The murder of Mary Phagan and the trial of Leo Frank | ATL Vault

Mary Phagan had only two things on her mind on April 26, 1913. First, it was Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia, and she was excited to show off her new dress. Second, she had to pick up her paycheck of $1.20 from Leo Frank, her boss at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, where she worked to help support her widowed mother who ran a local boarding house.

Phagan ate a late breakfast of cabbage and bread around 11:30 a.m., and then headed to the factory. She would never be seen alive again.

Phagan’s body was discovered early the next morning by night watchman Newt Lee, who was making his rounds and came upon her in the factory’s filthy basement. Two days later, police arrested Frank - believed to be the last person to have seen Phagan alive - and charged him with her murder.

Phagan’s murder and Frank’s trial captured the nation’s attention, and until the Atlanta child murders of the late 1970s and early 80s, was the city’s most sensational. Two years after he was convicted, Frank was abducted from his cell at the Georgia State Prison in Milledgeville, driven to Marietta and lynched.