‘The Murder of Mary Phagan’ is followed by “The People v. Leo Frank.” A 13-year-old girl Mary Phagan who was killed in 1913 first inspired Orion Pictures Corporation in 1998 and now filmmaker Ben Loeterman comes up with a retelling documentary The People v. Leo Frank” premiered Monday on PBS.

An incident that took place way back in 1913 has still got deep impact on the minds and the brutal reality still seems to inspire many authors and filmmakers to cover the subject in one way or another. First it was the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) that presented a two-part television miniseries by ‘Orion Pictures Corporation’ in the year 1998, about a brutal act of a factory manager Leo Frank. The writer of the movie was Larry McMmurtry.

The same true story has been covered by many more, under various titles such as “Parade,” “And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank” and now the latest release, a 90-minute documentary “The People v. Leo Frank.” One must be thinking that what’s so significant about the issue that so much work has been done on one subject?

Award-winning filmmaker Ben Loeterman has worked really hard and tried to focus on the crux of this particular true story by fresh research through study of the as well as interviewing as many of the concerned as he would. The miscarriage of justice can be viewed live as the premieres are on since Monday at PBS from 10 p.m.

A revisit of the Leo Frank – Mary Phagan issue re-explains how Brooklyn resident Leo Frank, a plant supervisor at a National Pencil Co. downtown Atlanta was involved in brutal rape and murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan. It was April 1913 when on a Sunday morning the dead body of Mary Phagan was discovered in the factory’s basement where she worked. Leo was arrested whereas a Jim Conley was considered the other suspect.

Frank received death sentence but later but upon appeals in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Georgian governor was involved and the death sentence was converted into life imprisonment, after two years. The community didn’t accept it and poor Frank was allegedly hung with an oak tree in Marietta by a crowd of more than 20 who somehow managed to pull him from penitentiary. May be that was the justice they desired for Leo Frank.

Mary Phagan