instance, Alphin provides a timeline and a list of characters—something I had wished for while reading Oney. Most importantly, Alphin offers a trim storyline which is worth reading before the Oney book as a preview or after it as a review.

Alphin successfully presents her young readers with the social context in which this drama unfolded, explaining that not only was Frank a Jew, but also a northerner and an industrialist who was perceived as imposing a new and unwelcome order on the traditionally agrarian south. Just when the teen reader would feel overwhelmed by the failure of Frank’s appeals, Alphin explains: “. . . each court’s decision had to be based on points of law, not common sense.” There were also political scores to be settled and elections to be won—complicated motives that challenge how a teen understands justice and society.

Alphin does not shy away from grim details—the condition Mary’s strangled body was found in, the possibility that blood on her dress was the result of menstruation rather than rape, the knife-wielding inmate at the Georgia State Prison Farm who slashed Leo’s throat, or the grinding of Leo’s face in the dirt after he was cut down from the tree.

There are lurid details that Alphin thankfully left out (my daughter does not need to read about Jim Conley’s anal intercourse with Annie Maude Carter). But there’s one detail I wish Alphin had kept in: the shit in the shaft. When detectives escorted Frank to the factory to identify the body, they rode the elevator to the basement where they were met by a horrible stench as the elevator car landed on fresh feces. Jim Conley had moved his bowels on the basement floor in the elevator shaft while the elevator car was parked above; ergo, he could not have carried Mary’s body with Frank on the elevator to the basement—as he testified in court—without disturbing the feces. Interestingly, the logistics of the elevator car, shaft, basement, and trap door finally made sense to me because of an illustration in Alphin’s book.

Teenage workers in the pencil factory played a pivotal role in Frank’s trial, and Alphin uses their stories to pose important questions to her young readers: Why did so many people lie on the witness stand? Was it peer pressure or emotional mass hysteria? She concludes the book with the story of Alonzo Mann, Frank’s 14-year-old office boy, who, almost 70 years later in 1982, signed an affidavit stating that he saw Conley carrying Mary’s body, but failed to testify to this because he feared retaliation from Conley and because his parents told him not to get involved.

In 2011, An Unspeakable Crime received both IPPY (Independent Publishers) and NCSS (National Council for the Social Sciences) Carter G. Woodson awards for young adult nonfiction. I look forward to giving my daughter this book for Hanukkah.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because of my familiarity with the stirring lyrics and story of the Broadway musical "Parade," I picked this book up today during a library activity with my students and I finished it today after I got home. I could not put it down. The narrative of what happened to Leo Frank and the ensuing trial is tragically gripping. This book is well researched, well constructed, and I would recommend it to any of my students or anyone interested in the affects of racism, bigotry, antisemitism/prejudice, political corruption, or judicial injustice.

[Mrs. Sittig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating and so very disturbing at the same time. It is scary to see what prejudice can drive people to do.

[Ethan · Rating 2 out of 5]

An Unspeakable Crime is a nonfiction book about the murder of Mary Phagan. Mary Phagan was a thirteen-year-old girl who lived in a poor part of atlanta, Georgia. She was killed on Saturday, April 26, 1913, Confederate Memorial Day. Their first suspect was Newt Lee, a Black security guard who was working when Mary was killed. But the detectives knew that the people of Atlanta wanted someone who wasn't black to be convicted because they thought if someone who was black was convicted it would just be because they were black and not because there was enough evidence. Their next suspect was Leo Frank. The detectives who talked to him thought he seemed very suspicious, and therefore everyone Atlanta agreed. Leo ended up being convicted because of the prejudice people of Atlanta peer pressured all judges into convicting him. All of the judges thought that if the did anything to help Leo Frank, they would be endangered. Leo Frank kept fighting and postponing the date execution, and because of this, on August 16, 1915, a group of people decided to take matters into their own hands. They kidnapped Leo from his cell, and hung him. Nearly 70 years later, Alonzo Mann signed an affidavit saying he had seen Jim Conley carry Mary Phagan down to the basement which had proven Leo Frank innocent. This mystery book which I thought was not very good, because there were a lot of slow parts, was divided into chapters, each titled a quote from within the chapter and also a regular title. It also had a lot of pictures, and it was organized very well. One thing that I thought the author did really well, was not being bias. I read the whole book, without knowing who the author thought was guilty. Also, He gave a lot of information, without giving away what actually happened until the very end. I could also tell that the author was very educated on this topic. I recommend it to anyone who is a good reader, and likes nonfiction books about crimes or mysteries. I also would like to point out, that there are some parts explaining the crime scene that are very graphic and explicit, and may be viewed as disgusting for a certain audience. I rate this book a five out of ten.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to. Good summary of the case (the audio was only three hours) and researched descriptions of Frank, his family, court figures/politicians, and post-Reconstruction Southern culture. The only one who didn't get much mention--and this goes for a lot of true crime--was the 13 yo murder victim, Mary Phagen, who gets lost to the other details.

Still very engaging if not as in depth as a longer book would be. The reader's voice was something else: Stephen Colbert + Phil Hartman +Transatlantic accent. ✨

Definitely want to read more about this case, but many MANY of the online resources are clearly anti-Semitism and racist sites with neutral sounding names.

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

April 26, 1913 -- Mary Phagan, a young 14-year-old girl, is on her way to a parade but stops at National Pencil Company ti pick up her $1.20 paycheck. The next morning she is found dead in the basement.

The investigation begins with the African American "night watchman" that found Mary, but Newt Lee is eventually found to be innocent. Times are hard in Georgia at the time and as it turns out antisemitism is high because suddenly everyone turns their attention to the director of National Pencil Company, Leo Frank. Called a 'Yankee Jew' by many, Frank will be accused of murdering Mary. Several 'witnesses' even get on the stand and start accusing him of having inappropriate relationships with the young girls (including a suggestion that he enjoyed oral sex because, as a Jew with a circumcised penis, it was the only sexual pleasure he could find). The case gets a lot of attention and eventually a jury decided that Frank was guilty and sentenced him to hang. This was later commuted to life imprisonment (giving Frank a chance to appeal). But, a group of 'townies' including Judge Morris get together on August 17, 1915 and abduct Frank and then lynch him.

As you can imagine -- I am enraged because the lynch mob never saw any penalties for murdering Frank. That's right, I said murdering, because now in 2019 it seems pretty clear that Frank did not kill Mary. It makes much more sense that Jim Conley, a janitor at the factory, actually killed Mary. Many years later (almost 70?) a young boy admits that he saw Conley with Mary but was afraid to tell the truth. Several other authors have also taken a peek at the case and tend to agree Leo M. Frank was innocent. He was murdered because he was Jewish.

For further reading see: And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank.

This is a great "smaller" read on the Mary Phagan case. It is great for true crime fans. And if you ever want to see the ugliness of antisemitism the murder of Leo Frank is an example that resonates today.

[Kokoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vaya cantidad de errores y mentiras ocurrieron en el juicio del señor Frank.
Todo parece indicar era inocente pero aun a día de hoy hay muchos que se aferran a la idea él fue el asesino, pero como bien dice el autor la verdad nunca lo sabremos.

Hay cosas que me sorprenden, creí quien había linchado al señor Frank era una muchedumbre enfurecida sedienta de sangre para vengar la muerte de la niña, pero en realidad era un grupo de personas “bien” compuesta por políticos, jueces, policía y algunos civiles, una vez terminada su “justicia” llego la turba gritando vítores, cómo no se tomaron fotos y parte de la ropa del señor Frank y se vendían cual suvenir veraniego de hoy en día. Y la otra sorpresa fue que “gracias” a la muerte de la niña surgió un grupo de “justicieros” llamados los caballeros de Mary que evolucionaron rápido a lo que ahora denominamos KKK.

Adía de hoy este tipo de linchamiento sigue existiendo, pero o son infrecuentes o no se publicitan porque sucede en algún pueblo/ciudad/estado/país nada importante, pero ahora existe otro tipo de linchamiento, el que sucede en redes sociales que puede arruinar la vida de quien está en el ojo del huracán hasta tal punto que puede ocurrir un suicidio. A veces los medios de comunicación se unen a la “fiesta”, lamentablemente lo he visto en casos de supuesta violación donde al hombre o grupo de hombres se les dice de todo, pero días, semanas o meses después la mujer confiesa todo fue mentira solo escucho grillos. La gente sigue teniendo sed de venganza y sentirse justiciera, solo que ahora la tecnología ayuda para linchar a las personas, tal vez algunas lo merezcan, pero cuando en realidad esa persona era inocente ...

Al final, transcribo las últimas palabras del libro, todo es cuestión de conciencia.

“It surely can not be long before I am free and vindicated, and right and innocence come into their own.”
Leo Frank, parte de su respuesta a un telegrama de un niño que creía en su inocencia. Tres semanas después de escribir esto fue linchado.

[Msimone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after I attended the play PARADE, a recounting of the murder of Mary Phagen and the prosecution of Leo Frank for murder. The full facts of the trial and conviction of Frank are available in this book : It includes newspaper photos, articles and testimonies about the crime , trial, and prosecution. It also shows how the individual involved in this case were affected, and how many , especially the prosecutor, used the prosecution of Frank to help their political careers .
This story is about the life of a Jewish yankee who was superintendent of a pencil factory in Marietta , Georgia accused of killing a teenaged employee found in the basement of the factory he managed . The evidence against Leo Frank was based on contrived and concealed facts of the murder . The public eagerly desires Frank’s conviction, Gossip and disinformation about the murder by the prosecution appeared in the press sail before and during the trial. The case tantalized the public nationally Prosecutor Dorsey became governor of Georgia after the verdict. The mob inside and outside the courtroom scream justice for Mary Fagan and death to the Jew.


This book captures a period in the South after reconstruction when the confederacy was reunited with the North . The Klu Klux Klan took law into their own hands, and delivered justice .

The historical research provides the facts about the crime and the prosecution for the reader to conclude who Leo Frank was and whether he was guilty
Of the crime.

[Helga Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this well researched book. The author explores the question “Was an innocent man wrongly accused of murder?”
In 1913 post-Reconstruction, after the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, the authorities look for her murderer. The authorities decided to indict Leo Frank, the Superintendent of the pencil factory where she worked because he was Jewish and a Northerner. Antisemitism during this time clouded the investigation of the crime even though the obvious suspect had confessed to his lawyer.

Alphin traces the story of injustice, antisemitism in a community and deliberate hiding of evidence. Lies and corruption. She uses old photographs, newspaper stories, copies of notes found by Mary Phagan’s body, and postcards of Leo Franks lynching.

The author’s chronological structure of the account of Franks arrest, indictment, conviction, and lynching is helpful to understand the court system and impact of antisemitism and resentment towards Northerners. This book reads like a mystery. How did Phagan’s body end up in the basement? Was an African American worker involved?

In 1982, an eyewitness confessed who the true murderer was, but he was scared to speak out because he was just a teenager at the time. He corroborated that the actual murderer was the man who confessed to his lawyer who kept silent. Leo’s death sentence was commuted by the Governor of Georgia in 1915 and an official pardon was issued in 1986. The author states, “Atlanta’s Mayor Woodward called Leo’s lynching for Maty Phagan’s murder ‘a just penalty for an unspeakable crime’”. Mary’s murder was an unspeakable crime, but so was Leo Franks.

This was a shocking true crime in our history which revitalized the KKK and prompted the Anti-Defamation League. It is a disturbing and eye-opening story.

[Direwolfgavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes me so incredibly angry and sad at the same time. How could our justice system fail Leo Frank so badly that he was convicted based upon lies by the witnesses and then hung by an angry mob? This book states the facts of this horrendous crime of a 13 year old girl getting raped and then killed inside a pencil factory where she had worked. Unfortunately, Leo Frank was in the wrong place (the South) at the wrong time (early 1900s) as a "Yankee Jew". Sentiments were still skewed because of the Civil War and Sherman's March, so Southerners at the time were still hostile towards the North. Because of this, the police tried everything in their power to frame him for a crime he didn't commit.

This book is a great read and also very short so you can probably finish it in a day. It just makes my blood boil to think that the people that killed him continued to think they were in the right, and that they did nothing wrong by hanging an innocent man!

[Rachel Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew absolutely nothing about this case going into reading this book, and I find that occasionally the author has a tendency to tell instead of show us (through evidence) about things that happened. However, it is a YA book about a historical crime, and in that respect, it's hardly unique. It was an engaging book, and it seems like the author did a lot of research. It's also fascinating to read about because it is such a complex case, where political ambition, racism, classism, and general prejudice intersect to convict what was most probably an innocent man.

I was also interested to learn of the relation of this case to the resurgence of the KKK. It's a fascinating read, though I would want to read perhaps a couple other books about it to have a more sure opinion on the event.

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This is a compelling and well-researched account of a tragic case of injustice in early 20th century Atlanta. Leo Frank was wrongly convicted and unjustly murdered for the death of 13-year-old Mary Phagan. What makes tales like this one even more heartbreaking is that Mary and her family never received justice either (though not all of them would agree). Her true killer walked free as Leo paid for her death with his life. Highly recommended for teens (or adults) who are interested in criminal justice, true crime, American history, and social issues. Trigger warning - images of Frank’s body after his lynching are included.

[Terry]

BTSYA / Teen Reader (18): An Unspeakable Crime is certainly an interesting read. In the first chapter or two, I was already invested in discovering who murdered Mary Phagan and whether Leo Frank was the true perpetrator. The remainder of the book did not disappoint in satisfying my curiosity. I think that like myself, other readers will form their own opinion on the case. They may be upset by or pleased with the outcome, but everyone will be intrigued from start to finish.

[Kenneth Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think the story of Emmitt Till is bad then you must read this. An innocent man not only convicted but lynched by prominent members of Southern Society. No case in documented history better displays the implicate evil in mob rule. This should be required reading in every high school in America.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

What terrible crimes! Both,that the murderer of Mary escaped justice for his horrific murder of Mary, and the miserable injustice which Leo Frank and his loved ones were subjected to, are just awful. I'd never heard of it previously, but it is just so sad. Also, it's well written and researched.

[Diana H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those cases where the more you know, the more you realize that you still don't know the truth.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to read it for school. Pretty good book and can easily finish it in a day. Nonfiction retelling of the killing of mary phagan and her convicted killer leo frank.

[Mary Montgomery H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just another example of antisemitism in the USA

[Vel Veeter]

This is I suppose a YA historical account, but it’s pretty harrowing. It’s a harrowing story, but the author does not pull any punches about the history details, the awfulness of all the events, and the horrors of the violence, racism, and antisemitism involved.

Recently in the news, white supremacist domestic terrorists disrupted productions for the show “Parade” which covers these same events and since I was not entirely familiar with the case, I picked up this book. I chose a YA book because I figured I wanted a crash course before looking into it further. The case also has later historical echoes partly in the lynching murders during the Civil Rights Movements of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.

Here we’re in 1913 Atlanta. Mary Phagan was a 13 year old girl who worked in a pencil factory. She apparently went to work on day on a day off to secure wages from the week before. Hours later she was found murdered in the cellar of the factory, beaten, and choked. After investigating the events of her death police began to circulate around a number of possible suspects. Two primary suspects ultimately emerge, Jim Conley, a Black maintenance worker, and a manager Leo Frank, a Jewish man born in Texas, but who moved to Atlanta by way of New York City and Cornell University. Conley eventually “confesses” that he was paid by Frank to help move the body from the hallway near Frank’s office to the basement. Leo Frank denies all involvement and knowledge. In the Kafkaesque ways that all justice systems work, by denying the crime and by working through a lawyer, he’s seen as less credible and hiding something. Of course being Jewish and the North, he’s further suspected. Through prosecutorial malfeasance such as paying off witnesses, suppressing evidence, and lying, Frank is brought to the grand jury where he’s indicted. His defense becomes a somewhat cause celeb, and he’s afforded a good defense (which seems to enrage plenty who stand against him). A growing mob outside the courtroom intrudes into the proceeding through shouting and threats, and when Frank is found guilty, he’s not even in the courtroom, removed by the judge for his safety. He spends several months on death row before he’s granted a clemency hearing with the governor, who hears the case, clearly believes Frank is not guilty and commutes the sentences, and subsequently ends his political career. Local corrupt media continues to pump rage into the populace and Frank is kidnapped from prison by several connected citizens who lynch him by hanging that night. Attempts to find out the names of the lynch mob are thwarted legally (though plenty of people knew) in part by some of the mob being on the grand jury during the inquest.

The book is not as detailed as it could be and sometimes hedges just a little too much, but for a book about injustice written for teens, it’s relatively unsparing.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The murder of Mary Phagan must be paid for with blood. And a Negro's blood would not suffice."

This incredible statement sums up the feelings of frightening number of Atlanta's population in 1913, the year thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan's body was discovered in the basement of the pencil factory where she worked. Though police initially suspected the black night watchman and later evidence showed that another black employee likely committed the rape and murder, detectives and then the prosecutor seized on the idea that Leo Frank, the northern, Jewish factory manager had to be responsible. And they seized on that notion with the ferocity of a pack of pitbulls.

Leo Frank was the type of man deeply disliked by the majority of Atlantans, people who were still smarting from the "War of Northern Aggression" and the aftermath of the Reconstruction fifty years after the fact. Indeed on the day Mary Phagan died, the city was celebrating Confederate Memorial Day with a parade Mary intended to attend. She never made it. She went to pick up her small paycheck at the factory, and, as the author puts it, "She never left the building alive. And she was not the only one to die."

Here is a harrowing story of twisted Southern "justice," anti-Semitism, racism, and willful disregard for evidence. Leo Frank and his family were the victims of a hideous injustice, and the extent to which the prosecutor persecuted Frank cannot be overstated. The prosecutor not only hid evidence that spoke against the theory of Frank as the killer, but put pressure on multiple witnesses to lie. When one witness recanted her statement, she was badly beaten--and this was allowed to happen because she was black. The sheer number of people willing to lie or who were too afraid to speak out boggles the mind. This story is a tragedy all the way around, yet nearly 100 years later, some descendants of the town still believe in Leo Frank's guilt.

Frustratingly the copy of the book that I read is missing pages 97 through 112. Instead it repeats the previous ten pages, then leaps ahead to page 113. And it's our library's only copy too! So, I missed a little bit, but I got the jist. And the jist is chilling.

[Ray-ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 1913, an innocent girl, Mary Phagan, is brutally murdered in the basement of the factory at which she worked by superintendent Leo Frank. Or was she? In the book An Unspeakable Crime, the Persecution and Prosecution of Leo Frank we hear about the case where Mary Phagan is killed. In Atlanta, Georgia, the night watchman named Newt Lee found her bloody body in a pile of sawdust and debris like material. Leo Frank was the superintendent at the pencil factory where Mary worked and was supposedly in his office when Mary was killed. Being a Yankee, Leo Frank was almost instantly accused because he wasn't from Georgia and to add, he was a Jew. People stated that he was in the building, which lead to inferring the murder was on him. Someone even said Frank payed him to write a note to lay next to Mary's body to throw off the detectives. People were very biased against Frank and told lies to get him arrested. During the book we follow Frank from his home, to the courts, to his jail cell, and later to the tree were he was lynched.

This book is well written and uses many good word choices. Suspense is held throughout the book, because you want to know who really killed Mary. The author, Elaine Marie Alphin, describes the scenes well and leaves no room for confusion.
Alphin uses pictures to help us better understand the location, and the look of things. For example, she shows us a picture of a newspaper article highlighting Frank's case, this helps us because it shows the bias opinions of the people of 1913. Many quotes are added from the court cases. At the end, there is a time line of all the events that have occurred. If you are to do a project on a non-fiction book, I would recommend this book because there is an index, glossary of legal terminology, timeline, an author's note, further readings, major figures in Frank's case, and more. There is a bit of gore in this book, so reading in front of small children isn't a well advised idea. Overall, Alphin is a great author and the book is very well written and executed. I would rate this book 4.5 out of a possible 5.

[Shan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard of this case, but I'm glad that my library offered this as an audiobook. I had never actually realized that there was/is a lot of anti-Semitism in America in the 1900s.

I'm still reeling with anger. Why couldn't Leo Frank get a break? According to this book, it's mostly because he was a Jew. Not just any Jew. No, he was a Jewish Yankee. This trial happened in Georgia in 1913, over a hundred years ago! He's convicted of murder, tries and tries and tries to appeal, finally finds a merciful governor (who I found to be heroically brave) to commute Leo's sentence from death to life in prison. Then, after only being in prison a month, another inmate slashes his throat. Surprisingly, he survives, hoping to someday get out of prison. BUT then a mob of high officials take him, and lynch him. On LeoFrank.org it's written, "Southern men from all walks of life, were forced to string him up when it became clear the Jews were backroom dealing to save the punk from well-deserved justice." And the people who took the law into their own hands and committed murder of Leo, an innocent man? Not one got punished.

I can't believe that even now, in 2016, after all the lack of evidence pointing to Leo and with of all the evidence pointing to Jim Conley, that there are STILL anti-Semitism websites dedicated to this case, calling Leo a rich Jew with a smug face who deserved his hanging. He's also referred to as The Jew. Not to mention that it's "Jew lovers" who are trying to pin the murder onto Jim Conley. Apparently, also, "Nervy Jews today feel free as a bird erecting public historical markers depicting Frank as an innocent victim of evil White people" [LeoFrank.org]. Um, no. Nervy Jews? I just don't understand the hatred. Regardless, there are now signs near Leo's grave that say in 1986 he was granted a pardon--because most people realize now of his innocence, AND of his UNFAIR trial.

Sometimes, I can't believe what comes of our justice system. The guilty going free (OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony) and then the innocent being put to death, like Leo. And, sometimes, I can't believe how people still act today.

[Anna]

Elaine Marie Alphin wrote this book to resurrect the murder of a young girl by the name of Mary. Alhin’s second motive was to garner reader response as to who they thought killed Mary. Did the night watchmen kill her or was it Leo, the Yankee Jew, or maybe the janitor was in on it? Was it fair that Leo was killed before he could prove his innocence or was he too guilty in the public’s opinion?

The theme of this book is the mystery of the murder of Mary. Who killed Mary? The readers have all the evidence so was Frank killed because the public thought he was guilty? Did Leo really kill the girl all by himself, or was he involved in the murder at all? Did the janitor just do as Leo told him or was it his plan all along? Was it just a robbery, or was it premeditated?

The style of this non-fiction book was a description because the reader found out the information when it happened in real life all that time ago. “In the spring of 1913, their married life became even happier when Lucille proudly announced that she was pregnant.” Elaine explains what the people were feeling right when it happened. “Newt Lee’s continued protestations of innocence under their aggressive questioning convinced both detectives that the night watchmen was not guilty of the murder of Mary Phagan.” It was a mystery because you had all the clues just like the detectives but one had to figure out as one went along who the real killer was. “This is what Dorsey had been looking for: eyewitness testimony that proved Leo Frank’s guilt.”

I really enjoyed this book because the author gave just enough information to keep the reader interested without getting overwhelmed with unnecessary details. The only thing I would change about this book would be to add an ending but I do know that the real killer was never identified. I would recommend this book to a friend to read. I would definitely read a book like this again.

[Ashley H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book, “An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank” is about how an innocent man was wrongly accused of murder. He was convicted of murder, merely because of intolerance of his religion. The book tells the story that began on April 26, 1913, when thirteen-year-old, Mary Phagan planned to meet friends that day in Atlanta, Georgia. First, she decided to stop at the pencil factory where she worked, to pick up her paycheck. Unfortunately, Mary never left the building alive. A black watchman found Mary's body brutally beaten and raped in the basement of the factory. Police arrested the watchman, yet they weren't completely sure that he was the killer. Soon after, the police paid a visit to Leo Frank, the factory's superintendent, who was both a northerner and a Jew. Influenced by the media and the prejudiced sentiments about Jews at the time, the detectives made Frank their prime suspect with no evidence. This decision showed the impact of anti-Semitism and resentment toward Northerners at this time in our nation’s history. Leo Frank was on every front-page of the newspaper for two years. He was sentenced to death, but the Governor of Georgia recognized the mockery of justice and commuted his sentence to life in prison. Prominent members of the public refused to accept this commutation and they planned and succeeded in kidnapping Leo Frank from jail and lynching him. (Not to mention, his lynchers were not even punished!) To this day it is still one of the most controversial incidents of the twentieth century. It is quite hard to imagine that after being put on trial with no evidence against him, he was still imprisoned and hung. It truly marks a turning point in the history of racial and religious hatred in America, leading directly to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League and to the rebirth of the modern Ku Klux Klan.

[Marjorie Ingall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was shocked by how much I liked this. Would be a great gift for budding true-crime fans ... and I know whereof I speak. When I was a kid, I devoured The Stranger Beside Me and read everything I could about the Black Dahlia. I would have LOVED this – and it would have been way more educational than the dreck I was reading. It’s rigorously researched and very, very gripping. The story, in case you haven't had it drilled into your head as part of growing up Jewish and paranoid in America (or in case you haven't seen the musical Parade): One spring day in Atlanta in 1913, 13-year-old Mary Phagan put on a pretty violet dress and went to pick up her paycheck at the National Pencil Company. She intended to go from there to the Confederate Memorial Day parade. She never made it. Her body was found in the factory basement, a cord around her throat, her dress pushed up past her knees. Leo Frank, the pencil factory’s supervisor, who was seen as a rich, dirty Yankee Jewish interloper, was convicted of the crime in a rigged trial. When Georgia’s governor commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment, a crowd of furious citizens kidnapped Frank from prison and lynched him. The miscarriage of justice led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. Alphin’s book, chock-full of photos and newspaper clippings, tells the story in an immensely readable way, like a horrifying, absorbing mystery novel. Alphin presents evidence about who really committed the crime, offers a picture of post-Reconstruction-era Southern bigotry, and names the prominent citizens who led the lynching party. I do wonder why it's not getting more buzz -- I see major crankiness about minor factual errors on its Amazon page, but the larger story and conclusions are to me pretty friggin' convincing.

[Taryn]

An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank is a biography written by Elaine Marie Alphin. This suspenseful biography left me with wanting more. The crime occurred in the early 1900's and involved a teenager who was brutally murdered and whether or not Leo Frank had anything to do with this crime. Through out the book, many facts and theories are distributed and make you wonder how cruel people can be. Author Alphin did not ever side with any theory; she laid down the facts and left it up to the readers for discussion. The story has conflicting sides and keeps the readers attention within each page. The amount of facts and evidence displayed in this book is incredible, to the point of you wanting to become a detective yourself.
An Unspeakable Crime consists of chapters, pictures, and hardcore evidence. Many of the pages are separated into one page having text and the other page consisting of a newsletter, document, etc. The author wrote in chronological order and kept the organization of each event clear and concise so readers could easily follow along. This story has not been addressed for years until Alphin decided to pick it back up and acknowledge what happened or what might have happened. The pictures are all black and white and the text is italicized when it is a letter from someone. Author Alphin created a masterpiece for young adult readers who are interested in biographies, crime, investigations, and suspense.