Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, April 28, 1913, Image 2

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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN ANT) NEWS. MONDAY. APRIL 28. 1912. T SUSPECT, SLAIN GIRL’S AUNT AND SISTER At tlir riL'Iit is Miss Ruth I’hagan. aunt, of Mary Phagan, and in hi*r arms is Miss Ollie Phagan, sis- 11• r of tile victim whom she is trying to comfort. Below, the old (jranitc Hotel building at 37-39 •South Forsyth Stre<*t, now the home of the National Pencil Company, and scene of the slaying. charging h Gar»t va real at 8:4 Sohlff, assists factory. A f< on a car bour The officeri tied by teloy ■watch for a description. The detec; arrested on a warrant m .Judire Powers* court, n with murder, last ween before his nr- this morning by Herbert ant superintendent of the cw minutes later he was rid for Marietta, s in Marietta were noti- mne and were on the man answering Gant’s cm began to Mpread their nets for Gant on significant sto ries coming from half a dozen differ ent sources. All were to the effect that Gant had tried on many occasions to pay atten tions to the little girl, and that his infatuation for her was evident even in the factory. Gant was employed as shipping clerk for some time with the pencil company, but left three weeks ago Saturdav He was seen Friday and Saturday, the laii< r time by Superin tendent Leo M Frank, from whom hs asked permission to go into the fac tory to get a pair of shoes he had left. Then he was seen again this morn ing near the factory, while the de tectives were looking in another part of the city for him. The fact that he had been seen about the factory Friday and Satur day was recalled by employees when his name was mentioned in the case. Herbert Sc hi IT. assistant superin tendent of the factory, was Kitting at his desk in a front office on the sec ond floor to-day when he saw Gant come out of n near-beer saloon across the way and hurry dov.n Forsyth Street toward Alabama Street. He was dressed in a blue suit and wore a :f I * f |s-j*ass» 3 YDUTHS SEN GARDEN TELLS SW SAT u straw hat. lie carried a package under his arm Detective Starnes was notified, but by the time he had taken up the trail. •ared. Officers were le railway stations Gant had disap] dispatched to and to the Ma thwart him if hi escaping. E. F. Hollows tta Street cars to d any thoughts of timekeeper at the FLOWERS and FLORAL DESIGNS ATLANTA FLORAL CO. Both Phones Number 4. 41 Peachtree ATUNT& ALL THIS WEEK H I L E>cf(t Kr, i. Ihur. Kjlits TH „ EATER Miss BILLY LONG Weti anti $a And Company In A Butterfly on the Wheel Rights 15c to 5<k I First Tim© In Atlanta LYRIC This Week Mats. Tubs., Thars., Sat. BILLY THE KID A DRAMA OF THE WEST. With the Young American Star. BERKELY HASWELL. Home? Again With Vaudeville FORSYTH Mat * To d, y 2:30 rUnt.Ol l T% To-night at 8:30 Sophye Barnard--Lou Angier &. Co.—Chn* Richards — Gaby — Heim Ch ildren—Barr 4. Hope—Munel 4 Fr*ncl6 and Others.... JfEXT WEEK Giu Etiw« r ti Ktd kdb*fri factory, said that he was aware of Gant’s infatuation for the girl, but did not know that she accepted his attentions at all. Gant had told him. he said, that he had been greatly attracted by Mary Pliagan and had walked home with her and had been with her on other occasions Mary Pirk. a girl who worked near Mary Phagan in the pencil factory, said to-day that she knew the mur dered girl well and that she had hoard her girl companions talking a number of times of Gant's infatuation for the Phagan girl She had heard she said, that Gant frequently walked home with her and paid her other attentions. Police detectives, after an all- forenoon conference with l<eo Frank, permitted the factory superintendent to go one result of the conference, however, was to gut an important ad mission from Newt Lee. the negro | night watchman, who is being held as j a material witness. Gant Admitted to Factory Saturday. Mr. Frank told the detectives that after leaving the factory Saturday | i vening he called up Lee and asked i him if Gant, who had asked perm is - i sion of Frank a few minutes before to g«*t his shoes m an upstairs room, had left the building yet. The negro answered that Gant had obtained his J shoes and left the building within ten I minutes. This noon, however. Attorneys Lu- ler Rosser and Herbert Haas, who ere representing Superintendent i*ank. went to Lee'St cell after the inference in the detectives'office had mcluded and questioned him sharp- After catching him in a . misstate- ent, they induced him to admit that his first testimony in regard to the time Gant was in the building was misleading. He thought that Gant was there 20 minutes or half an hour. He added the remark, which is re garded as highly important, that Gant, while in the building, called up und talked to some girl. Recent Movements a Mystery. The ease against Gant is made stronger by the mystery surrounding his movements during the past three weeks Mrs. F. C. Terrell, of 284 East Linden Avenue, with whom Gant has been hoarding, told a Georgian re porter this morning that three weeks ago to-day Gant packed up all his be longings and left her house, telling her he had secured a good position in California and was going there at onee. Gant's object in telling the Cali fornia trip story to Mrs. Terrell is unknown, but detectives consider his movements during the three weeks that have elapsed since then a strong link in the chain of evidence that is being woven about him. Mrs. Terrell wild she had not re ceived any word from Gant, and sup posed he was in California. She con sidered his silence unusual, because hitherto whenever Gant had been away from home, for even a day or two, he had always sent postcards or j a letter. .Mrs. Terrell also declared that Gant had known the Phagan family in Ma rietta, where Mary Phagan lived for a number of years. Gant has been liv ing with the Terrelf family for seven years. Cp to four or five years ago the Terrells were neighbors of the i Phagans in Marietta, and little Mary | often played around the Terrell home. I It was there that Gant became ac- J quainjed with her. Mrs Terrell said, j Gant is about 22 years old. Strange Notes Increase Mystery. A fev inches from the body were i found two remarkably strange notes, j Th* s* notes, incoherent and almost 11- 1 legible, only serve to increase the mystery. Detectives declared there was no doubt that these notes were written by the murderer and were a feeble and tragically grotesque effort at a ruse. They purport to have been written by the girl, and tlie wording would seem to indicate that she had written them after she wag in the throes of death. "A tall, b'ack negro did this." is the substance of the two notes. The police were notified by the janitor, and several officers were quickly on the scene, immediately staning a thorough investigation. After finding that all of the doors and windows to the building were se curely fastened, the police took Newt Lee into custody on suspicion, believ ing that he eould throw light on the tragedy. Lee carried the keys to the building, but protested that he nati admitted no one to the building, and that he hefd no idea that any one had been inside until he found the body. Detectives are certain that the ne gro ean explain the mystery of how the girl found her way into the build ing. even if he did not actually com mit the murder. Negro Pleads Total Ignorance. The negro’s sole statement to de tectives wince his arrest has been: "I didn’t know nothing about a un til i found th< body,** Detectives, however, declare the locked doors and windows render thia statement unreasonable. The negro was put through a grill ing examination time and again Sun day and last night, but no amount of questioning could induce him to change his "know nothing” statement. To every question he replied: T don't know not’.dng about it.* Detectives are sure th • negro has not told all he knows, and will hold him unt: the mystery is cleared. .The theory that the crime was the work of a negm held full sway and was assiduously followed b\ detee- The story of three m m leading a weeping, unwilling girl on Forsyth Street Saturday night is being sounded to its depth*- to-day by At lanta policemen in their efforts to un ravel the mystery of Mary Phagan’s death. The story is told by E. 3. Skipper, of 224 1-2 Peters Street. He declared that on Saturday night about 10 o’clock he saw a girl whose appear ance fitted the description of the girl- victim. Three men were with her, all of them young anti flashily dressed. The girl was reeling slightly, Skip per declares,,as if rendered dizzy by drug-. She was crying, and time and again lagged behind her companions, as if she feared to go farther. Each time they insisted and she seemed powerless to resist them. Skipper declared that he can iden tify the three men. He followed in| their wake when first ho saw the par ty on Pryor Street, near Trinity Ave nue. At Trinity they turned toward Whitehall, he said, the men urging the girl to accompany them. Down White hall to Forsyth he accompanied them, and saw them turn north toward Mitchell Street. There he left them, going toward the Terminal Station, his original destination. Skipper said that the girl did not appear intoxicated, but merely sick and pitifully weak. Following closely on the heels of his story came to the police to-day the statement of Adam Woodward, night watchman in th • Williams Liv ery Stable, 35 Forsyth Street, three doors from tile factors building. He told the detectives that about 11 o’clock he heard a woman s ream sev eral times, but, considering it the cry of a merrymaker, pa .I no attention to it. Soda Clerk Sought in Phagan Mystery Weeping Girl Like Mary Phagan Seen Saturday in Company of Soda Jerker. The police late this afternoon began a search for a soda water clerk who was seen talking to a girl answering the description of Mary Phagan Sat- j urday night at 12:10 .o’clock, in front of a rooming house at 286 1 -2 White hall Street. Tlie information wav given to the police by L. B. and R. C. King, brothers, who said they passed the 'Whitehall Street address at that hour and saw the couple. Their attention was called to them, they say. by the fact that the gild w; s sobbing. As the King brothers passed they heard the girl say: "Don’t do that: be a friend to me." in company with the King brother- three detectives went to Forsyth and Whitehall Streets, where the clerk is said to he working. If lie can be found he will be taken to police headquarters and examined by de tectives. tives until Sunday afternoon, when E. L. Sen tell, of 82 Davis Street, a clerk for the Kamper Grocery Company, divulged the information that he saw Mary Phagan at Forsyth and Hunter Streets Sunday morning, about 12:30 o’clock, in company with Arthur Mul- linax. Hr said they were walking in tHe direction of the pencil factory , which is but a few doors from this corner. Sentell knew the Phagan girl, and said he spoke to her as he passed. Since then detectives have been working on both theories—that the crime was committed by a negro and that it was the job of a white man and that the negro watchman is an accomplice in that he knew of it. This gave a new angle to the mys tery and set detectives on the trail of Mullinax. who was found late in the afternoon and placed under arrest on suspicion. Gant was arrested as ho alighted from a street car from Atlanta, car rying a suitcase. He was taken by Deputy Sheriff Hicks, to the office of Sheriff Swanson, where he was ques tioned and the contents of the suit case examined. Chief of Police Goodson, of Mariet ta. said this afternoon that Gant ex pressed surprise when arrested, but didn't make a statement. Gant, it was stated, was extremely nervous when he got off the car. and was evidently expecting something to hap pen. When Hicks accosted him and placed him under arrest. Gant turned pale and stammered that there must be some mistake Gant in Saloon. Charles W. McGee, of Colonial Hills, a bartender in the saloon of J. P. Hunter, at 38 South Forsyth Street, across the street from »iie plant of the National Lead Pencil Company, this afternoon said thru Gant and another man. whom he dii not know, cam? in his place Satur day night about 10 o'clock. "Gant and the other man." said McGee, "walked back to the lunch counter and got something to eat, and then Gant came to the bar ancl said he wanted to leave a pair of shoes with us until Monday morning. I told him he could, and the shoes were placed behind the cigar counter in the front part of the saloon.” While in Hunter’s place Gant and the other man appeared to be in a hurry and kept talking earnestly to gether as though they were planning something. This morning at 8 o’clock Gant, looking like lie had not had much sleep, came into the Hunter saloon and got his shoes. He talked to Mc Gee for a moment at the cigar count er. and they discussed the Phagan murder. McGee jokingly said the po lice were looking for Gant, and the latter was ,xcited. He stepped quick ly to the door and glanced across m the National Pencil Company s buiiu-j ing. and then looked hastily up and down Forsyth Street. H then toiu McGee he was going to Marietta and walked rapidly up Forsyth Street. ( -~gi BLACFy curly - MR <xmwx DARK 6 IT TALL SLBLDK / BLUE- SUIT. £5 YLAES ODD m shots' Edgar L. Sentell, lifelong friend of Mary I’hagan, says he saw a man answering this description, walking with the girl after midnight Sunday, a few hours before the body was found. He has identified the man as Arthur .Mullniax. who, however, was to-day apparently cleared b y an alibi established by his sweetheart. Body Dragged by Deadly Pleads Unwritten Law, and De clares He Thought Encounter Was Duel to Death. Elmer T. Darden, who, pleading the 1 unwritten law. was put on trial for his life in criminal division of Superior i Court to-day for the slaying of C. M. » Goddard, a Stone Mountain granite cutter, in the Union station March 13, took the stand in his* own defense this afternoon and made a statement of . the shooting and its causes. With the testimony of a dozen eye witnesses to the shooting, the State closed its case at 12:30 o’clock and | court recessed until 2 o’clock. The testimony given for the State followed the reports* of the tragedy already published. Every attempt j made by Paul Lindsay, attorney for ! the Goddard family, employed to aid Solicitor Dorsey in the prosecution, to send up any of Darden’s children to testify against their father failed. Wife of Slayer Absent. Mrs. Darden, who had sworn that she would be at the trial to clear her name of any stigma, did not appear. • Tin State put on Mrs. J. R. Harwell, in charge of the work of the Travel - ers’ Aid Society at the Union station; Addle Mays, a negro attendant: John Beaoeley. a negro porter, and Police- I man Hardy, all eyewitnesses. Darden's statement follows: Telis of Losing Money. "I was born in Elizabeth City. Va., March ^2. 1.868. and married in June. 1894. About ten years ago my father left me $35,000. 1 then was ip the granite business in Vermont. *‘I bought a farm and little quarry near Redan, Ga., about eight years ago. Among my first acquaintances were the Goddards, and Cossie God dard especially. He was closer to me than my brother, and when I was on the road, which was frequent, 1 had so much confidence in him I asked him to watch over my family. "Finally 1 got extremely bard up for cash. My wife was a woman of high ideals and extravagance, and I guess f am largely to blame, for I had been her tutor in this particular. When 1 was no longer able to bestow on her luxuries, she became dissatis fied and quarrelsome. I begged her to be patient, telling her that I realized that we were almost down and out ; but that my health was good, I was a man of education and could overcome j the obstacles. "On February 12 my wife came to Atlanta and spent the day and re- j turned on the 6 o’clock accommoda tion train. Sin* told me that she had j been to the picture shows. Asserts Her Love Waned. "She made other visits to Atlanta I the following week and once visited ! the place where 1 worked and made an engagement to go to lunch with me. She did not fill the engagement. She told me again she had been to the picture shows. Cord After Terrific Fight DANGEROUS CALOMEL GOING OUT OF USE Stretched full length, face down ward on the floor of basement at the reare of the plant, the body was found. A length of heavy cord or wrapping twine, which had been used by the slqjer to strangle the child after he had beaten her to insensi bility, was looped around the neck, and a clumsy bandage of cloth, torn from her petticoat, as if to conceal the horrible method of murder •swathed the face. The stray end of the cord lay along the child’s back between her two heavy braids of dark red hair as if it had been arranged that way de liberately. No marks appeared to indicate that death came by any other means than stragulation. save a four-inch clean cut on the back of the head on the left side.—a serious scalp wound— and a few bruises on the forehead and cheeks, on the left arm at the elbow and on the left leg Just below the knee. Body Dragged. The neck was ut ancl bruised hor ribly by the contraction of the heavy strangling cord c.nd me mark* on the face indicated that the slayer had dragged the boa: back and forth across the basem* nt floor to complete his work of garroting. The child evidently had struggled | and fought frantically before perhaps! brought to unconsciousness by the blow on the heaJ. On her left arm was a small gold band bracelet that had sunk in to the white tender flesh as if under the pressure of a heavy grip. Two of the finger^ on the left hand were bruised where a small signet ring en circled the third slender finger. The hild’s fa* e was covered with dirt and sand when the detectives reached the basement after being not ified by Newt L *. the negro watch man. who called police headquarters when, as he asserts, he stumbled over the little body as lie made his rounds. The fine black particles were ground into the neck an 1 shoulders, indicat ing her body w > - humped along the flooi dangling and twisting at the end of ihe garrot-ng cord. Features Marred. She was garbed in a one-piece pongee * ’k dress of lavender, simply made, and raugh ai the bodice and trininv’ii at th*- . o-eve- with cheaply •ace The cress \ 11 barely below th* j> knees. The stock ngs were black and I \ a black gun me* u pump was on fhe*• > foot. The other pump was*< found a few feet away on a pile of trash. A plain Mue straw hat, with the band or trimming missing, was found near tlie eleva;or shaft. Two turquoise-blue silken ribbon bows were fastened on each side of the wavy red braid of hair. Strange ly enough the bovs had been kept in place by the improvised bondage torn from the underskirt by the slay er. The- bow, sn.d to have been on the ha't, was never found. The horrid manner of her deatr. marred frightfully the girl’s once at tractive features. What had been ti «soft white skin,— white almost to translucence under which the color might have run in life in rank swirls—was discolored and bruised. The force of the blow on tne near 1 had blackened the right eye uni swollen both lids beyond recognition. Into the forehead cuts end scratches was grounded dirt and sand. The marks on he left arm and leg were skin bruises as if made when the body was dragged across the floor. The skin had been scrapped off in little patches Lom spots about two to three inches in diameter. MaiV Phagan was 14 years old. She was slender in stature. She was perhaps 4 feet. 10 inches in height and weighed about 105 pounds. A Safer, More Eeliable Rem edy Has Taken Its Place in the Drug Store and in the Home. A few years ago men. women and children took calomel for a sluggish liver and for constipa tion. They took risk. 4 ' when they did so, for calomel is a danger ous drug. Your family doctor wiii ho the first to tel lyou this if he discovers you dosing yourself with calomel. But the drug trade has found a safer, more pleasant remedy than calomel in Dodson’s* Liver Tone. Dealers toll us« that their drug store sells Dodson’s Liver Tone in practically every case of bilious ness and liver trouble where calo mel used to be /taken. Dodson's Liver Tone is a vege table liver tonic that is absolutely harmless for children and grown people. It sells for 50 cts. a bottle and is guaranteed to be entirely satisfetory by all druggists, who will refund your money with a smile if it does not give quick, gen tle relief without any of calomel's unpleasant after-effects. MOflTJUJTY FROM COLBS IS ALARMING Thousands Died Last Year From Colds, Neglected Too Long Practically every case of pneu monia was first just a cold. Dur ing a hard winter in America hun dreds will neglect the simple cold and succumb to grippe. A cold, permitted to settle and inflame, is the beginning of the Great White Plague itself, for which we are spending Millions of Dollars to find a cure. Most colds are traceable directly to an inactive liver. You get overheat ed. cool off too suddenly and the pores close. The blood recedes from the surface anil a congestion is pro duced. The same condition exists if you sit in a draft or get wet. The liver finds its efforts overcome by pressure «»f the blood, and. being unable to perform its functions of cleansing away ihe waste, undi gested fomi remains in tlie stom ach and intestines and ferments. The head gets hot, the feet cold and bowels constipated. Then cold sets in. If JACOBS’ LIVER SALT is tak en immediately, it will ward off the cold. It relieves the conges tion. rejuvenates the liver and sends the blooil racing through the veins with a vigor that will instantly dis pel the depressing attack of cold. A simple remedy, but worth ■ its weight in gold if you value health Ancl it w*ll not put you in bed. Take JACOBS’ LIVER SALT be fore breakfast, an agreeably bub bling drink, and in an hour you’ll feel fine. The man who doesn't catch cold keeps his liver lively, and you will find ^io other liver tonic as good as the genuine JA COBS’ LIVER SALT. All drug gists. 25c. if yours can not sup- pi' you. upon receipt of price we will mail full size jar. postage free. Made and guaranteed by Jacobs’ Pharmacy Co.. Atlanta.