Two metro Atlanta museums will host a lecture Sunday on the case of Leo Frank.
The Marietta Museum of History will host the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum’s lecture at 2 p.m. June 23 at 1 Depot Street in Marietta. The cost to attend the lecture is free for Breman Museum members and $10 for everyone else.
Sunday’s lecture will be led by legal scholar Van Pearlberg, who has studied the case extensively.
Frank, a Jewish pencil factory superintendent, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1915 for raping and killing 13-year-old Mary Phagan, who worked at the factory. Frank’s verdict was largely based on the testimony of Jim Conley, a janitor at the facility, and aided by anti-Semitic beliefs.
In 1982, a death bed confession by Alonzo Mann, a former office boy at the factory, confirmed what many thought all along. Mann said he witnessed Conley carrying Phagan's body to the basement of the factory on the day of her death. He kept silent, he said, because Conley threatened to kill him.
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Gov. John Slaton commuted Frank's sentence to life in prison two days before his scheduled execution, and Frank was transported to a state prison farm in Milledgeville. Slaton's decision angered many and a group of civic leaders from Cobb County — where Phagan was from — traveled to the middle Georgia town and kidnapped Frank. He was brought back to Marietta where he was lynched from an oak tree on property belonging to former sheriff William J. Frey.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced in May that Frank’s case will be reviewed by the office as part of the new Conviction Integrity Unit.
Sunday's lecture is final installment of the Breman Museum's Historic Jewish Atlanta Tours. Visit the museum's website to purchase tickets.
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