Why Was the Hat Near the Body According to Conley?

[leofrankwasinnocent]

Conley had this to say about Mary's hat:

"and I took her back there and taken the cloth from
around her and taken her hat and shoe which I had picked up up-
stairs right where her body was lying"

" I put both of her hands down
easily, and rolled her up in the cloth and taken the cloth and tied her up,
and started to pick up her, and I looked back a little distance and saw her
hat and a piece of ribbon laying down and her slippers and I taken them
and put them all in the cloth "

My question is why was the hat with the other items?

This may seem odd but hear me out. It was supposed that Mary Phagan had hit her head on the lathe handle and that is where she got the gash on the back of her head. But wouldn't this have knocked her hat off if she was wearing it or wouldn't the hat have saved her from getting such a nasty gash at all?

Even if she was holding the hat in her hand at the time of the attack she would have likely dropped it when she fell. The hat would have remained by the lathe.

The distance between the lathe and the place where Conley found the body was 37 feet. Leo Frank would have had to have moved the body 37 feet for some strange reason and he would have had to have brought the hat with him for Conley to have found it close by.

But if Leo Frank moved the hat why didn't he move the parasol? It would have had to have been close by as well.

And why, once again, if he was paying such meticulous details to clean up and placing things together would he have missed those few strands of hair on the lathe handle? There would have been blood there marking the lathe that he would have had to clean up so why when he was taking the time to move the hat and clean up the blood did he miss those hairs that were so ready to be seen?