In a rare and emotional interview with Jake Shields, Mary Phagan-Kean, the grandniece of Mary Phagan—the 13-year-old girl whose 1913 murder ignited one of the most contentious legal cases in American history—shared her deeply personal journey of uncovering her family’s past and her ongoing commitment to ensuring that history is not rewritten.
Born decades after the tragic events that shook Atlanta and the nation, Phagan-Kean did not grow up knowing she bore the name of one of the most talked-about murder victims in American history. In fact, she was 13 years old before she even heard the name “Mary Phagan” in that context. It was her science teacher at a South Carolina high school who first linked her to the case, asking, “Are you related to the little girl who was murdered in Atlanta in the 1920s?” The question came as a shock. Phagan-Kean had no idea who he was referring to—her family had taken a silent vow not to speak of it.
The conversation sparked a journey that would come to define her life. After confronting her father about what she’d heard at school, he confirmed the connection, explaining that Mary Phagan had been murdered after going to collect her paycheck at the National Pencil Factory. Leo Frank, her boss, was convicted of the crime. While he was later lynched by a mob after his death sentence was commuted, Phagan-Kean’s father described Frank as a “sexual pervert” who had committed a heinous crime. At the time, she didn’t even know what that term meant—she had to look it up in the dictionary.
Phagan-Kean recalls her father encouraging her to investigate the case herself. She began that research as a teenager, visiting the Georgia Archives in Atlanta. What she saw there left a lasting impression: a ten-foot-tall photo of Frank’s lynching. “I was stunned,” she said. “I had never seen a picture of a lynching before.”
From that day on, Phagan-Kean committed herself to learning everything she could. Over the course of 57 years, she amassed a vast personal collection of documents, newspaper clippings, and trial materials. She recently donated this collection to the Georgia State Library so that future generations could have access to the truth.
Phagan-Kean’s position is clear: she believes Leo Frank was guilty, and she is deeply troubled by what she views as a coordinated effort to exonerate him after the fact. She particularly takes issue with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and its role in advocating for Frank’s innocence. “The ADL helped our family in earlier years,” she said, “but everything changed in 1982.”
That year, Alonzo Mann, a former office boy at the pencil factory, came forward with a new account, claiming to have seen the factory’s African American janitor, Jim Conley, carrying Mary Phagan’s body. This testimony became the basis for renewed calls to pardon Frank. Phagan-Kean is skeptical. She asserts that Mann’s testimony, decades after the fact, contradicted the trial record and ignored crucial elements of the original investigation.
She also takes issue with the secrecy surrounding the efforts to obtain a posthumous pardon. When she reached out to Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles in the 1980s, board members were unaware that Mary Phagan still had living relatives. Though she asked to be included in the proceedings, she was told no public presentations would be made. In 1983, the board declined to issue a pardon. But in 1986, without further explanation or revisiting the question of guilt or innocence, Leo Frank was posthumously pardoned—not for being innocent, but due to the state’s failure to protect him from mob violence.
Phagan-Kean calls that decision “a betrayal” of both historical accuracy and justice. “We were left in the dark again,” she said. “It was all secret, all underhanded.”
A large part of her frustration stems from the portrayal of Leo Frank as a martyr, particularly in media and educational materials. “Every couple of years, they try to resurrect him as a hero,” she said, pointing to television miniseries and books that present Frank as a victim of antisemitism. She disputes these claims, saying that the original trial jury included Jewish members and that Frank received due process. She also believes that much of the evidence that convicted him, including testimony from employees and circumstantial evidence, has been ignored or downplayed in more recent retellings.
In her decades of study, Phagan-Kean has identified what she considers significant discrepancies in how the case has been remembered. One example is the missing trial transcript. Though a brief of evidence remains, the full transcript disappeared during the research for a pro-Frank book in the 1960s. For Phagan-Kean, the loss of the transcript and the emergence of contradictory narratives are part of a broader attempt to shift blame and sanitize Frank’s role in the crime.
Despite her strong convictions, Phagan-Kean is not a public crusader. She doesn’t lead with her famous name, and she rarely appears on podcasts or media. “You have to ask me,” she says. But once asked, she is more than willing to share her perspective—and her decades of research.
She emphasizes that her family has long resisted any public limelight. Even when the city of Marietta wanted to mark Mary Phagan’s grave as a site of historical interest, her father declined. “She already has a beautiful marble grave,” he said. “She doesn’t need a sign.”
Still, Phagan-Kean believes that silence is no longer enough. In her upcoming revised edition of her book, which adds 16 new chapters, she calls out what she sees as the misrepresentation and manipulation of the case. She names those who she believes have distorted the truth, including politicians, rabbis, and activists involved in the posthumous pardon and modern campaigns to rehabilitate Frank’s image.
“This is not about hate,” she insists. “It’s about truth. The evidence is there. People just have to read it.”
In an era where historical narratives are increasingly re-examined, Mary Phagan-Kean stands as a firm voice of continuity, loyalty to her family’s memory, and belief in the permanence of documented facts. To her, the story of Mary Phagan is not a relic of the past—it is a cautionary tale about the power of media, influence, and the enduring consequences of rewriting history.