The Amityville Massacre by R. Barri Flowers

Author:R. Barri Flowers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, true crime, paranormal, criminals, killers, outlaws, mass murder, violent crime, family murder, family killers
Publisher: R. Barri Flowers

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Read the entire true crime short, THE PICKAXE KILLERS, available in eBook and audio.

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The following is a bonus excerpt from R. Barri Flowers' bestselling historical true crime short

MURDER AT THE PENCIL FACTORY

The Killing of Mary Phagan: 100 Years Later

On Saturday April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan, age thirteen, became the victim of a violent death at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, Georgia where she was employed. Her job at the factory was putting erasers into the metal casing atop pencils. The appalling crime left residents of the city outraged and wanting justice for the victim. Fingered for the crime and convicted was factory superintendent Leo Frank, a Jewish-American, who would be hanged by a lynch mob in spite of controversy surrounding Frank's guilt. The century old case was every bit as captivating and publicized as any high profile crime today—complete with a shaky investigation, anti-Semitism, racism, stereotyping, rush to judgment, injustice, and murder—with the effects and outcome of the case still being felt to this day.1

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Mary Phagan was born in Marietta, Georgia on June 1, 1899 to tenant farmers John and Frances Phagan. Following her father's death shortly thereafter from the measles, the family relocated to East Point, Georgia where Frances ran a boarding house while her children went to work in the mills.

Mary dropped out of school when she was ten years old and worked part-time for a textile mill. By 1911, she had gone to work for a paper manufacturing plant. The owner of the plant, Sigmund Montag, was the National Pencil Company treasurer. The following year, Frances Phagan married John William Coleman.

During the spring of 1912, Mary went to work for the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, where she operated a knurling machine that fitted rubber erasers into the metal casing atop pencils, earning $4.05 a week for a fifty-five hour work week. The factory superintendent was a twenty-nine-year-old Jewish-American named Leo Frank.

On the cool, crisp late Saturday morning of April 26, 1913, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan—who had been temporarily laid off earlier in the week because the factory was short on brass sheet metal—took the trolley to Atlanta from East Point in order to collect wages she was due for a twelve hour work week. Afterward, she had plans to get together with friends to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day—a holiday in some Southern states since 1866 that honored soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

It was around noon when Mary arrived at the Pencil Factory, a four-story stone building in downtown Atlanta that encompassed the entire block of 37 to 41 South Forsythe Street. She came inside the main entrance on the first floor and made her way toward the stairway en route to the second floor, where she had performed her duties in the "tipping department" section of the metal room prior to being laid off. It was also the floor where factory superintendent Leo Frank's office was. Not far away from the stairs on the first floor was a hole, often covered by a hatch, which led to the basement via a ladder.

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