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The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer
0:17
Speaker 1: Josh over there. So you put the three of us
0:19
Speaker 1: together there and we're gonna get a little true crime
0:22
Speaker 1: history on you with the trial of Saco and ben Zi. Yeah,
0:29
Speaker 1: these guys, I mean a little backstory on I guess
0:33
Speaker 1: the time we're talking about the nineties in the United States.
0:39
Speaker 1: We're talking about, uh, two gentlemen that we're both anarchists
0:44
Speaker 1: that were both Italian immigrants and both supposedly, um, followers
0:52
Speaker 1: of this really notable anarchists named Luigi Galiani, who Uh
0:58
Speaker 1: this guy was um sort of an anarchist leader. He
1:01
Speaker 1: put out an anarchist rag he was um called for violence. Um.
1:07
Speaker 1: He has a history of authorizing like bombing's assassination attempts. Um,
1:12
Speaker 1: like really tough stuff. And so this is who um
1:17
Speaker 1: supposedly Saco and Vinzetti were, you know, I guess by
1:21
Speaker 1: association advocating, advocating, sure, advocating for this type of violence
1:27
Speaker 1: themselves as immigrant anarchists. Do you remember in our anarchism episode.
1:34
Speaker 1: Like during this period, in like a ten year period,
1:38
Speaker 1: anarchists assassinated like five or six major heads of state
1:42
Speaker 1: around the world, including McKinley in the United States. It
1:47
Speaker 1: was a big deal. It was a big deal. And um,
1:50
Speaker 1: I mean there was also a struggle going on for
1:53
Speaker 1: the soul of America. Where we're gonna be socialists, where
1:56
Speaker 1: we're gonna be capitalists? Should we just go with anarchism? Um,
2:00
Speaker 1: there was a lot of a lot of debate over
2:06
Speaker 1: you know, which which economy we should go with, or
2:08
Speaker 1: what what politics we should go with. And there was
2:12
Speaker 1: something of a red scare because communism was on the
2:15
Speaker 1: table too. There was a red scare at the time too.
2:17
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like the kind of time you would
2:19
Speaker 1: walk around like, yeah, I'm an anarchist, get on board,
2:23
Speaker 1: you know. But and at the same time, if you
2:25
Speaker 1: weren't an anarchist, you're probably scared of our anarchists because
2:28
Speaker 1: they would bomb stuff and they were well known for
2:30
Speaker 1: it too. Yeah, So I mean this is not just
2:33
Speaker 1: the United States, like all over the world. Um, there
2:37
Speaker 1: were political radicals that was violence from anarchy and and
2:42
Speaker 1: riots and like you said, people trying to take down
2:44
Speaker 1: like politicians or judges that were deporting, at least the
2:48
Speaker 1: United States deporting immigrant anarchists back to their home countries
2:52
Speaker 1: like as quickly as they could root them out, basically, right,
2:57
Speaker 1: So this is sort of the stage in the early
2:59
Speaker 1: night teen twenties. UM, and I guess we should hop
3:03
Speaker 1: in the way back machine. Oh yes, and head on
3:06
Speaker 1: over to Boston Town. Okay, that's Boston by the way. Yeah, no,
3:17
Speaker 1: I know, it doesn't matter if I know. Just make
3:19
Speaker 1: sure the way back machiners, the way back machine those
3:22
Speaker 1: it can read my silly accents. So so here we are.
3:25
Speaker 1: It's ninety around Boston. Actually we're not in Boston proper.
3:29
Speaker 1: We're about ten ten miles south in the little town
3:32
Speaker 1: of Braintree, which is these days would be Boston proper.
3:36
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, yes, it's like the metro
3:39
Speaker 1: Boston area. UM and Braintree was known as a shoe
3:43
Speaker 1: manufacturing center had more than one shoe company, which meant
3:47
Speaker 1: it was a shoe manufacturing center and UM on this
3:52
Speaker 1: particular day in April of I think it was April.
3:56
Speaker 1: Right in Braintree, there was a named Shelley Neil who
4:02
Speaker 1: was an agent for the American Express Company. And the
4:07
Speaker 1: function I got of Shelly Neil was that he would
4:11
Speaker 1: he was kind of like a a Brinx armed guard
4:14
Speaker 1: basically for money, and not just some money, like a
4:21
Speaker 1: lot of money. On this day, from the nine eighteen
4:24
Speaker 1: AM train from Boston, Shelley Neil went to the Braintree, uh,
4:28
Speaker 1: the brain Tree train depot and picked up thirty thousand
4:32
Speaker 1: dollars thirty grand in cash, which is about four d
4:37
Speaker 1: and twenty seven thousand dollars in two thousand eighteen money.
4:41
Speaker 1: Did this every week, right. Um, he picked it up
4:44
Speaker 1: and he took it back to his office, and um
4:48
Speaker 1: he opened up a metal box and inside had to
4:52
Speaker 1: two canvas bags, and each was the payroll for um
4:57
Speaker 1: one of the two shoe companies that he picked up
5:00
Speaker 1: money for, one of which was called Slater in Morrell.
5:03
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the other one was. Maybe it
5:05
Speaker 1: was three K. Definitely Slater in Morrell was one of them.
5:09
Speaker 1: The other was New Balance. Okay, so Slater in Morrill
5:13
Speaker 1: and New Balance we're the ones whose payroll he had
5:16
Speaker 1: on him that day. Yeah, And it's it's so amazing
5:19
Speaker 1: how that stuff used to work back then, Like how
5:22
Speaker 1: payroll was just so low fi. It would literally be
5:25
Speaker 1: a huge amount of cash delivered in a box that
5:28
Speaker 1: he would take to an office and someone would sit
5:31
Speaker 1: there and stuff cash into envelopes to then go to
5:36
Speaker 1: like a factory to pay off employees, not payoff, but
5:39
Speaker 1: to pay to pay them there legit check from working.
5:43
Speaker 1: You didn't see nothing this week. This is for all
5:46
Speaker 1: the shoe leather, alright. So that's how it worked back then,
5:49
Speaker 1: And so this is what he was doing. It's just
5:51
Speaker 1: like any other Thursday. UM. However, on this day, as
5:55
Speaker 1: he went in, he noticed a car out front that
5:59
Speaker 1: he had not seen before, this big car that had
6:02
Speaker 1: like these little curtains on the inside windows that were
6:05
Speaker 1: pulled shut. And other people in Braintree UM later on
6:10
Speaker 1: would report seeing that car kind of tooling around and
6:13
Speaker 1: they said, it looks like it's got like four or
6:15
Speaker 1: five men inside that look Italian and they're just sort
6:18
Speaker 1: of driving around Braintree, which I guess to raise some suspicions. Sure,
6:24
Speaker 1: because again, if you were Italian, UM, you may have
6:27
Speaker 1: been associated with anarchists who were associated with bomb throwing.
6:33
Speaker 1: So four or five of them kind of aimlessly driving
6:36
Speaker 1: around the town of Braintree. This little tiny town. I'm
6:39
Speaker 1: sure arouse some suspicions and definitely did because there were
6:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people who later on said that they
6:45
Speaker 1: saw this car driving around between nine am and twelve pm.
6:50
Speaker 1: That's right, so about three that afternoon. Um, here's what
6:54
Speaker 1: happened next for payroll. Uh, these people had to get
6:57
Speaker 1: these envelopes. So what's known as a paymaster and this
7:00
Speaker 1: is also sort of part of the arm guard thing,
7:03
Speaker 1: um because the paymaster a has a gun and then
7:08
Speaker 1: has a guard with a gun. This guy's name was
7:10
Speaker 1: Freddie Parmenter and the guard was Alessandro Barra Delli. And
7:16
Speaker 1: so they stopped by, they pick up all these envelopes.
7:19
Speaker 1: They're going down to the factory. They're gonna pay everybody,
7:22
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, bam bam bam bam, gunfire
7:27
Speaker 1: and mayhem ensues. I didn't realize there's gonna be special
7:32
Speaker 1: effects in this episode. Hey, well you know you did. Man,
7:37
Speaker 1: it has been brought it. Um. So they're these guys
7:41
Speaker 1: are on Pearl Street and when these shots suddenly just
7:44
Speaker 1: ring out, and um, the first guy's hit, Barret ellis
7:49
Speaker 1: hit uh and he goes down. I believe it was
7:52
Speaker 1: Barre Deli who was hit first. Um, Oh, no, he
7:55
Speaker 1: wasn't hit. It was Parlimenter who was hit. Barret Deli
7:58
Speaker 1: is on the ground, um, and he has lost his
8:02
Speaker 1: gun and he's being approached by a man with a
8:05
Speaker 1: gun on him and uh Baradeli apparently has begged for
8:09
Speaker 1: his life to no avail. The man shoots him in
8:11
Speaker 1: the chest at least once and the bullet um punctures
8:15
Speaker 1: his lungs uh, one of his major arteries, to his
8:18
Speaker 1: heart and then lodge its lodges itself and its hip
8:22
Speaker 1: to be fished out later on by a corner and
8:25
Speaker 1: used in the case against Sacco and Vanzettie. Uh. The
8:29
Speaker 1: other guy, Parlman or the paymaster. Uh. He gets hit
8:32
Speaker 1: a few times, staggers across the street and um and collapses.
8:37
Speaker 1: And this car a blue touring car, um, which is
8:41
Speaker 1: you know, a big sedan that you would think of
8:43
Speaker 1: today like a touring We'll call it a Lincoln town car,
8:46
Speaker 1: even though it's not at all what it was. That
8:48
Speaker 1: blue car that had been seen kind of driving driving around, right,
8:52
Speaker 1: that's another way to put it. It was abut yeah,
8:56
Speaker 1: but the same one that had been seen driving slowly
8:59
Speaker 1: around Braintree all morning. Suddenly pulls up and the guys
9:02
Speaker 1: who had shot these these two men and taken the
9:05
Speaker 1: money about fifteen thousand dollars um hopped in and that
9:09
Speaker 1: drove off and everyone lost sight of it. Yeah, and
9:13
Speaker 1: very importantly, the man who shot Baradelli had a hat
9:17
Speaker 1: a felt cap on, right, So just remember that little
9:20
Speaker 1: fact um. There were eyewitnesses all over the place. It's
9:24
Speaker 1: not like no one saw this happen. Like dozens of
9:27
Speaker 1: people saw this. Yeah, it was a daring daylight robbery
9:31
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the afternoon. Daring do right man
9:35
Speaker 1: named Jimmy Bostock was one of the witnesses. Apparently Barredelli
9:39
Speaker 1: like died in his arms, and like all people in
9:42
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, didn't know any better. He immediately started
9:46
Speaker 1: messing with the crime scene, started picking up gun shells.
9:50
Speaker 1: Another guy came by and picked up the hat, and
9:54
Speaker 1: you know, they just didn't know any better at the time,
9:55
Speaker 1: I guess, right, So um, they the crime scene has
10:01
Speaker 1: been totally messed up. But the cops show up because
10:03
Speaker 1: again this is a big deal. This is a small
10:05
Speaker 1: town and something close to two hundred and twenty thousand
10:09
Speaker 1: dollars has just been stolen and two men murdered for
10:13
Speaker 1: it in this little tiny town. So it's a big deal.
10:16
Speaker 1: And the cops showed up, and probably the first thing
10:18
Speaker 1: they said was anarchists. Maybe, I'll bet that's kind of
10:24
Speaker 1: what they would say. I think at the time. Should
10:28
Speaker 1: we take a break? Geez? Okay already, yeah, I think
10:31
Speaker 1: so that. I mean this falls into acts and that's
10:34
Speaker 1: definitely act one. Okay, alright, So dead men in the street,
10:39
Speaker 1: the cops are on the scene, and scene and shock
11:11
Speaker 1: is the ant scene or end scene, Chuck, We've talked
11:15
Speaker 1: about this a lot and scene end scene Nope, because
11:21
Speaker 1: it makes sense, you know, you do in the scene, right. So. Um, So,
11:29
Speaker 1: the the cops have shown up, they're investigating the place. Um,
11:33
Speaker 1: they're not really finding anything aside from what the witnesses
11:38
Speaker 1: have already kind of gathered up and now holding out
11:41
Speaker 1: to them in their outstretched palms, like here's your evidence, copper, Um.
11:47
Speaker 1: But the uh, the cars searched for all over and
11:52
Speaker 1: it's not found. It just totally disappears for a couple
11:55
Speaker 1: of days. Um, And the the turns up a couple
12:00
Speaker 1: of days later in the woods. I believe south of Braintree,
12:04
Speaker 1: in a place called Bridgewater, which is a little even
12:07
Speaker 1: further south from Boston. I think it's another like ten
12:10
Speaker 1: or so miles down south from um from Braintree, right.
12:15
Speaker 1: I think Bridgewater only had seven dunkin Donuts, so it
12:18
Speaker 1: was a small town, right. And so remember when I
12:21
Speaker 1: said the cops were probably like anarchists. I knew it. Um,
12:26
Speaker 1: there was another daylight robbery of payroll, and I found
12:30
Speaker 1: somewhere that it said it was successful. I found somewhere
12:33
Speaker 1: else that it was unsuccessful. But both of them agreed
12:36
Speaker 1: there had been no loss of life whatsoever. But it
12:38
Speaker 1: was similar enough, and it had happened like two years
12:41
Speaker 1: or a year before. Um, it was similar enough that
12:45
Speaker 1: the cops immediately thought of the people they've been thinking
12:49
Speaker 1: of for this, for this earlier crime. They thought, this
12:52
Speaker 1: is clearly the work of the same people. Yeah. And um,
12:57
Speaker 1: when they found this car in the woods, very importantly,
12:59
Speaker 1: that the license plates had been ripped off, and there
13:03
Speaker 1: were other tire tracks nearby, so it seemed pretty obvious that, uh,
13:09
Speaker 1: you know, they ditched this car get in another one.
13:12
Speaker 1: The officer on the scene said, Maddie, I think this
13:15
Speaker 1: is a car from the Braintree meta. All I can
13:19
Speaker 1: think of is Jeremy Renner in in the town. Sure,
13:23
Speaker 1: that's that's what I think of when I think Boston. Yeah,
13:26
Speaker 1: everyone thinks of that. So, um, another thing's going on
13:31
Speaker 1: in parallel, So we need to set this up. Um. Also,
13:34
Speaker 1: on April fifte which is the day of those maritas, Um,
13:39
Speaker 1: there was a guy named uh Ferruccio Cocchi, and he
13:44
Speaker 1: lived in Bridgewater. He was an anarchist. He was being deported. Uh,
13:49
Speaker 1: so he quits his job, you know, to be deported. Um,
13:51
Speaker 1: does not show up to be deported. Uh. He calls
13:55
Speaker 1: the Immigration service after that on the six and said, uh,
13:58
Speaker 1: you know my wife is a because I have to
14:00
Speaker 1: tind to her. And they said about am I gonna
14:04
Speaker 1: get in trouble for that? Now? No, you won't control
14:07
Speaker 1: everybody loves your Italian XS. At least tell me you
14:09
Speaker 1: can still do an Italian accent, right, I think? So
14:11
Speaker 1: we're going to find out after this episode, um, because
14:15
Speaker 1: I'm just doing the accent, not saying like they're all mobsters,
14:18
Speaker 1: because like, you know, the Sopranos got in trouble for that,
14:23
Speaker 1: Oh yeah did they did? They say all Italians were mobsters. No,
14:27
Speaker 1: but I mean I remember they're just being hey about
14:30
Speaker 1: from the Italian American community, Like, why is it every
14:32
Speaker 1: time in movies were just mobsters? Oh I could see that,
14:36
Speaker 1: you know, sure, I mean I could see them. Yeah,
14:39
Speaker 1: but these aren't even mobs. No, they're anarchists. Right. So
14:43
Speaker 1: he's being deported, he doesn't go. He calls them and says,
14:45
Speaker 1: my wife is sick, and they said, fine, we're gonna
14:48
Speaker 1: check out your story. Though they found that his wife
14:51
Speaker 1: was not sick, and that all of a sudden, he's saying, okay,
14:54
Speaker 1: it's fine. Actually I'm really ready to go, Like now,
14:58
Speaker 1: come on, come on, can you get me out of
14:59
Speaker 1: the entry quickly? And they're like, well, you should probably
15:02
Speaker 1: like leave some money with your wife. He's like, no, no no, no,
15:04
Speaker 1: she's good, So let's just go. Yeah, And so they're like,
15:07
Speaker 1: all right, this is a little odd, so let's maybe
15:10
Speaker 1: he's involved. Can I can I paint the scene a
15:13
Speaker 1: little bit? Though? I want to go back over and
15:15
Speaker 1: highlight two things that you've mentioned so far. One, this
15:18
Speaker 1: was a time where to cover up a crime, all
15:22
Speaker 1: you had to do was remove the license plates on
15:24
Speaker 1: the car you ditched. That was it. You just confounded
15:27
Speaker 1: the cops forever. That helped. And then secondly, if you
15:32
Speaker 1: were to be deported, all you had to do is
15:34
Speaker 1: not show up, but then call him the next day
15:36
Speaker 1: and say your wife was sick and and Immigration and
15:39
Speaker 1: Naturalization would say, sure, no problem. Well no were they
15:42
Speaker 1: investigated immediately. Okay, but I'm just saying, like this is
15:47
Speaker 1: things have changed to tas think is what I'm trying
15:50
Speaker 1: to say. Hold on, let me let me see, Trush,
15:51
Speaker 1: what are you trying to say. You're trying to say that. Yeah,
15:53
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say that. Yes, that's exactly what I'm
15:55
Speaker 1: trying to say. It's weird because you looked on both
15:59
Speaker 1: of your shoulders at the devil and the angel. Right,
16:02
Speaker 1: they won't shut up, Chuck, so uh they some they summarize,
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, it's all coming together. This guy's acting weird. Well,
16:12
Speaker 1: he's he's also choked one of those people that they
16:16
Speaker 1: liked for that that um robbery the the year before,
16:19
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons why they had their
16:21
Speaker 1: intent up about this guy in the first place. Right,
16:24
Speaker 1: So he's a suspect. The coops go to, uh specifically
16:29
Speaker 1: um Michael Stewart, police chief, said, I'm gonna go back
16:32
Speaker 1: to his house. I'm gonna see what else I can
16:34
Speaker 1: find out from this guy. He shows up and there's
16:37
Speaker 1: a dude there named Mike Boda, who says, yeah, sure,
16:40
Speaker 1: you can look around. You can look in the house,
16:42
Speaker 1: go back and look in the garage. Two car garage shed,
16:45
Speaker 1: no problem. Uh, usually have my car there. It's an Overland,
16:49
Speaker 1: but it's in the shop getting repaired. And Steward goes
16:53
Speaker 1: out there and it's like, all right, so here's where
16:55
Speaker 1: the Overland parks. But there's some really big tire tracks
16:59
Speaker 1: next to the over and uh and the second stall
17:02
Speaker 1: that looked like they would probably fit this large buick
17:05
Speaker 1: that was so mysteriously kind of tooling around around the
17:08
Speaker 1: time of this murder, right, and this cop Stewart goes,
17:13
Speaker 1: mm hmm, I'm gonna make a mental note of that.
17:16
Speaker 1: And that's what he did. He he asked about the uh,
17:21
Speaker 1: the the other car. I don't know if you said,
17:23
Speaker 1: bodhas said that his other car was at the garage
17:25
Speaker 1: being repaired. So, um so Stewart, who's the police chief
17:30
Speaker 1: of bridge Ward. I think I get the impression he
17:32
Speaker 1: was kind of new there's another one who kind of
17:34
Speaker 1: factors into this case tangentially later on Um who was
17:38
Speaker 1: the former police chief. So I get the impression that
17:40
Speaker 1: Michael Stewart was fairly new, but he's investigating this case.
17:44
Speaker 1: He likes Koachi. He's now met Mike Boda, who is
17:47
Speaker 1: suspicious of two Um. He goes back to talk to
17:50
Speaker 1: bodas some more to this place where Kachi lived uh
17:53
Speaker 1: as Boda's roommate, I guess, away from his wife and kids.
17:56
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why Koachi was running this place. We
17:59
Speaker 1: go with coaching, now, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it.
18:01
Speaker 1: I took Italian in college, and I'm almost a hundred
18:03
Speaker 1: percent sure it's Coachi. Do you remember from our Dyslexi
18:07
Speaker 1: episode where Italian is extremely easy to learn because there's
18:11
Speaker 1: just very few ways to to write things, to write
18:14
Speaker 1: the phone names. One of the reasons it is easier
18:17
Speaker 1: because it's kind of like Polish. It's in most most
18:20
Speaker 1: cases it's actually easier than Polish. But it's pronounced just
18:23
Speaker 1: like it's spelled, except for the C I is a sound.
18:28
Speaker 1: So Kachi, Okay, all right, that was your Italian lesson.
18:33
Speaker 1: I appreciate that after all these years. The other lesson
18:37
Speaker 1: not all Italians or Italian Americans or mobsters. That's your
18:41
Speaker 1: other Italian lesson. Now okay, so, um, I've a bunch
18:44
Speaker 1: of Italians Italian Americans and none of them were mobsters. Bam,
18:48
Speaker 1: there you go. Um so. Uh. Police Chief Stewart goes
18:53
Speaker 1: back to talk to Bodha, and things get really suspicious to,
18:57
Speaker 1: don't they, because he shows up and not boxed on
19:00
Speaker 1: the door, and the doors just swings open onto an
19:02
Speaker 1: empty apartment. And Stewart spends about fifteen minutes going boda,
19:07
Speaker 1: Mr bona, hello, Mr Boda, and he finally takes a
19:11
Speaker 1: couple of steps in and realizes boat is gone. That's right,
19:15
Speaker 1: so he uh he goes by the garage where he
19:17
Speaker 1: the guy said that his car was in the shop. Uh,
19:20
Speaker 1: goes over there. The car still there, So that checked out,
19:23
Speaker 1: and he told the owner, whose name was Simon Johnson,
19:26
Speaker 1: he said, hey, if anyone comes to get this car,
19:29
Speaker 1: just give us a call. And the guy says, mental note,
19:33
Speaker 1: call colops if someone comes to get this car. Jeremy writer.
19:37
Speaker 1: Um so on May five, this is what A couple
19:40
Speaker 1: of weeks later, Um, a man comes to the door
19:44
Speaker 1: and this is it. I believe this is. It says
19:46
Speaker 1: nine o'clock. But that's at night, right, yeah, I I
19:49
Speaker 1: couldn't tell it first, and then um it feels like night. Yeah.
19:53
Speaker 1: It says also that the wife is is um illuminated
19:56
Speaker 1: by a motorcycle headlights at night. Yeah, alright, so unless
20:00
Speaker 1: it's very dark in the morning. Right, So at nine
20:03
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, this guy shows up to the owners
20:08
Speaker 1: of the garages door, knocks on the door. His young
20:12
Speaker 1: wife answers. The guy says that he's Mike Boda, I'm
20:16
Speaker 1: here to pick up my car that ovaland over there,
20:20
Speaker 1: And the owner of the garage comes and tells his wife,
20:23
Speaker 1: and he says, go call the police. You know, we
20:25
Speaker 1: don't have a phone. Go next door, called the cops.
20:28
Speaker 1: She leaves out the back door and is caught, Like
20:30
Speaker 1: you said, there's this motorcycle sitting outside. She also sees
20:34
Speaker 1: with a sidecar, also sees a couple of guys that
20:38
Speaker 1: she said, we're speaking Italian kind of hanging around. So
20:41
Speaker 1: it's all sort of adding up at this point to
20:44
Speaker 1: uh something fishy. Yeah, So, um, I guess the fact
20:48
Speaker 1: that um that Simon uh Johnson, the shop owner or
20:53
Speaker 1: the mechanic was stalling, made boat a little uneasy, so
20:58
Speaker 1: he took off without the car. Right. Yeah, he jumped
21:02
Speaker 1: in the sidecar and was out of there. Okay, here's
21:05
Speaker 1: where things get super critical. For a pair of guys
21:09
Speaker 1: named Sacho and van Zetti. There were two other those
21:12
Speaker 1: other those two other guys that Ruth Johnson Simon Johnson,
21:15
Speaker 1: the mechanics wife said she saw um hanging out waiting
21:20
Speaker 1: for Mike Boda to get his car. They split two.
21:24
Speaker 1: Now they're suddenly like on foot. There's no motorcycle or
21:26
Speaker 1: car for them, so they have to leave on foot.
21:29
Speaker 1: So they walk over toward the direction of the Bridgewater
21:33
Speaker 1: rail line, and she says that she saw them get
21:35
Speaker 1: on the train or at least go toward the train
21:38
Speaker 1: station or no, the rail car. So I think it
21:40
Speaker 1: might have been like a street car kind of thing.
21:43
Speaker 1: So somehow Chief Stewart gets word of this. I think
21:49
Speaker 1: he shows up. He gets word of this, and he
21:51
Speaker 1: calls a the um the police chief in the next
21:55
Speaker 1: town over in Brockton, and says, hey, there's gonna be
21:58
Speaker 1: a pair of Italian guy is on the street car.
22:01
Speaker 1: When the when the when the street car stops in
22:04
Speaker 1: your the rail car stops in your town, get them.
22:06
Speaker 1: They are wanted for questioning in a murder robbery. And
22:10
Speaker 1: so the Brockton police board the train when it arrives
22:13
Speaker 1: in Brockton, and there are two Italian men sitting there.
22:16
Speaker 1: And the two men's names were Nicolas Sako and Bartolomeo Venzetti,
22:21
Speaker 1: and they just happened to be Italian, and they just
22:24
Speaker 1: happen to be anarchists, and they both happened to be
22:26
Speaker 1: strapped when the cops came on the rail car and
22:29
Speaker 1: started asking them questions. Yeah, Sacho had a thirty two
22:33
Speaker 1: cult UH and Van City had a thirty eight Harrington
22:38
Speaker 1: and Richardson, which very uniquely had five UH chambers instead
22:46
Speaker 1: of six. Seems unique. Yeah, yeah, I don't even know
22:50
Speaker 1: how that works. I would have to see this kind
22:52
Speaker 1: of revolver because six is a nice even number for
22:55
Speaker 1: a round thing. I don't I don't get it. But
22:58
Speaker 1: no one ever says, like, don't point that five shooter
23:00
Speaker 1: at me. It's always six shooter, you know. Yeah, although
23:05
Speaker 1: maybe maybe a five shooters, whether it's talking about when
23:08
Speaker 1: they call it a pea shooter, No, let's know what
23:10
Speaker 1: they mean. But it was the nies and there were
23:13
Speaker 1: all kinds of weird guns back then. Right. Okay, so
23:16
Speaker 1: these these two Italian immigrants who were anarchists and who
23:21
Speaker 1: were carrying guns, had one other big problem. They were
23:26
Speaker 1: giving some pretty weak and ever evolving stories. Uh, an
23:31
Speaker 1: answer to the questions that the cops were asking them.
23:33
Speaker 1: They get hauled into the police station I believe in Bridgewater,
23:37
Speaker 1: um or Braintree. Do you know which one it was?
23:40
Speaker 1: I think it was. I think it was brain Tree.
23:42
Speaker 1: Actually they got taken a Braintree because it was Stewart
23:45
Speaker 1: who was investigating them. So they get taken a brain
23:47
Speaker 1: Tree and police Chief Stewart questions them. But then so
23:51
Speaker 1: too does the UM. The chief prosecutor for the area,
23:55
Speaker 1: a guy named Frederick Katzman, who would play an enormous
24:00
Speaker 1: role in this case as well. Yeah, so he was
24:02
Speaker 1: the d A and he the I think the key
24:05
Speaker 1: fact that really sold him was he found out that
24:08
Speaker 1: on April fifteenth, on the day of these murders, Socca
24:10
Speaker 1: was not at work at the three K shoe factory.
24:15
Speaker 1: And uh, he said, you know what, that's enough for me.
24:19
Speaker 1: We have no real evidence or anything else, but you
24:22
Speaker 1: are Italian. Uh, Italian American anarchists. You weren't at work
24:28
Speaker 1: that day, so let's go ahead and haul you in here, right,
24:31
Speaker 1: because yeah, we left off the fact that they found
24:33
Speaker 1: like UM anarchists pamphlets on the on the men when
24:37
Speaker 1: they when they took him off the train. So there
24:39
Speaker 1: was a lot against them going against them at this point. Um,
24:45
Speaker 1: just from the outside of this, but you kind of
24:47
Speaker 1: touched on it. All of this is very very circumstantial. Yeah,
24:52
Speaker 1: So right away, the anarchists of UM of the area
24:56
Speaker 1: come on board. Uh. They formed the Saco Vent City
25:00
Speaker 1: Defense Committee, and one of their leaders, one of the
25:03
Speaker 1: anarchist leaders in the area named Carlo Tresca, said all right,
25:06
Speaker 1: let's hire this uh, this lawyer from California. This guy's
25:10
Speaker 1: a radical. Uh, he's gonna lead our defense and more
25:14
Speaker 1: comes on board. Fred Morin's like, here's the way we're
25:17
Speaker 1: gonna do this is let's like let's get everyone worked up,
25:20
Speaker 1: like not only in this area, but all over the world.
25:24
Speaker 1: Let's get radicals, and let's get anarchists, and let's get
25:28
Speaker 1: union members. Let's paint these guys. It's just like hard working,
25:32
Speaker 1: blue collar union dudes, and let's get people all over
25:34
Speaker 1: the world paying attention to what's going on over here. Yes,
25:38
Speaker 1: which is a very common tactics still in use today.
25:42
Speaker 1: Just turn public sentiment against the government and the prosecutors
25:47
Speaker 1: in their case and um, basically painted like Saco and Vinzetti,
25:51
Speaker 1: We're just a couple of normal dudes who are being
25:53
Speaker 1: railroaded for for political reasons and probably out of a
25:57
Speaker 1: certain amount of xenophobia as well. Sure, so, uh well,
26:02
Speaker 1: let's take a break. The trial opens in May with
26:06
Speaker 1: Judge Webster there and uh we'll be back with what
26:09
Speaker 1: happens next right after this and shock you chuck. Before
26:37
Speaker 1: we get back into I want to give a shout
26:39
Speaker 1: out to Doug Lender. Douglas Lender, who's a law professor
26:42
Speaker 1: and historian who wrote a paper that we used as
26:45
Speaker 1: a source that was pretty pretty handy, pretty good stuff. Yeah,
26:48
Speaker 1: law professors. I mean, there's a lot of good information
26:51
Speaker 1: out here on this, but you get a law professor
26:54
Speaker 1: on the on the typewriter and they're gonna condense it
26:57
Speaker 1: into a nice, readable, workable document. That's right, That's what
27:02
Speaker 1: they do. They're very good at that. Yes, So all right,
27:06
Speaker 1: trials underway. Um, Like I said before, Judge Webster there
27:10
Speaker 1: proceeds over this trial. Um, catsman, that's the d A
27:15
Speaker 1: that's prosecuting. He has got a lot of circumstantial evidence,
27:19
Speaker 1: he has eyewitnesses, but not really a lot of hard
27:23
Speaker 1: evidence going on. Right, It's a little a tough case
27:27
Speaker 1: for him to like solidly prove. Yeah, And that that
27:30
Speaker 1: was another reason why um Fred Moore was able to
27:34
Speaker 1: run around drumming up public sentiment, not just in the
27:36
Speaker 1: United States or even just Boston or Massachusetts, but around
27:39
Speaker 1: the world. Um. That that that Sacco and Vanzetti were
27:45
Speaker 1: being railroaded is that the the evidence against them was
27:48
Speaker 1: really really weak. Um. The eyewitness testimony was super um.
27:55
Speaker 1: If you if you had the luxury like historians like
27:58
Speaker 1: Douglas Linder have had to compare you know, um, the
28:02
Speaker 1: original notes or the original statements made by eyewitnesses, um
28:07
Speaker 1: against the types of statements they made in court. The
28:11
Speaker 1: statements they made in court were much more certain, much
28:15
Speaker 1: more sure. And this was after a year of reading
28:18
Speaker 1: the newspaper and being exposed to pictures of Saccho and Vanzetti.
28:21
Speaker 1: So when they see Sacho and Vanzetti in the court room,
28:23
Speaker 1: they're like, yes, I saw that man holding that gun
28:26
Speaker 1: and he was the one that pulled the trigger. The
28:29
Speaker 1: thing is, there was not one witness, but there were
28:32
Speaker 1: witnesses who placed both of them at the crime scene
28:35
Speaker 1: or at least in the buick around town on that day.
28:39
Speaker 1: But there was not one single witness who placed both
28:41
Speaker 1: of them there. That's just the eye witnesses. They also had.
28:45
Speaker 1: The other big piece of circumstantial evidence were the guns
28:48
Speaker 1: that they were found with. UM, and they used ballistic
28:52
Speaker 1: experts to come in and say, yes, this bullet came
28:55
Speaker 1: from this gun, but again looking at it with history
28:58
Speaker 1: behind the benefit of history. UM. This was at a
29:02
Speaker 1: time when when ballistics comparison was just beginning to come around,
29:08
Speaker 1: and the people that they employed as ballistics experts were
29:11
Speaker 1: self taught amateurs who just basically had an interest in
29:14
Speaker 1: this field. Were in no way, shape or form genuine
29:17
Speaker 1: experts because you could make a case there was no
29:19
Speaker 1: such thing as a genuine ballistics comparison expert at the time.
29:23
Speaker 1: It was too new as far as forensic goes. Yeah.
29:26
Speaker 1: So on the defense side, UM, immediately they say, those
29:30
Speaker 1: guys weren't even in Braintree. UH. Socco was in Boston. UM,
29:36
Speaker 1: Vansetti was in Plymouth. The both both sides. It's it's
29:39
Speaker 1: interesting to look back on this trial because both the
29:42
Speaker 1: prosecution and the defense were like being very hinky with
29:46
Speaker 1: the truth themselves, um, influencing people on both sides to
29:50
Speaker 1: testify kind of behind the scenes. Um. Fred Moore, the
29:54
Speaker 1: defense attorney, trotted out a bunch of witnesses that say, no,
29:58
Speaker 1: like Vanzetti was definitely in plan if he's a fishmonger,
30:01
Speaker 1: bought fish from him. And then later on it was
30:03
Speaker 1: found out that some of these people, well all of
30:06
Speaker 1: them basically were friends of his. And then some of
30:08
Speaker 1: the people came out even later and said, yeah, he
30:10
Speaker 1: kind of told me to say this, But that happened
30:13
Speaker 1: on the prosecution side too, Yes, supposedly, Um, later on
30:18
Speaker 1: they would allege that the prosecutor Um Catsman, and the
30:24
Speaker 1: chief or the lead ballistics or the star ballistics witness
30:28
Speaker 1: had kind of coordinated the answer that the ballistics witness
30:32
Speaker 1: would give at trial and that it would be much
30:34
Speaker 1: more stronger and much um much more certain than he
30:39
Speaker 1: the the actual conclusion he came to, uh prior to
30:43
Speaker 1: the trial, based on his original ballistics tests. Yeah, so
30:47
Speaker 1: there's there's hinkiness on both sides. Um. Catsman has his
30:50
Speaker 1: hat and remember one of the gunmen definitely had on
30:54
Speaker 1: a gray cap, so he has this gray cap. He said,
30:57
Speaker 1: this is Sako's. He gets together with an expert behind
30:59
Speaker 1: the scenes and says and again with this like like
31:03
Speaker 1: you were saying, the sort of the beginnings of uh,
31:05
Speaker 1: not ballistics in this case, but just um forensics, any
31:10
Speaker 1: kind of forensics. Yeah. They he looked at the hairs
31:13
Speaker 1: in the hat, got a hair from Soco and Socco
31:16
Speaker 1: was like, oh that hurt. And he compared him and
31:19
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, these hairs are identical. I'm telling you,
31:22
Speaker 1: they're the same hairs. But Catsman was like, you know what,
31:26
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to court uh and present
31:29
Speaker 1: this because this stuff is all new. They're gonna paint
31:32
Speaker 1: you as unreliable because no one knows anything about hair
31:35
Speaker 1: comparison yet. So instead of doing that, he goes to
31:39
Speaker 1: the boss of the shoe factory, George Kelly, you know,
31:42
Speaker 1: was like, have you seen this hat before? And Kelly said, yes,
31:46
Speaker 1: that's Saco's hat. I've seen him wear that hat and
31:50
Speaker 1: the hole in it is from the nail that he
31:53
Speaker 1: hangs it on every day, When in fact, that was
31:56
Speaker 1: definitely not the case, no that earlier. The previous chief
32:00
Speaker 1: later testified that he had actually accidentally punched the hole
32:03
Speaker 1: in the hat while he was examining it for any
32:06
Speaker 1: kind of identifying marks. He also testified that the hat
32:11
Speaker 1: had a very um questionable providence, that it hadn't come
32:14
Speaker 1: into police custody for thirty hours after the crime, so
32:19
Speaker 1: he couldn't say he as far as he knew, it
32:22
Speaker 1: was not found at the crime scene, that it hadn't
32:25
Speaker 1: been secured by the police, He didn't know exactly where
32:27
Speaker 1: it came from. And then finally I read elsewhere in
32:31
Speaker 1: a final twist and tell stop me if this sounds familiar.
32:34
Speaker 1: But they asked Sacho to put the hat on in
32:37
Speaker 1: court and it was too small for his head. It
32:40
Speaker 1: didn't fit. They did not acquit though, ruined it. Oh,
32:46
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, sorry everybody. It's funny. There's probably a lot
32:49
Speaker 1: of people out there who have no idea how this
32:51
Speaker 1: is going to turn out, because if you search on
32:53
Speaker 1: Google just Sacho and Vanzetti. One of the suggested questions
32:57
Speaker 1: is what is Sacho and Vanzetti? Not who what? It's
33:03
Speaker 1: a nice appertif right, So, um, I don't know if
33:08
Speaker 1: we mentioned but like Sacho, had definitely much more evidence
33:12
Speaker 1: against him, even if it was circumstantial, than Benzetti did
33:18
Speaker 1: for sure, So Vanzetti is has the thinnest case against him,
33:23
Speaker 1: but he like he lied to the cops. Um he
33:27
Speaker 1: had that gun, remember, and on the stand he said, yeah,
33:31
Speaker 1: actually I got that gun just a few days ago.
33:34
Speaker 1: I bought it for four or five bucks. And they're like, well,
33:36
Speaker 1: you told us that you bought it four or five
33:38
Speaker 1: years ago for eighteen dollars. You said there were six
33:43
Speaker 1: chambers in it and only had five, And what's going
33:47
Speaker 1: on here? You're lying, Jimmy Vanzetti. The whole thing with
33:50
Speaker 1: the gun, I don't know if we've said or not yet.
33:52
Speaker 1: The reason why the gun was so suspicious and was
33:54
Speaker 1: basically like the central piece of evidence used against um
33:59
Speaker 1: van Zetti is that it was supposedly the exact same
34:03
Speaker 1: kind of gun that Alessandro Barradelli had on and when
34:06
Speaker 1: he was killed. So the the whole, the whole idea
34:09
Speaker 1: was that um Vanzetti had been at the at least
34:13
Speaker 1: at the crime scene, if not one of the killers,
34:15
Speaker 1: who had taken Barradelli's gun after he had killed him,
34:19
Speaker 1: and made off with it, which would explain why he
34:21
Speaker 1: wasn't very familiar with the gun and how many chambers
34:23
Speaker 1: it had and didn't have a very solid story about
34:26
Speaker 1: where he'd gotten in and how long he'd owned it too.
34:29
Speaker 1: That was the implication of the whole thing, and that
34:31
Speaker 1: was basically the That was it. That was the crux
34:34
Speaker 1: of the prosecution's case against Vanzetti. Vanzetti's big problem was
34:39
Speaker 1: he was sitting next to Saco when Soacco got taken
34:42
Speaker 1: off the train, and they had a lot more on
34:44
Speaker 1: Socco and they were tried together rather than separately. Yeah,
34:48
Speaker 1: and Socco. That ballistics evidence made a big, big difference
34:51
Speaker 1: in the trial because they found out for sure that
34:55
Speaker 1: that bullet that killed uh Baradelli was definitely fired from
34:59
Speaker 1: a Colt automatic. Um, and your cult automatic is what
35:04
Speaker 1: they alleged. And uh, well, we'll hold on to that
35:08
Speaker 1: last bit until later. But um about what was found
35:11
Speaker 1: out later about that. But um, I think even some
35:15
Speaker 1: of the jurors said that that was really some of
35:18
Speaker 1: the most compelling evidence against Sacho for us in deciding
35:22
Speaker 1: this case. Yeah, and again, like they're listening to forensic
35:25
Speaker 1: evidence from a field that's still in the very and
35:28
Speaker 1: it's cradle from testimony given by people who are not experts.
35:33
Speaker 1: But that was, like you said, the jurors said, this
35:36
Speaker 1: was that was it for me. That was what convinced
35:38
Speaker 1: me was the ballistics evidence. Basically. So they go to
35:43
Speaker 1: uh jury and they go to deliberations and just five
35:48
Speaker 1: a house five and a half hours later, the jury
35:51
Speaker 1: said guilty has charged about six weeks after the trial started,
35:55
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, So it was a big deal. You know,
35:58
Speaker 1: like uh, Sacho is crying out innocent and Italian in
36:01
Speaker 1: the court. Um, they were like protests all over the world,
36:07
Speaker 1: like South America, France, uh, Lisbon. It's just crazy how
36:13
Speaker 1: much this at the time in the nineteen twenties became
36:17
Speaker 1: an international thing and uh basically they were due for
36:21
Speaker 1: the electric chair, so people all over the world were protesting.
36:24
Speaker 1: There were bombings. Um, it was nuts. Yeah, this is
36:28
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a time when labor was unionized,
36:31
Speaker 1: so you could arouse the sympathy of a lot of
36:34
Speaker 1: people at once by going to the union hall and
36:36
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, your your brothers in arms over there
36:40
Speaker 1: in America are being railroaded into a murder rap. They're
36:43
Speaker 1: gonna be electrocuting the electric chair for something they didn't
36:46
Speaker 1: commit simply because of their political beliefs. How messed up
36:49
Speaker 1: is that? And they you could arouse some some people
36:53
Speaker 1: pretty quickly back then by saying that as opposed to today, Yeah,
36:58
Speaker 1: for sure, um more immediately starts the defense attorney immediately
37:02
Speaker 1: starts filing motions, trying to get like new trials. That was,
37:07
Speaker 1: he had an assistant named Eugene Lions, who later would
37:10
Speaker 1: come out and say, man, like this guy basically would
37:14
Speaker 1: do anything. Um, he was framing evidence, he was telling
37:20
Speaker 1: witnesses what to say, like once he had up in
37:22
Speaker 1: his mind that and keep in mind, this was like
37:25
Speaker 1: a radical lawyer from California. He said, once he had
37:28
Speaker 1: in mind that these guys were innocent, he was like
37:31
Speaker 1: he he basically would do anything to try and get
37:32
Speaker 1: them off. Yeah, he's a born perjury. He'd intimidate witnesses,
37:36
Speaker 1: he do whatever if he thought that somebody was being
37:39
Speaker 1: innocently prosecuted. Fred Moore would stop at nothing too to yeah,
37:44
Speaker 1: to get them off. And this article I think kind
37:46
Speaker 1: of paints an incomplete picture of Eugene Lions and Fred
37:49
Speaker 1: Moore's relationship. Like Eugene my lions. Was also very much
37:52
Speaker 1: an admirer of Fred Moore to um, like, he considered
37:56
Speaker 1: Fred Moore to have the heart of an artist, but
37:59
Speaker 1: he was that he had dedicated his life to getting
38:03
Speaker 1: people who were being steamrolled by the system or unfairly
38:07
Speaker 1: treated by the courts out from under these these charges.
38:12
Speaker 1: He was he was an early civil liberty civil liberties lawyer,
38:16
Speaker 1: basically was what he was. Yes, so none of these
38:19
Speaker 1: motions work. He files a bunch of them. Um, we're
38:22
Speaker 1: not going to detail them all, but none of them, Uh,
38:26
Speaker 1: none of them worked. They were basically all turned down.
38:29
Speaker 1: Fair was still the presiding judge. He was turning down
38:33
Speaker 1: all these things. Then they went to like federal court,
38:36
Speaker 1: they were turning down motions. Eventually they went to the
38:39
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court was like, why are
38:42
Speaker 1: you asking us about this? Like we this is a
38:44
Speaker 1: state case, Like we don't even do this kind of thing. Yeah.
38:48
Speaker 1: The the court at the time was very much against
38:51
Speaker 1: um or the majority I should say, it was against
38:53
Speaker 1: applying the con federal Constitution to state issues, so they
38:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't get involved. But um, I mean it did go
39:01
Speaker 1: all the way to at least petitioning the Supreme Court,
39:04
Speaker 1: they wouldn't hear it, and they wouldn't stay the execution either. UM.
39:08
Speaker 1: But he, as much as a lawyer can exhaust petitions
39:13
Speaker 1: and appeals for clemency UM and and the stay of execution.
39:18
Speaker 1: Fred Moore did. And then later on another defense lawyer
39:21
Speaker 1: named William Thompson, who took over for Fred Moore after
39:24
Speaker 1: Sacho fired Fred Moore, UM did the same thing. Like
39:27
Speaker 1: up to the eve the eve of the execution, they
39:30
Speaker 1: were relentless and filing appeals with anything, anything they could
39:34
Speaker 1: get their hands on. UM. They filed an entire motion
39:38
Speaker 1: for a new trial based strictly on Judge Thayer's perceived
39:42
Speaker 1: uh prejudice against um anarchists. Apparently he did not like anarchists,
39:47
Speaker 1: and he treated Psacho and Vanzetti as such. Um throughout
39:50
Speaker 1: the trial. UM. And as you're if you're just watching
39:54
Speaker 1: watching this from the outside, if you're reading about this
39:57
Speaker 1: in the press, and you're already on Saco and Venzetti's side, Judge,
40:02
Speaker 1: they are turning down motion after motion after motion after motion. UM.
40:06
Speaker 1: Looks really bad. It looks very much like this judge
40:09
Speaker 1: is bent on railroading these two immigrant anarchists into an
40:15
Speaker 1: an early and unjust death by electric chair. So the um,
40:20
Speaker 1: the public sympathies and were aroused even further for Sacco
40:25
Speaker 1: and Van City, and that would last for decades after
40:28
Speaker 1: this trial up century almost now. Yeah, So Socco's in
40:33
Speaker 1: jail and another weird thing happens while he's in jail
40:36
Speaker 1: at uh in deadham d E d H A M.
40:40
Speaker 1: There was another prisoner there who passed a note on
40:44
Speaker 1: and said basically, I'm confessing to this crime. My name
40:49
Speaker 1: is uh Celestino Madeiros And they were like, all right, well,
40:55
Speaker 1: let's let's talk to this guy. He's confessing to this
40:57
Speaker 1: crime and saying that Socco and Vincetti or innocent. Uh.
41:01
Speaker 1: He said, I was there. I was UM with four
41:05
Speaker 1: other guys, so that kind of checks out. As far
41:07
Speaker 1: the five Italians, he said, we met in Providence at
41:12
Speaker 1: a bar and we just come came up with this plan.
41:15
Speaker 1: He said. There was a guy named Mike, a gun
41:16
Speaker 1: named Bill. I don't know the other guys. I was scared.
41:20
Speaker 1: We switched cars in the woods. Like all this stuff
41:23
Speaker 1: was sort of making sense, um, but it really didn't.
41:27
Speaker 1: Like in the end, there were too many other things
41:30
Speaker 1: that were wrong. Uh. Like he said that they didn't
41:33
Speaker 1: get there until afternoon, and everyone was like, no, that
41:35
Speaker 1: car was there like maybe between nine am and noon. Um.
41:40
Speaker 1: He also said that the payroll money was in a
41:42
Speaker 1: bag when it was in a metal box, and so
41:44
Speaker 1: there were enough inconsistencies basically where uh he wasn't really
41:51
Speaker 1: a major suspect like they considered it. Thompson tried to
41:56
Speaker 1: use it as the basis for a new trial, but
41:58
Speaker 1: none of this worked because Air was still kind of
42:00
Speaker 1: calling the shots before they ran it up the flag bowl. Yeah,
42:04
Speaker 1: but again, news made made its way out into the
42:07
Speaker 1: international press that someone had confessed, and not only confessed,
42:11
Speaker 1: said that Sacho and Vanzetti weren't there. And this this
42:14
Speaker 1: judge who headed out for Sacho and Vanzetti refused to
42:17
Speaker 1: even hear this, this motion to uh to have a
42:20
Speaker 1: new trial. So it looked it looked bad as well too.
42:23
Speaker 1: It did so it looked bad enough that the governor
42:25
Speaker 1: at the time, Alvin Fuller, said, you know what, we
42:27
Speaker 1: have to do something here. There's just too much public
42:30
Speaker 1: pressure going on from around the world. He said, So
42:33
Speaker 1: here's what we'll do. We'll get a three person advisory committee.
42:37
Speaker 1: They're gonna investigate this. He said, Hey, you Lawrence Lowell,
42:42
Speaker 1: you're the president of Havid. You had this thing up. Uh.
42:45
Speaker 1: And then what was known as the Lowell Commission UM
42:48
Speaker 1: finally issued a report which said basically, uh, beyond a
42:54
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt, Sacho is guilty. Uh. And Vanzetti said on
43:00
Speaker 1: the whole, it's our opinion that he's also guilty beyond
43:03
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. And everyone was like, well, why did you
43:06
Speaker 1: say all those other words then? And they're like, what
43:09
Speaker 1: other words? Yeah? Really kind of a strange final report.
43:15
Speaker 1: What's funny is in the Boston area if they're like,
43:17
Speaker 1: we need somebody smart, get me the president of Harvard.
43:21
Speaker 1: Well yeah, And in the end he's like, you are
43:23
Speaker 1: definitely guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and so are you
43:26
Speaker 1: more or less in our opinion? Right? No, I know.
43:28
Speaker 1: It was weird and it remains weird. But apparently years later,
43:32
Speaker 1: when Lowell was asked about that, he was saying like, no,
43:36
Speaker 1: that wasn't any indication that we thought vanz he had
43:39
Speaker 1: any kind of um, any kind of innocence to him,
43:42
Speaker 1: or that he wasn't guilty. UM. I'm not sure exactly
43:46
Speaker 1: how he explained it, but he basically said, no, that
43:48
Speaker 1: wasn't that's not what that was interesting. I don't know
43:52
Speaker 1: what he thought it was. That was a weird way
43:55
Speaker 1: to put it, but that was I think the other
43:58
Speaker 1: thing that kind of arouses people's in t in that
44:00
Speaker 1: or suspicion maybe even is that that's what a lot
44:03
Speaker 1: of people think that Sacco was definitely guilty. Yeah. I
44:07
Speaker 1: shouldn't say a lot, but some people that Sacco is
44:09
Speaker 1: definitely guilty. And if anyone was innocent, it was Vanzetti.
44:13
Speaker 1: So the idea that this Lowell commission came up with
44:15
Speaker 1: this back in the twenties even um is significant. But yeah,
44:19
Speaker 1: Lowell was like, no, that's not what we meant playing that.
44:21
Speaker 1: So none of these stays of execution go through. So
44:25
Speaker 1: there reunited. They were split up in jail for many,
44:29
Speaker 1: many years, um six years, and then they were finally
44:32
Speaker 1: reunited at Charlestown State Prison for execution in April, and uh,
44:38
Speaker 1: they had, like you, you wouldn't believe how many cops
44:43
Speaker 1: they have in this town, uh, to cover this thing
44:45
Speaker 1: because it was sort of one of the first crimes
44:48
Speaker 1: of the century, I think, and people were mad all
44:51
Speaker 1: over the country and all over the world. Like we've
44:53
Speaker 1: been talking about. They didn't know if they're going to
44:55
Speaker 1: be more bombings. People were gonna like literally storm the
44:58
Speaker 1: prison and trying overtake them and free them. So they
45:02
Speaker 1: had tons and tons of cops everywhere. Uh, Socco is
45:07
Speaker 1: first to go, and as they are strapping him in,
45:10
Speaker 1: he's crying out in Italian along with anarchy, and then
45:14
Speaker 1: in English very quietly says farewell my wife and child
45:17
Speaker 1: and all my friends, and uh, right when they finally
45:21
Speaker 1: threw the switch, he screamed out mama. And I don't
45:26
Speaker 1: think like that. No, No, I'm not making light of it.
45:29
Speaker 1: I don't think he was like, whoa mama. No, I
45:32
Speaker 1: don't think so either. I think he was calling for
45:34
Speaker 1: his mother. Yes, just pretty sad but also kind of sweet. Um.
45:39
Speaker 1: And then Vanzetti comes in and he's like, oh, it's
45:42
Speaker 1: my turn, all right, Well, okay, I want to make
45:45
Speaker 1: sure everybody knows that I am innocent. Um. So I
45:50
Speaker 1: think it's significant that Sacco was the one that shouted
45:53
Speaker 1: in the courtroom that he was innocent, but didn't during
45:56
Speaker 1: his execution, and Vanzetti didn't say anything in the courtroom,
45:59
Speaker 1: but his execution he's like, I'm innocent, and not only
46:02
Speaker 1: that he really turned the screwdriver. He said, I want
46:07
Speaker 1: to make it known that I forgive all of you
46:09
Speaker 1: who are about to do this to me. And he
46:11
Speaker 1: started crying. Well, the wardens started crying when he gave
46:14
Speaker 1: the switch, gave the nod to turn to throw the
46:18
Speaker 1: switch on the electric chair and kill Vanzetti. Tears flowing everywhere.
46:22
Speaker 1: High drama. Yes, surely it has been. But I'll bet
46:29
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the seventies or something. We just aren't
46:31
Speaker 1: aware of it. Like Warren Batty played Sacho and ven
46:34
Speaker 1: Zetti in some weird casting and somehow Jeremy Renner co
46:39
Speaker 1: he right exactly. Um, but but so Sacho and ven
46:44
Speaker 1: Zetti are dead. Like they're dead. The state took their lives.
46:48
Speaker 1: They executed them. These conceivably innocent men who were railroaded
46:53
Speaker 1: to the electric chair uncircumstantial evidence and the testimony of
46:57
Speaker 1: some ballistic experts were not experts by anyone's measure. Um,
47:02
Speaker 1: these men are now dead, and the world reacts um predictably.
47:07
Speaker 1: There were riots. Six people died in a riot in Germany. Um.
47:12
Speaker 1: The American embassy in Paris had already been bombed, so
47:16
Speaker 1: they Uh. They brought tanks out on the night of
47:19
Speaker 1: the execution, UH and surrounded it this time, and there
47:23
Speaker 1: were no bombings. Um. There were riots in Geneva, Switzerland.
47:27
Speaker 1: This may have been the only time anyone ever rioted
47:30
Speaker 1: in Geneva, Switzerland. Um. They were like five thousand pro
47:33
Speaker 1: protesters who destroyed everything that was even passingly American. UM.
47:38
Speaker 1: And Saco and Vinzetti went into the history books as
47:42
Speaker 1: a couple of innocent men who were executed wrongfully by
47:46
Speaker 1: the state because of their political beliefs. They were political
47:49
Speaker 1: prisoners who were executed for their beliefs. Basically is how
47:52
Speaker 1: most people have come to see Sacho and Vanzetti. Yeah,
47:56
Speaker 1: but many years later, a couple of a few notable
47:59
Speaker 1: things happened. UM. In nineteen forty one that gentleman I
48:03
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, the Carlo Carlo Trusca, the anarchist leader a
48:08
Speaker 1: couple of years wore he died in the nineteen forties,
48:10
Speaker 1: basically said, you know what, Osaka was guilty, he was
48:14
Speaker 1: a trigger man, but van Setti was not guilty. UM.
48:17
Speaker 1: Other people had heard the same thing from Trusca, And
48:20
Speaker 1: then in nineteen sixty one they had um actual ballistics
48:24
Speaker 1: tests done and uh it was concluded that, uh, that
48:31
Speaker 1: was in fact a bullet from Sacho's gun. But people
48:36
Speaker 1: still were saying, no, you know what, I think the
48:38
Speaker 1: bullet was planted, So we render that inconclusive. But I
48:43
Speaker 1: think Doug Linder does a pretty good job of of
48:46
Speaker 1: taking the planted bullet theory fatal bullet or bullet number
48:50
Speaker 1: three is what it's called in the trial um and
48:53
Speaker 1: and basically saying no, this is why that doesn't really
48:55
Speaker 1: hold up. And probably the biggest one is UM, when
48:59
Speaker 1: the ballistics witnesses gave their testimony, UM, both of the
49:04
Speaker 1: prosecution star ballistic witnesses said yes, I would conclude probably
49:10
Speaker 1: that it came out of this gun, or yes, it's
49:12
Speaker 1: probable or possible or something like that. They couched their
49:16
Speaker 1: expert opinions when they gave their testimony. And if they
49:20
Speaker 1: were part of a conspiracy to frame Sacho in the
49:23
Speaker 1: planting of this bullet, they would have given much more
49:26
Speaker 1: forceful testimony, which in and of itself as a circumstantial
49:31
Speaker 1: evidence against this planted bullet theory. But it draws so
49:34
Speaker 1: closely uncommon sense that I think it makes sense to me.
49:38
Speaker 1: It undermines the idea that the bullet was planted. Yeah.
49:42
Speaker 1: There was another gentleman named Giovanni Gambara who said, Um,
49:46
Speaker 1: you know what my dad um before he died in
49:50
Speaker 1: nine two, he told me he was on this team
49:54
Speaker 1: of anarchists that met after their arrest to get their
49:56
Speaker 1: defense mounted. And he told me and everyone said basically
50:00
Speaker 1: that Socco was guilty and Venzetti was innocent. And then weirdly, uh,
50:06
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, Upton Sinclair, the very famous author,
50:11
Speaker 1: said that he was researching a book and he was
50:13
Speaker 1: going to write it. Uh, he was writing a book
50:15
Speaker 1: about this whole thing, and he met with Thread Moore,
50:19
Speaker 1: that the radical defense attorney that mounted the defense for
50:22
Speaker 1: basically most of the case. And he said he met
50:26
Speaker 1: with him in a hotel room. Was like, dude, give
50:28
Speaker 1: me the real story. And he said that Moore told him, Yeah,
50:31
Speaker 1: Sacco was guilty and um Vansetti was innocent, and I
50:36
Speaker 1: basically came up with this whole defense on my own,
50:40
Speaker 1: like made all this stuff up. Yeah. Yeah. Years later
50:44
Speaker 1: it came out that um, the seven eyewitnesses for the
50:48
Speaker 1: defense who said that they saw Um Saco eating lunch
50:54
Speaker 1: in Boston at the time of the um Robbery and
50:57
Speaker 1: Braintree had all been set up by the defense, or
51:02
Speaker 1: at least by an anarchist group had who had asked
51:04
Speaker 1: them to go perjury themselves. And um, yeah, I think
51:07
Speaker 1: that kind of jibes with the Eugene Lions quote that like,
51:11
Speaker 1: if he thought these guys were innocent, they would do
51:13
Speaker 1: he would do anything to to get him off, including
51:15
Speaker 1: you know, putting witnesses on the stand knowing that they
51:19
Speaker 1: were going to lie, and telling them to lie. And
51:22
Speaker 1: this was a letter from Upton Sinclair based on an
51:25
Speaker 1: interview with Fred Moore, so it's has has a lot
51:29
Speaker 1: of teeth. But the the thing there was another letter
51:34
Speaker 1: from Upton Sinclair, another quote from Upton Zinclair where he
51:37
Speaker 1: said that Fred Moore had confessed to him that um
51:41
Speaker 1: ven Zetti was innocent, and he knew he was innocent,
51:45
Speaker 1: but he was pretty sure Sacho wasn't. But all he
51:48
Speaker 1: had to do was go to the the jury and say, hey,
51:52
Speaker 1: you we all know that you don't have anything on
51:54
Speaker 1: ven Zetti. There's no reason for you to to to
51:57
Speaker 1: prosecute this man. But he knew that if he did that,
52:00
Speaker 1: the jury would be like, well, you're probably right, but
52:02
Speaker 1: we're gonna come down really hard on Socco. So he
52:05
Speaker 1: had this dilemma and he took it to van Zetti,
52:07
Speaker 1: he said, and Vanzetti said, you know what, try to
52:11
Speaker 1: save Nick nicolasako Um, he has the wife, he has
52:15
Speaker 1: the child. I don't try to get him off. So Vanzetti,
52:19
Speaker 1: in this retelling by Fred Moore, gave his life on
52:23
Speaker 1: the chance that that Fred Moore could get Sacho off,
52:27
Speaker 1: because if he got Sosacho off, he get Vanzetti off,
52:29
Speaker 1: if he got Vanzetti off, he would almost surely sink
52:32
Speaker 1: um Sacco and Vanzetti wouldn't take the take the opportunity
52:36
Speaker 1: to to to be acquitted at the expense of Saco,
52:40
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. Yep. So that's Sacco and Vanzetti, everybody.
52:46
Speaker 1: That's what Asacho and Vanzetti is now, you know, I
52:50
Speaker 1: guess when guilty and one innocent. That's what it sounds like,
52:53
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. If you want to know more
52:56
Speaker 1: about Saco and Vinzetti, go look up Doug Linder. I
52:58
Speaker 1: believe he has a whole site on true crime, and
53:01
Speaker 1: there's plenty of other stuff out there that we found
53:04
Speaker 1: two on the internet about Sacho and Vanzetti and their
53:07
Speaker 1: famous trial. And since I said Sacho and Vanzetti like
53:11
Speaker 1: eighty times, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
53:16
Speaker 1: this response to a short stuff. UM yeah right, hey guys, Uh,
53:20
Speaker 1: your show is one of my favorite podcasts, so much
53:22
Speaker 1: so that I've taken to listening to it while I
53:23
Speaker 1: get ready for work. WHOA, we know that is your
53:27
Speaker 1: sacred time. Um. I just finish the episode on Black
53:32
Speaker 1: Loyalists and immediately started to write the email. UM a
53:35
Speaker 1: Rhode Islander in Nova Scotia for work and got so
53:39
Speaker 1: excited to hear a little piece of Nova Scotia's history
53:41
Speaker 1: on there. I looked into the Loyal Loyalist Heritage Museum,
53:46
Speaker 1: but it only has weekday operation, so I don't think
53:48
Speaker 1: I'll be able to make it there. I'll definitely do
53:50
Speaker 1: some exploring of Halifax in the coming weeks, and we'll
53:53
Speaker 1: be on the lookout for more information. I just wanted
53:56
Speaker 1: to mention on the show that it was Josh said
53:59
Speaker 1: that Rhode Island and out I have ever had slaves. Um. Actually,
54:02
Speaker 1: we were the first state to abolish slavery in two
54:05
Speaker 1: but the law was mostly ignored and we ended up
54:07
Speaker 1: with the most slaves per capita of any comedy. I
54:10
Speaker 1: did not know that we also had a pretty booming
54:13
Speaker 1: slave trade in Newport, Rhode Island, now known for their
54:17
Speaker 1: gilded aged splendor. A piece of Rhode Island history I'm
54:20
Speaker 1: sure most don't learn in history class that I wanted
54:23
Speaker 1: to shed light on. Thanks for always putting out a
54:25
Speaker 1: funny and informative and entertaining show that is from Nadine Greed.
54:30
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Nadine. That was great. Thanks for listening
54:34
Speaker 1: while you get ready for work. Hopeworks going well up
54:36
Speaker 1: there in Nova Scotia. Just think spring to you and
54:40
Speaker 1: everybody up there in Nova Scotia. Frankly, if you want
54:44
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can join us
54:46
Speaker 1: on Stuff you Should Know dot com. Check out our
54:49
Speaker 1: social links there. Uh, and you can just send us
54:51
Speaker 1: a good old fashioned email, wrap it up, spank it
54:54
Speaker 1: on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcasts
54:56
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55:03
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55:12
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