Mary Phagan-Kean
P.O. Box 2573 • 801 Industrial Blvd. • Ellijay, Georgia 30540
The Honorable Pete Hegseth
Secretary of Defense
U.S. Department of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
27 June 2025
Dear Secretary Hegseth:
My name is Mary Phagan-Kean and I am the great-niece and namesake of “Little Mary Phagan,” who was brutally raped and murdered by B’nai B’rith leader Leo Frank on April 26, 1913. At the time, Leo Frank was the superintendent of the National Pencil Company, an Atlanta sweatshop using child labor that existed from 1908 to 1916.
On behalf of my family and our ancestors, many of whom served honorably in the armed forces, I express our gratitude for your support of Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson. Secretary Wilson has faced accusations of posting “antisemitic rhetoric” online. On August 16, 2024, she tweeted:
“Leo Frank raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl. He also tried to frame a Black man for his crime. The ADL turned off the comments because they want to gaslight you.”
I urge you not to accept the deceitful tactics displayed in the June 24, 2025 letter sent to you by the Congressional Jewish Caucus which suggests that anyone who believes Leo Frank is guilty of the murder of my Great Aunt is a “neo-Nazi.” Such tactics are used by the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to promote their underhanded revisionism of the case even today.
The facts of the case paint a clear picture that is fully aligned with Ms. Wilson’s point of view:
First, Ms. Wilson is factually correct in that Leo Frank was duly convicted of murder in a court of law on August 25, 1913—a verdict upheld through at least a dozen appeals and ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court.
And second, Leo Frank actually tried to frame TWO Black men, both employees at the factory, even planting evidence to try to instigate their lynching. The details of these racist acts by Frank can be provided if requested.
And here are a few other facts that Frank’s defenders want us to ignore:
• The 21-member grand jury voted unanimously to indict Leo Frank—a grand jury that included five Jewish members.
• There is absolutely no evidence that the trial contained any “anti-Semitism” at all, and claims of “mob dominance” have been thoroughly debunked.
• At Leo Frank’s murder trial, ten girls employed at the factory testified under oath that Frank sexually harassed them, and two teenage girls stated that he made indecent proposals to them.
• Leo Frank received the longest and most expensive trial in Southern history at the time. Over 100 witnesses testified and Frank was represented by eight of the most prominent lawyers, one even being the former law partner of the presiding Judge Leonard Roan.
• The two private detective firms hired by Frank concluded and stated publicly that Leo Frank was the murderer.
And this is only a small sample of the overwhelming evidence that convinced the jurors, the judge, the citizens of Georgia, and Ms. Kingsley Wilson that Frank murdered my Great Aunt Mary Phagan. We have elaborated on these points on the Phagan Family website (https://t.co/fMlj8xAzvp) and in a series of newsletters that we have made available to the public.
The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions on this case but we do insist that the truth about this horrific crime is upheld. The Phagan family has stated that if there existed any clear-cut evidence that clears Leo Frank, we would support the reversal of his murder conviction. No such evidence has ever been presented.
Finally, Secretary Hegseth, please be assured that the statement made by Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson is fully backed by the facts and that you’ve rightly characterized the attack against Ms. Wilson in your testimony before Congress as “a mischaracterization attempting to win political points.”
Thank you.
[Signed]
Mary Phagan-Kean
P.S.: For further information, I have attached the “Phagan Family Position Paper” for your review.
CC: The President, The White House
Ms. Kingsley Wilson, United States Department of Defense Press Secretary
Donald Trump @realDonaldTrump
Pete Hegseth @PeteHegseth
Kingsley Wilson @KingsleyCortes
MTG @RepMTG
21 Democrats of the House Jewish Caucus
01. Laura Friedman – @LauraFriedmanCA
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05. Greg Landsman – @RepGregLandsman
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14. Jan Schakowsky – @janschakowsky
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17. Kim Schrier, @RepKimSchrier
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Kyutai TTS and Unmute are now open source!
The text-to-speech is natural, customizable, and fast: it can serve 32 users with a 350ms latency on a single L40S. Try it out and get started on the project page: https://t.co/B4P9FuOrQc
IDF soldiers have been pictured in Gaza wearing dead women’s clothes, riding dead children’s bikes, posing in destroyed buildings with “Death to Arabs” graffitied on the walls, and signing missiles destined for Gaza
But we must not say “Death to the IDF” because it upsets them
Israeli has set fire to Taybeh — a 10,000-year-old village in Ramallah, Palestine.
A place where Jesus once walked.
Home to the world’s oldest living Christian community.
And not a peep from Western mainstream media.
Israel is our greatest ally. The proof is that they destroyed every church in Gaza and they spit on Christians in Jerusalem and they burned down Christian cities in the West Bank.
HORROR🚨 an entirely Christian town was burned down by Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
Palestinian Christians, the first Christians in the world, are being genocided by Israel. Cars, lands and home all attacked in a series of violent pogroms aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
What happened to the "Judeo-Christian" values we keep hearing about?