Wednesday, 23rd July 1913, Second Chapter in Mary Phagan Mystery, The Atlanta Georgian

July 23rd, 1913 The Discovery of the Body of the Slain Factory Girl and Start of Hunt for Slayer. CHAPTER II. His heart pounding in superstitious fright, Newt Lee, the night watchman, forced himself to approach the strange object on the pile of debris in the pencil factory basement. A step nearer and he could make out what appeared to be a human foot. He recoiled and was on the point of precipitate flight. But he must look closer, he thought. Perhaps, after all, it was only the ghastly prank of some of the factory employees who had manufactured a rude effigy and placed it there to scare him. Determinedly he walked closer and thrust his lantern out over the mysterious object. He shrieked. Before his horrified eyes the shaky and uncertain light of his lantern disclosed the body of a little girl. Grimed, bloody and mutilated the body lay on the flat of its back, as the terrified negro remembered it afterward, although the police, coming a few minutes later, found the body on its face, one arm drawn slightly up under the body and the other stretched full length at the side. Discrepancy Not Explained. This strange discrepancy never has been explained to the public except by the possibility that Lee, in his terror, was mistaken in the position he believed the body was in when he discovered it. Conley, telling his remarkable story three weeks later, said that he dumped the girl's body face downward on the trash pile where it later was come upon by Lee. Lee was too appalled by his grewsome find to make a close investigation. He only saw that it was a little white girl and that she had been murdered. With frightened steps he hurried to the ladder at the other end of the basement. He was in a panic. He scuttled up the ladder and dropped the trap door over it. He felt a bit relieved away from the blackness of the basement and the awful thing that it contained. In a moment he remembered that Mr. Frank had told him that when anything happened at the factory to call the police. The telephone at police headquarters rang at 3:30 o'clock. Policeman Anderson answered it perfunctorily. Suddenly he straightened in his chair, his indifference dropping from him in a flash. "What's that? What's that?" he shouted, trying to make out the incoherent message of the negro at the other end of the wire. Finally he understood that a girl had been killed and that her body was lying in the basement of the National Pencil Factory on Forsyth street. Police Rush to Scene. "There's been a murder, fellows," he exclaimed, slamming the receiver on the hook. "Boots" Rogers was in the station. His automobile stood in front. The two men rushed out and jumped into the car. In the still morning hours, they dashed toward the scene of the tragedy. Sergeants Dobbs and Brown stood conversing at Pryor and Decatur streets. An instant's stop was made and the two officers leaped into the car. The automobile sped on to Forsyth street, and then down to the bleak, gray building from which only one dim light flickered. The car had barely stopped before the men were out of it, and on the sidewalk. They tried the door and it was locked. They rattled it impatiently and in a moment the figure of the still frightened negro, swinging his smoky lantern, was seen coming down the stairs that lead from the second floor. "Where's the body?" was the first question they shot at him. Already the negro was under the shadow of suspicion. "Come this way," Lee replied, and led the way to the opening into the dark basement. Into the Dark Basement. One by one the officers descended the narrow ladder into the inky darkness, unrelieved except by the single gas jet, which was turned so low that the negro Lee described it as a "lightning bug." Dobbs and Brown, with the negro, took the lead. Straight to the huddled, tragic form the black man guided the men. Sergeant Brown took one look. "My God, it's only a child!" he exclaimed. And the child was little Mary Phagan, who had gone forth from home the day before filled with the happiness of youth and untouched by any thought of harm or evil.