I U KAUFFMAN, Sworn In For The Defendant, 106th To Testify

I. U. Kauffman, witness for the Defendant in rebuttal, at the Trial of Leo Frank in the Fulton County Superior Court of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1913 (Testimony Portion From July 28 - August 21, 1913; Closing Arguments August 21-25, 1913)
Civil engineer I. U. Kauffman delivered the final, courtroom-shaking blueprint that buried the State’s case in cold geometry.
Selig kitchen (Defendant’s Exhibit 52)

Back-door view: zero mirror.
One foot inside: 18-inch sliver of mirror—no table, no chairs, no seated man.
South-side doorway: blind.
Mirror 14 ft away, fixed vertical, 4 ft off floor.
Kauffman: “You could not see the sideboard wherein the mirror is located at all.”
Albert McKnight’s spy-story: physically impossible.

Factory plant (Defendant’s Exhibit 61)

Basement:

136 ft elevator → body,
57 ft body → trash pile,
21 ft body → colored toilet,
42 ft body → back door.
Chute empties 32 ft from body—no blood trail.
Filthy sacks, dirt floor, pitch-black.

First floor: open areaway, 90 ft to toilets—directly above body.
Second floor:

Frank’s inner office 12½ × 17½ ft; open safe blocks all sight-lines.
5-ft-2 girl cannot see over safe.
150 ft desk → dressing room; no view of stairs.
Glass doors in metal room—Conley’s route lit like daylight.
10 ft dressing-room door → lathe → 37 ft to “body-found” spot.

Street distances (Defendant’s Exhibit 53)

175 ft Selig home → Washington & Georgia Ave.
271 ft Selig home → Pulliam & Georgia Ave.
Any streetcar passing Washington & Georgia must reach Pulliam in 60–90 seconds.

On cross-examination, Kauffman stood firm:

All measurements from Schiff’s exact body-spot.
Diagrams drawn one month ago with surveyor’s instruments.
2 ft partition hides stairs from Frank’s desk.
Scuttle hole behind elevator: one-man descent, no problem.

Re-direct / re-cross

Mirror tilt irrelevant—fixed rigid.
Furniture marks prove no rearrangement since April 26.
Washington Street car past nearest corner = Pulliam in 90 seconds.

Kauffman handed the jury three perfect blueprints and 86 Adams photos.
Jurors could walk every inch in their minds:

Albert lied—no mirror, no view.
Conley’s route was glass-walled daylight.
Phagan reached the factory by 12:07½—plenty of time.
No blood trail, no locked doors, no secret path.

The State’s verbal labyrinth collapsed under steel-tape truth.
Kauffman’s blueprints became the gavel that smashed the prosecution’s house of cards.