Parade-Did he do it?

[OneSongGlory90]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 4:54pm

I have fallen in love with Parade all over again and was wondering who everyone thought really killed Mary? I believe Leo did not do it and was just a scapegoat? Opinions?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 4:57pm

No one knows...

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:00pm

Were Julius and Ethel guilty?

[jasonf]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:00pm

The musical seems to make it pretty clear it wasn't him if I remember right...

[NYC10040]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:04pm

No - if you do a little research, you'll find that it was Jim Conley. A young boy saw him with Mary's body, but was threatened by him so told no one but his mother. The boy even testified in the trial as a character witness for the prosecution. On his death bed, he signed a paper stating what he had seen. Leo Frank was innocent and later completely pardoned.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:09pm

He definitely didn't do it...

[Weez]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:12pm

The fictionalised version of Leo Frank, a la JRB, definitely did not do it. But the the real Leo Frank? I wasn't there. I couldn't tell you.

[EugLoven]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:17pm

Echoing previous poster: Do a little research and you'll find the answer.

[Taryn]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:19pm

There's no real way to know for sure. The facts (including the testimony of the man who saw Jim Conley with Mary's body) indicate that he did not commit the crime, and that's what I tend to believe.

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 5:35pm

No one will ever know if he really did it or not, but we do know that based on the evidence they presented/had at the time, he absolutely should not have been convicted. its a very ugly story of the old south.

[markypoo]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 6:06pm

To this day, relatives of Mary Phagan contend that he DID do it.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 6:11pm

Well of course they do. That's not surprising. What's surprising is that people really think there's a solid answer to the question.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 7:03pm

Most likely Jim Conley did it, but the case was not as black and white as the musical makes it seem. Mary Phagan-Kean's reasoning is extremely faulty, but I know a scholar of the case who thinks that Frank did commit the crime.

[Amalia Balash]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 7:05pm

Whether or not he did it, I think the historical record shows the prosecution didn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did. I think the musical captures the emotional truth of the trial and surrounding environment, but the actual historical truth can't be determined at this point.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 7:09pm

There were a lot of factors at play: racism (on both sides, actually), a botched investigation, a terrible defense that made the trial more about character than about the crime, yellow journalism, numerous recantations, no one able to agree on whether or not Frank was actually in his office, northern interference causing more resentment in southerners. One of the outcomes of the Frank vs. Magnum case is that recanted witness testimonies were declared inadmissable in the future.

Btw, Alonzo Mann did not testify in the case; he said that he had seen Conley with Mary's body on his deathbed years after Frank had been murdered. This simply inspired Marx to push for Frank's exoneration, which the state only granted because they had failed to protect him.

Updated On: 10/10/08 at 07:09 PM

[ashbash1990]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 8:05pm

He didn't...

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 8:28pm

Somewhere online there is (or used to be) a site insisting that Frank did it.

But since the site was also filled with open and scary anti-Semitism, it was hard to take it seriously.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 8:39pm

If you want to see the "he did it" argument, check out Mary Phagan Kean's book. It's out of print and she's a terrible writer, so be forewarned.

But like I said, there are better arguments for Frank's guilt out there.

[A Director]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 10:28pm

SporkGoddess, you state, "but I know a scholar of the case who thinks that Frank did commit the crime." Who is this scholar?

You also state, "But like I said, there are better arguments for Frank's guilt out there." Really? What are the better arguments?

When Parade first opened, I read several accounts of the murder and the conclusion was Frank was not guilty.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 11:04pm

Namely, the support for Frank cheating on Lucille is that he bought her a box of choclates on the day of the murder, and the accounts of them arguing presented by the couple's staff.

Also, Mary was killed by strangling via rope, and Frank was an expert rope climber.

Mind you, I don't think he did it and I used to argue with this person about it. But those are better arguments than Phagan-Kean's arguments, who doesn't even understand the "night witch" reference.

And, his name is Allen Koenigsberg. His website on the case can be found at http://www.leofrankcase.com/ Doesn't appear he ever finished the research or maybe he just hasn't updated the site; I haven't been in contact with him for a while.

Updated On: 10/10/08 at 11:04 PM

[H.Higgins]

Posted: 10/10/08 at 11:47pm

The musical points towards no.

And while convicted, it would seem that the actual Leo did not commit the crime either.

[Becky]

Posted: 10/11/08 at 12:42am

I've read several books on the case and done some extensive internet research (most of which point to his innocence)....I've read about the Phagan's opposing view, and I felt the arguments pointing towards his "guilt" were extremely weak. I completely believe he didn't do it after reading all the arguments, evidence, testimony, etc....

As others have said, look around online (and check into books like "The Leo Frank Case" and see what you think. It's a quite interesting story either way.....

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 10/11/08 at 12:47am

I consider myself pretty well-informed on the case as well, but there's no way to ever really know that Frank was innocent. Do I think he likely was? Yes. But we also have to take both sides into account. And, yeah, Phagan-Kean's arguments are terrible (I reviewed her book on Amazon if you want to see my specific objections). Her book is useful in that it contains entire documents, though you can find a lot of them online as well.

IMO, "And the Dead Shall Rise" by Steve Oney is the best novel about the case, though Leonard Dinnerstein's is the standard scholarly account.

Don't go by the musical, btw. It completely oversimplifies the case and focuses on the wrong arguments. The problem wasn't Leo's character witnesses; the problem was with witnesses like Monteen Stover who claimed that Frank wasn't in his office at the time he said he was. It also completely overemphasizes the role of anti-semitism in the case, IMO.

Updated On: 10/11/08 at 12:47 AM

[allenamet]

Posted: 10/24/08 at 9:11pm

Hi,

Steve Oney's book, whatever its flaws, is NOT a novel. It is an attempt to tell a complicated story in a complicated way. But it is inconsistent and cannot even decide how old Conley was at the time of the crime. Hint: he was born the same year as Leo.

More work is needed, to compare the Coroner's Inquest testimony with that of the Trial. Why was N. V. Darley, one of the NPCo foremen, 'dating' a much younger employee that very night - he was a married man. And why was Mary really killed? Would a black man in post-1906 Atlanta take such a chance, in the very building where he worked for 2 years and was well known? And would Leo actually murder a young woman for just spurning his advances - there were many other female employees who worked there if that was the objective. The truth of what happened is much worse...

Leo was not 'fully pardoned' - that action by the State of Georgia only referred to its failure to protect him while in custody (prison) and made no comment on his guilt or innocence.

Allen
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeoFrankCase/


Leo Frank Case

[ZiggyCringe]

Posted: 10/26/08 at 3:39am

Here's the thing.

Whether Leo Frank DID IT or NOT, "Parade" is a brilliant musical.

Jason Robert Brown created an amazing piece of musical theatre. And he DIDN'T answer that question.

That is the incredible thing. He didn't ask the question.