October 29, 2024 • 35 mins
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants who were – controversially – convicted of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a security guard and a payroll clerk, during an armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Massachusetts. About a century has passed and experts -- and armchair experts, too! – continue to debate this case, but not whether they did or didn't do it. They continue to debate one very big thing: whether or not Sacco and Vanzetti received a fair trial.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Nicol Osaco and Bartolomeo Vancetti were Italian immigrants who were
controversially convicted of murdering Alessandro Baradelli and Frederick Parmenter, a
security guard and a payroll clerk, during an armed robbery
of the Slater and Moral shoe company in Massachusetts. About
a century has passed and experts and armchair experts too,
(00:36):
continued to debate this case, but not whether they did
or didn't do it. They continued to debate one very
big thing, whether or not Sacco and Vencetti received a
fair trial. This is less of a story about two
people who may or may not have committed a crime
together and more a story of how anti immigrant, anti Italianism,
(00:58):
and anti anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced
the verdict of their trial, rather than focusing on the
details of this duo's alleged crimes. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm
Maria Tremarki.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And I'm Holly Frye. Nicola Saco was born in southern
Italy in eighteen ninety one. After he arrived in the
United States in nineteen oh eight, he worked as a
skilled craftsman, a shoemaker, specifically a shoe edger, and he
did that at a variety of shoe factories in the
Boston area. At the time of his arrest, he and
(01:33):
his wife Rosina had one son, Dante, and they were
expecting a second child. Their daughter, Inez, would be born
while Sacco was imprisoned. Socco has been described as quote
mechanically inclined and with some artisanal education. He lived moderately
well and even had fifteen hundred dollars in the bank
(01:54):
on the day he was arrested.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Bartolomeo Vencetti was born in northern Italy in eighteen eighty eight.
Like Socco, he also arrived in the United States in
nineteen oh eight. It held a series of menial jobs
in Massachusetts, and at the time of his arrest he
was working some of the time doing construction, but primarily
was a fish peddler in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Vancetti had fewer
(02:20):
marketable skills than Soco, and he lived in near poverty
much of the time. He's been described as quote an
intelligent man with the romantic soul of a poet and
a passion for social justice.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Both men were actively involved in the anarchist movement. Neither
had been an anarchist in Italy, but in the United
States both had become committed to its ideology, not necessarily
because of their own economic hardships, but more so because
of a shared concern for working poor who were oppressed
and exploited. People they knew, people that they worked with.
(02:57):
Each subscribed to Subversive Chronicle that was an Italian language,
United States based anarchist newspaper published by Italian immigrant Luigi Galliani.
Galliani was hardcore before immigrating to the United States. Galliani's
anarchist activities had gotten him in trouble with the law
in more than one European country, and in the United States.
(03:20):
He advocated for a violent overthrow of the government and
all political, economic, and religious institutions. Saco and Vanzetti both
raised funds to support his publication, and Venzetti sometimes contributed
articles to it. Galliani also published a bomb making manual
entitled Health Is in You in an edition of his newspaper.
(03:45):
That title was chosen to obscure what the manual was
really about. He had instigated a wave of bombings against
public officials in the United States in nineteen eighteen, just
in the Boston area alone, Aron Vuesst warrants were issued
for about one hundred Gallianisti, as his followers were called.
The next year, Galliani was arrested and deported to Italy.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Socco and Venzetti met because they were both active followers
of Galliani. It was just after the United States enacted
a conscription law requiring all men citizens or not to
register for the draft for the First World War. In
subversive chronicle, Gagleani urged his followers not to register, and
(04:30):
a group of the Gaglianisti, including Sacco and Vencetti, departed
from Mexico that summer to escape the new law. By
the time they returned to the United States in September,
the men had become fast friends.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Although neither Saco or Vansetti had ever been implicated in
engaging acts of violence before this, and neither of them
had a criminal record, they were Italian immigrants, and they
were avowed anarchists, and they were living in an atmosphere
of social tension to set the scene therein this was
(05:02):
the time of the First Red Scare, an American political
and public panic about leftist ideologies such as anarchism, the
International Workers of the World organization, and the growing organized
labor movement.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The press didn't lead the charge, but they certainly sensationalized it,
publishing articles about how the rise of American labor strikes
was caused by immigrants who were bringing down the American
way of life. In Braintree, Massachusetts, in May of nineteen nineteen,
an editorial in the local newspaper asked, quite boldly, quote,
(05:39):
since when has America countenanced an invasion? An incursion of
foreigners hostile to Americans and American ideals? You see where
this is going. Immigrants in the United States were met
often with hostility and suspicion.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Of course, a communist revolution had occurred in Russia in
nineteen seventy, and that was really scary to a lot
of Americans who feared that a similar revolution could and
would take place in the United States. Fueled by this panic,
the government first passed the Espionage Act in nineteen seventeen
(06:16):
after the United States joined the First World War, and
it's had punishment for anyone who aided the enemy or
encouraged disloyalty in the armed Forces. Shortly after, Congress passed
the Sedition Act of nineteen eighteen, legislation that targeted anyone
who criticized the United States government and allowed the government
(06:36):
to monitor anyone they considered a so called radical. In
January of nineteen twenty, the Bureau of Immigration and the
Department of Justice carried out a series of arrests of
people that they considered to be anarchists and radicals, known
as the Palmer Raids. About ten thousand people suspected of
(06:57):
anti American beliefs were arrested nationwide, many without warrants, and
many deported without a trial. Italians and other European immigrants
arriving in the United States around this time were considered
suspicious under these newly passed acts. Were they devoted to
America or not.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
On that note, we are going to take a break
for a word from our sponsors. When we're back, we
will talk about the crimes Saco and Vincetti allegedly committed
and how they didn't even know why they'd been arrested.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Now that we're in the historical
space with Sacco and Vinzetti, let's talk about the crimes
they were accused of.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
On the afternoon of April fifteenth, nineteen twenty, in the
town of South Braintree, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston,
payroll clerk Frederick Parmanteur and security guard Alessandro Barrodelli left
the company's executive office carrying roughly sixteen thousand dollars in
cash and payroll money for the employees of the Slater
(08:15):
and Moral Shoe company, but on the way to the factory,
they were intercepted by two gunmen. While walking toward the
company's main entrance, Barrodelli was shot four times and Parmenteur twice.
The gunman took the money, which was held in two
metal boxes, and jumped into a getaway car, which sped away.
Sacco and Venzetti were arrested for armed robbery and double murder. Surprised,
(08:40):
so were they. Here's what happened.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Sacco and Vanzetti were persons of interest to local police
chief Michael Stewart, who had been tracking anarchists and political
radicals in the area, but initially it was local anarchist
Marlow Buddha, also known as Mike Boda, who topped Stuart's
suspect list in this South Braintree robbery and murder. He
(09:03):
staked out a mechanic shop where Boda had taken his
car for repair, hoping to apprehend him there. He instructed
the mechanic to call him when someone came for that car,
and on May fifth, the mechanic's wife made that call.
Multiple men, she said had come to the shop to
pick up the vehicle to stall the customer. She warned
(09:25):
the four men, a group that included Saco and Vinzetti,
that they shouldn't drive the car because it lacked current
license plates. The men left without the vehicle and before
Stuart arrived at the scene.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That same day, Saco and Vincetti were arrested on a
street car in Brockton, a town also just outside of Boston.
Both men were armed. Socco was carrying a loaded thirty
two Colt automatic pistol, and Vencetti had with him a
loaded thirty eight Harrington and Richardson revolver. Soaco also had
in his possession flyers announcing that Vencetti would be speaking
(10:00):
at an upcoming anarchist rally. They were questioned by police
and the district attorney, but not about the shoe factory crime,
for which they had been arrested, questions were primarily about
their political beliefs. Saco and Vanzetti later stated they had
believed they had been detained because they were Italian immigrants
and anarchists. That's not really a surprise, because they had
(10:24):
not been told they were arrested for murder and robbery.
In fact, later during their trial, Vanzetti stated he thought
he'd been detained quote for a political matter, and that
he was asked by the police more than once, quote
if I am a socialist, if I am industrial workers
of the world, if I am a communist, if I
am a radical. Saco thought he was being detained on
(10:47):
a quote radical charge.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
No other arrests were made. None of the stolen money
was ever linked to either or both men, nor was
any of that money ever recovered. Charged with first degree
murder on May fifth, nineteen twenty Saco and Vencetti were
indicted by a grand jury in September that same year,
and their trial began in May of nineteen twenty one,
(11:12):
with Judge Webster Thayer presiding. That trial lasted nearly seven weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
District Attorney Frederick Katzman was lead prosecutor. The prosecution called
fifty nine witnesses to the stand, forty five of whom
were considered eyewitnesses. The defense called ninety nine. The question
you'd probably expect the trial should have explored was were
Saco and Vencetti the men who robbed and killed two
(11:39):
men or were they not? But it wasn't so straightforward
in so many ways. The first problem in the courtroom
was the volume of conflicting evidence presented. In those fifty
nine testimonies. Many of the eyewitnesses called by the prosecution
gave versions of the events that were inconsistent with each other,
and many accounts fully contradict each other. Only five witnesses
(12:03):
could identify Sacho, and none conclusively. One witness from the
shoe factory, Lewis Pelser, provided the court with the license
plate number of the car and gave a detailed description
of Soco, but when two of his coworkers testified, they
both stated that Pelser had hidden under a bench after
the first gunshot and had not seen a single thing
(12:24):
with his own eyes. Another witness, Mary Splain, also gave
an incredibly detailed description of a man in the getaway car,
including the length of his hairline and the size of
one of his hands. Her description matched Sacho, but that's
a lot of detail to observe when the person she
saw was roughly eighty feet away from her and in
(12:46):
a moving car, and was in her line of sight
for literally less than three seconds. Of all those eyewitnesses,
only one testified he'd seen Vancetti at the scene of
the crime. Vansetti, he stated, drove the getaway car.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
The defense team was led by Fred Moore, longtime attorney
for the Industrial Workers of the World organization and chief
council in many labor and IWW trials around the United States.
He lined up witnesses who could establish alibis. Vanztti claimed
to have been in Plymouth selling fish on the afternoon
(13:23):
of the murders. More than one witness testified to this,
stating they had bought fish from Vanzetti the day of
the crime. Additionally, a fisherman and a boat builder also
remember having spoken with Venzetti in Plymouth. Saco claimed that
he had taken the day off of work that day
to go to Boston to get a passport, and offered
the photo that he attempted to use to obtain that passport.
(13:46):
An official from the Italian consulate testified that he remembered
Soaco and he had rejected the photo because of its
very large size. He stated that the photo size made
Sacco's visit memorable. Three other witnesses testified to having had
lunch with Soaco in Boston that day. The jury, however,
(14:07):
was instructed by the court to discount the testimony of
fifteen other witnesses for the defense strictly because they were
Italian immigrants.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
In addition to witness testimony, the primary physical pieces of
evidence that the prosecution used to connect Saco and Vincetti
to the crime scene were the guns they were carrying
when they were arrested. Prosecutors claimed that Vancetti's gun belonged
to Barrodelli and that Vancetti had stolen it from the
guard's body, though there was nothing to suggest that that
(14:40):
was the case. Baradelli was shot four times, and the
prosecution claimed it was Soaco who fired their shots. State
Police Captain William Procter testified that, in his opinion, one
of those four bullets, bullet number three, as it was called,
was quote consistent with being fired from Sacco's gun, But
(15:00):
two years later Proctor would sign an affidavit stating he
did not believe Sacho's pistol fired bullet number three and
that he had shared his doubts with the prosecution prior
to testifying. Yet he still testified.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But there was something else that the court was focused on.
Well two things. One the men were Italian immigrants, and
two they were anarchists. The judge permitted the prosecution to
present extensive evidence about their anarchist ideology, their immigrant background,
and the men's refusal to register for the military draft
(15:36):
during the First World War, none of which had to
do with the crimes that they were on trial for.
According to testimony, both Sacho and Vanzetti both admitted that
they supported the anarchist movement and that they had both
fled to Mexico with other galianisti to avoid the draft,
and that was all true. District Attorney Catsmen peppered Soacco
(15:57):
with questions about why he went to Mexico and stated
that this decision most certainly was proof that he did
not quote love America. He also insinuated it was proof
that Sacho didn't love his family. In addition to answering
questions about dodging the draft, both defendants also testified why
they were with Boda at his mechanic on the day
(16:19):
they were arrested, and it was not a popular answer
in the courtroom. If you recall, Sacho had anarchist materials
in his possession when the men were apprehended flyers about
an upcoming rally they had been at the shop with Boda.
They both stated to hide those materials. People were being
arrested for simply having radical publications, whether they held radical
(16:42):
beliefs or not, and Sacho and Vanzetti, who planned to
distribute those flyers, were trying to stay under the radar.
It's unclear from their testimony whether the men planned to
hide the publications at the shop or if they intended
to use the car to take them to a hiding place,
but it is clear what mattered to the court they
(17:03):
had been in possession of radical materials period.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Throughout the trial, the jury foreman Walter Ripley could be
heard muttering unflattering stereotypes about Italians, but was never told
to stop, nor was he removed from the jury. While
filing appeal's post trial, the defense submitted an affidavit stating
that before the trial began, Ripley had said to a
friend who thought the two men were innocent. Quote, damn them,
(17:32):
they ought to hang anyway. Judge Thayer began his instructions
to the jury by stressing, they remember their quote supreme
American loyalty. After only a few hours of deliberation, the
jury convicted Saco and Vincetti of first degree murder.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Judge Thayer sentence Saco and Vinzetti to death by electrocution,
a sentence that was met with worldwide protests. An excerpt
from Vincetti's statement in court that day follows, quote, what
I say is that I am innocent. I am suffering
because I am a radical, and indeed I am a radical.
I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed
(18:11):
I am an Italian.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Judge there said a Vansatti. Quote this man, although he
may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him,
is nevertheless morally culpable because he is the enemy of
our existing institutions. Having sentenced the two men to death,
the judge later boasted to a friend, quote, did you
(18:34):
see what I did to those anarchist bastards the other day?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
We're going to take a break here for a word
from our sponsors, and when we return. We will talk
about these six years' worth of appeals that Saco and
Vanzetti's defense team submitted while they were on death row,
and how none of it mattered in the end.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Welcome back to Criminalia. The outrage over Saco and Vincetti's
trial and sentence was global. Let's talk about their attempts
to get a new trial and their six years on
death row.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Four days after the arrests Aldino Felicani, an anarchist who
often found himself the liaison between Italian anarchists and lawyers
that they did not trust, had established the Saco Vanzetti
Defense Committee. Feliicani and Vinzetti had worked together on the
Italian language anarchist newspaper Kara Campagna, and were, by all accounts,
(19:39):
good friends. He also worked at a Boston based publication,
Lando Tizia, and he used that paper to publicize the arrests,
as well as appeal for contributions to the defense fund.
The committee's goal was twofold, one to keep the names
Saco and Vinzetti in the public consciousness, and two to
(20:00):
free the men from their incarceration. The committee raised money
to pay for both men's legal expenses. And published and
distributed news that refuted every aspect of the prosecution's case.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Both Saco and Vencetti wrote letters during their years on
death Row, many of which endeared them to the public. Vencetti,
in a letter to Sacco's son Dante, wrote quote, what
I wish more than all in this last hour of
agony is that our case and our fate may be
understood in their real being and serve as a tremendous
lesson to the forces of freedom, that our suffering and
(20:35):
death will not have been in vain.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Another letter by Venzetti, however, shows how hopeless he felt quote,
Oh the blessing green of the wilderness and of the
open land. Oh the blue, vastness of the oceans, the
fragrances of the flowers, and the sweetness of the fruits. Yes, yes,
all this is real actuality. But not to us, not
(20:58):
to us.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Chained, Many people felt they had been convicted for their
anarchist beliefs, which was not a crime, and many in
the United States and internationally protested a judicial system that
was biased and unjust. The trial, for many, symbolized the
prevalent prejudiced views against immigrants, against labor unions, and against
(21:21):
political radicals, and felt it hadn't been at all about
the crime of murder.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Over the next eighteen months, while Saco and Vince Eddie
were held in prison, Fred Moore, lead defense counsel, filed
several motions for a new trial. Some of these motions
involved witnesses who had recanted their testimony, such as Proctor's
Affidatat stating he said bullet number three came from Saco's gun,
(21:46):
knowing it likely did not. Another motion challenged the judge's
inappropriate behavior in the courtroom, including his appeals to patriotism
and his open contempt for the defendants and their lawyers.
An appeal was filed regarding the court's focus on the
defendant's patriotism and character too specifically, were the questions asked
(22:09):
unduly prejudicial. Judge Thayer denied the defendant's first six motions,
which were filed between nineteen twenty one to nineteen twenty three.
The Supreme Court found no problems with any of Judge
Thayer's rulings and concluded that he did not abuse his
judicial discretion in refusing to grant a new trial to
(22:30):
the pair. In nineteen twenty three, Saco and Vinzetti fired
Fred Moore, and they were subsequently represented by William Thompson,
a respected Boston attorney, and his associate Herbert Erman.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
In nineteen twenty five, there was a potential turn in
the case when a convicted murderer, a man named Celestino Maderos,
confessed to participating in the shoe factory crime, writing, I
hereby confess to being in the shoe company crime of
South Braintree on April fifteenth, nineteen twenty and that Saco
(23:05):
and Venzetti were not there. If what Madero said was true,
Sacco and Vincetti were not guilty, but because some of
his description of the crime contradicted well established facts, police
didn't investigate his involvement. Ermin, curious, started an investigation of
his own. Using information supplied by Maderos, he tracked down
(23:27):
a group of professional thieves known as the Morelli Gang,
who operated primarily out of Providence, Rhode Island. The Morelli
Gang had already been charged with stealing shoes from Slater
and Moral, and maybe the most important part here, the
police in nearby New Bedford, Massachusetts, where the gang also operated,
had originally suspected the gang of committing the shoe factory robbery,
(23:49):
and they dropped their investigation after Socco and Vincetti were arrested.
Erman considered the Morelli gang information a good lead and
wanted to officially reopen that investigation, but when he filed
a motion for a new trial, Judge Thayer denied it.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Six years after Saco and Vinzetti sentencing, Massachusetts Governor Alvin
Fuller appointed an independent commission to review the case, with A.
Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard University, leading that investigation.
The Lowell Commission, as it was known, took only ten
days to investigate the case and issued a report on
(24:26):
July twenty first, nineteen twenty seven. It concluded that Sacho
was guilty and that Vinzetti was quote on the whole guilty.
According to the commission, the Governor was correct with his
original refusal to grant clemency. After learning of Governor Fuller's decision,
defense attorneys Thompson and Urban retired from the case.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
The Saco Vinzetti Defense Committee retained Boston attorney Arthur Hill
to handle what would be the final appeals. Hill filed
a motion to revoke the death sentence and allowing new
trial on the basis of Judge Fair's alleged prejudice against
the defendants. Judge Fare deny the motion. Yes, he denied
a motion about his own prejudice. The trial judge at
(25:13):
this time had sole authority to decide the defendant's motions
for a new trial, and with that power there denied
them all. The defendant's last minute appeals to the United
States Supreme Court also failed.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
After years of failed legal appeals, the men were executed
by electrocution on August twenty third, nineteen twenty seven, at
Charlestown State Prison. Vanzetti made his farewell statement to the
witnesses of his deaths, saying quote, I wish to tell
you that I am innocent and that I never committed
any crime, but sometimes some sin. He then shook Warden
(25:51):
William Hendry's hand and said quote, I want to thank
you for everything you have done for me. Warden.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Apparently he shook the hands of all the guards and
like banked them all, and I'm like, through this whole thing,
I'm like, I really like van Setti. And when his
second letter that I put in there, I only put
in because it was like a little poem that he wrote,
I was like I know, okay. More than two hundred
thousand people lined the streets of Boston during the funeral
(26:18):
procession for Saco and Vincetti after their execution. They came
to symbolize the failure of the nineteen twenties American justice system,
and their deaths ignited protests all around the world. In
Boston that night, more than two hundred Soaco and Vanzetti
sympathizers congregated in Thompson Square to join a march out
to Bunker Hill. Police set up restricted areas, and they
(26:41):
heavily patrolled the city. Similar vigils, some peaceful, some not
so peaceful, sprung up in cities around the world of.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
The verdict and execution. In nineteen twenty seven, Harvard law
professor and later United States Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
condemned the prejudice of the judge, as well as procedural
errors during the trial, errors that included the prosecution's failure
to disclose eyewitness evidence favorable to the defense.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So let's jump to nineteen sixty one. New testing conducted
on Sako's gun using modern forensic techniques concluded it was
a bullet from his gun that killed the guard. Critics, however,
claimed that the bullet had to have been planted because
bullet number three, alleged to be from Sako's gun did
not match the three other bullets found in the body,
(27:35):
yet the other three bullets all matched each other. Police
files made public in nineteen seventy seven reported that the
gun in Vincetti's possession when he was arrested could not
have been taken from the victim as claimed in court,
because it was a different caliber. Testimony has been questioned
two over the years. For example, that one eyewitness who
(27:55):
identified Vancetti as the driver is problematic because Vanzetti never
learned to drive and had no driver's license.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Fifty years after their executions, in nineteen seventy seven, Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed that Sacho and Vinzetti had not
been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated
with their names. He stated that the atmosphere of their
trial quote was permeated by prejudice against foreigners and hostility
(28:25):
toward unorthodox political views. Still, though that proclamation was decades
after their deaths, it reignited the controversy over the case,
with some people protesting that the pair had been found
guilty and so they had to be in fact guilty.
The argument got heated enough that the mayor of New
York City canceled plans to issue a similar proclamation in
(28:49):
his city.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Today, some historians have come to believe Saco may have
been guilty in the shoe factory robbery and murder, but
that Benzetti was innocent. Those modern beliefs, though, don't matter,
not really, since in the end, the evidence that the
duo were murderers was insufficient to convict either one of
that crime of being anarchists and Italian immigrants. Though, yes,
(29:14):
and for judge there that was enough. Woof, that's a story.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You want to make it a double yes, I do.
You accidentally have brought up a perfect opportunity for me
to do a drink I've been wanting to make for
a couple weeks because, as you know, when I was
recently in London, I had a version of a drink
that I historically don't like that I absolutely loved, and
(29:40):
so I wanted to recreate it. So here we go. Excellent,
and this one is called conflicting evidence because I wanted
to do this because it is a case similar to
the Vanzetti and Soco case where you think you know things.
I thought I didn't like this drink, and then your
opinion changes because more things come to light, and now
(30:02):
I like this drink because I like this version amazing.
So here's what you have to do to start before
you make it. You have to prep some things. In
this case, you are going to infuse some gin with espresso,
So to do that it's really super easy. I had
some ground espresso already. I put about two pretty hefty
(30:25):
tablespoons in a jar with six ounces of gin and
gave it a good shake, and I let that sit
for like, I don't know, an hour and a half,
two hours, not very long. That was probably probably longer
than I needed to do. And then you have to
really fine strain it because you don't want any of
those those fine strained grounds. The reason I did espresso
(30:47):
rather than regular coffee is because, as you know, espresso
finer grind, so more surface area, so more infusion. If
you want, you could use regular coffee here and it
will just be not as flavored, which is fine. Again,
as always have drinker's choice. So once you have your
(31:08):
espresso coffee and Obviously, six ounces of gin is more
than you need in a drink. As I was as
I was prepping this, my husband said, you're really in
the mood for gin today, and I was like, I'm
not drinking all of it. You only need an ounce
of it actually, because once you have that, you are
going to pour into a glass with ice, one ounce
of this espresso infused gin, one ounce of sweet vermooth,
(31:33):
and one ounce of apparol. This is essentially a coffee
and gronie with some twists on it. So I had
a coffee and groni. I had several coffee and grannies
in a restaurant in London that does It's a little chain.
It's a little breakfast chain, and I absolutely love their
(31:53):
cocktail menu. It's small but quality, and so they did it.
I will say I did a version of this which
is more of a true nigronie, where in lieu of apparol,
I used kampari, which is normally what you would put
in an agroni. But it was still a little too bitter.
There's an interesting thing that happens where the coffee, even
though coffee is bitter on its own, it undercuts the
(32:16):
type of bitterness that you get from an amorrow, from
an apparol, from a you know, any of the orange
liqueurs that have a bitter taste, And with the kompari
it just still was a little too bitey for me.
If you love an agronie, use the kompari. But if
you don't love an agroni and you maybe want to
dance with this one, use aparol instead. It's a little softer. However,
(32:39):
there's another optional play here. You can also if you
want to just kick up the coffee aspect of it,
just throw a splash of a coffee liqueur in there.
So you're I have a yummy Galiano. That's an espresso liqueur.
You're mister black, You're you know, any of the coffee
liquurs are great, And that's conflict evidence. It's oddly smooth
(33:01):
and delicious. To do the mocktail version of this, we
have to shift things around quite a bit because it's
literally all.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Because it is an alcohol friendly.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Ever, so to do a similar one, you're gonna do
two ounces of the coffee of your choice. You're gonna
add one ounce of orange syrup. You can use a
blood orange syrup. Ideally, if you can get it, because
that is a little has a little more bite, and
it has that slight bitter edge to it, and you
get closer to what this drink actually is. That's really
(33:36):
all you need to get pretty close. But I also
if you are not adverse to bitters, throw a couple
drops of bitters in there. Uh, if you do zero
alcohol whatsoever, you can also do a couple drops of
your saline or even just sprinkle a little salt in
there and give it a good A black salt did
something really cool and gave it a smoky note that
I loved. So play with it and see what you
(33:58):
like for the mocktail. But also here's the thing, play
with it and see what you like for the cocktail,
because I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to.
If you like me drink flavored coffees, you could use
a flavored coffee to do this infusion and get something
with a completely different thing, right, Like I have a
(34:20):
Halloween chocolate coffee that I want to try this with
and see if you end up with like an alcoholic
chocolate orange essentially, that also would be great to carry
you through Christmas.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I think that a chocolate in here would be tasty.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, so you have some options to play with. But
that is conflicting evidence, because there's a ton ofment in
this case, because man, and this is you know, conflicting
evidence of whether or not I like negronies because I
drank a lot of nigronies in London, but they were
all coffee once uh, and I found I like them. Heaps.
We are very very thankful that you spent this time
(34:56):
with us considering this very complex, very well known, but
also so nuanced case that it merits, you know, a
closer look. We will be right back here again next
week with more stories and more drinking. Criminalia is a
(35:31):
production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Nicol Osaco and Bartolomeo Vancetti were Italian immigrants who were
controversially convicted of murdering Alessandro Baradelli and Frederick Parmenter, a
security guard and a payroll clerk, during an armed robbery
of the Slater and Moral shoe company in Massachusetts. About
a century has passed and experts and armchair experts too,
(00:36):
continued to debate this case, but not whether they did
or didn't do it. They continued to debate one very
big thing, whether or not Sacco and Vencetti received a
fair trial. This is less of a story about two
people who may or may not have committed a crime
together and more a story of how anti immigrant, anti Italianism,
(00:58):
and anti anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced
the verdict of their trial, rather than focusing on the
details of this duo's alleged crimes. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm
Maria Tremarki.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And I'm Holly Frye. Nicola Saco was born in southern
Italy in eighteen ninety one. After he arrived in the
United States in nineteen oh eight, he worked as a
skilled craftsman, a shoemaker, specifically a shoe edger, and he
did that at a variety of shoe factories in the
Boston area. At the time of his arrest, he and
(01:33):
his wife Rosina had one son, Dante, and they were
expecting a second child. Their daughter, Inez, would be born
while Sacco was imprisoned. Socco has been described as quote
mechanically inclined and with some artisanal education. He lived moderately
well and even had fifteen hundred dollars in the bank
(01:54):
on the day he was arrested.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Bartolomeo Vencetti was born in northern Italy in eighteen eighty eight.
Like Socco, he also arrived in the United States in
nineteen oh eight. It held a series of menial jobs
in Massachusetts, and at the time of his arrest he
was working some of the time doing construction, but primarily
was a fish peddler in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Vancetti had fewer
(02:20):
marketable skills than Soco, and he lived in near poverty
much of the time. He's been described as quote an
intelligent man with the romantic soul of a poet and
a passion for social justice.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Both men were actively involved in the anarchist movement. Neither
had been an anarchist in Italy, but in the United
States both had become committed to its ideology, not necessarily
because of their own economic hardships, but more so because
of a shared concern for working poor who were oppressed
and exploited. People they knew, people that they worked with.
(02:57):
Each subscribed to Subversive Chronicle that was an Italian language,
United States based anarchist newspaper published by Italian immigrant Luigi Galliani.
Galliani was hardcore before immigrating to the United States. Galliani's
anarchist activities had gotten him in trouble with the law
in more than one European country, and in the United States.
(03:20):
He advocated for a violent overthrow of the government and
all political, economic, and religious institutions. Saco and Vanzetti both
raised funds to support his publication, and Venzetti sometimes contributed
articles to it. Galliani also published a bomb making manual
entitled Health Is in You in an edition of his newspaper.
(03:45):
That title was chosen to obscure what the manual was
really about. He had instigated a wave of bombings against
public officials in the United States in nineteen eighteen, just
in the Boston area alone, Aron Vuesst warrants were issued
for about one hundred Gallianisti, as his followers were called.
The next year, Galliani was arrested and deported to Italy.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Socco and Venzetti met because they were both active followers
of Galliani. It was just after the United States enacted
a conscription law requiring all men citizens or not to
register for the draft for the First World War. In
subversive chronicle, Gagleani urged his followers not to register, and
(04:30):
a group of the Gaglianisti, including Sacco and Vencetti, departed
from Mexico that summer to escape the new law. By
the time they returned to the United States in September,
the men had become fast friends.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Although neither Saco or Vansetti had ever been implicated in
engaging acts of violence before this, and neither of them
had a criminal record, they were Italian immigrants, and they
were avowed anarchists, and they were living in an atmosphere
of social tension to set the scene therein this was
(05:02):
the time of the First Red Scare, an American political
and public panic about leftist ideologies such as anarchism, the
International Workers of the World organization, and the growing organized
labor movement.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The press didn't lead the charge, but they certainly sensationalized it,
publishing articles about how the rise of American labor strikes
was caused by immigrants who were bringing down the American
way of life. In Braintree, Massachusetts, in May of nineteen nineteen,
an editorial in the local newspaper asked, quite boldly, quote,
(05:39):
since when has America countenanced an invasion? An incursion of
foreigners hostile to Americans and American ideals? You see where
this is going. Immigrants in the United States were met
often with hostility and suspicion.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Of course, a communist revolution had occurred in Russia in
nineteen seventy, and that was really scary to a lot
of Americans who feared that a similar revolution could and
would take place in the United States. Fueled by this panic,
the government first passed the Espionage Act in nineteen seventeen
(06:16):
after the United States joined the First World War, and
it's had punishment for anyone who aided the enemy or
encouraged disloyalty in the armed Forces. Shortly after, Congress passed
the Sedition Act of nineteen eighteen, legislation that targeted anyone
who criticized the United States government and allowed the government
(06:36):
to monitor anyone they considered a so called radical. In
January of nineteen twenty, the Bureau of Immigration and the
Department of Justice carried out a series of arrests of
people that they considered to be anarchists and radicals, known
as the Palmer Raids. About ten thousand people suspected of
(06:57):
anti American beliefs were arrested nationwide, many without warrants, and
many deported without a trial. Italians and other European immigrants
arriving in the United States around this time were considered
suspicious under these newly passed acts. Were they devoted to
America or not.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
On that note, we are going to take a break
for a word from our sponsors. When we're back, we
will talk about the crimes Saco and Vincetti allegedly committed
and how they didn't even know why they'd been arrested.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Now that we're in the historical
space with Sacco and Vinzetti, let's talk about the crimes
they were accused of.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
On the afternoon of April fifteenth, nineteen twenty, in the
town of South Braintree, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston,
payroll clerk Frederick Parmanteur and security guard Alessandro Barrodelli left
the company's executive office carrying roughly sixteen thousand dollars in
cash and payroll money for the employees of the Slater
(08:15):
and Moral Shoe company, but on the way to the factory,
they were intercepted by two gunmen. While walking toward the
company's main entrance, Barrodelli was shot four times and Parmenteur twice.
The gunman took the money, which was held in two
metal boxes, and jumped into a getaway car, which sped away.
Sacco and Venzetti were arrested for armed robbery and double murder. Surprised,
(08:40):
so were they. Here's what happened.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Sacco and Vanzetti were persons of interest to local police
chief Michael Stewart, who had been tracking anarchists and political
radicals in the area, but initially it was local anarchist
Marlow Buddha, also known as Mike Boda, who topped Stuart's
suspect list in this South Braintree robbery and murder. He
(09:03):
staked out a mechanic shop where Boda had taken his
car for repair, hoping to apprehend him there. He instructed
the mechanic to call him when someone came for that car,
and on May fifth, the mechanic's wife made that call.
Multiple men, she said had come to the shop to
pick up the vehicle to stall the customer. She warned
(09:25):
the four men, a group that included Saco and Vinzetti,
that they shouldn't drive the car because it lacked current
license plates. The men left without the vehicle and before
Stuart arrived at the scene.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That same day, Saco and Vincetti were arrested on a
street car in Brockton, a town also just outside of Boston.
Both men were armed. Socco was carrying a loaded thirty
two Colt automatic pistol, and Vencetti had with him a
loaded thirty eight Harrington and Richardson revolver. Soaco also had
in his possession flyers announcing that Vencetti would be speaking
(10:00):
at an upcoming anarchist rally. They were questioned by police
and the district attorney, but not about the shoe factory crime,
for which they had been arrested, questions were primarily about
their political beliefs. Saco and Vanzetti later stated they had
believed they had been detained because they were Italian immigrants
and anarchists. That's not really a surprise, because they had
(10:24):
not been told they were arrested for murder and robbery.
In fact, later during their trial, Vanzetti stated he thought
he'd been detained quote for a political matter, and that
he was asked by the police more than once, quote
if I am a socialist, if I am industrial workers
of the world, if I am a communist, if I
am a radical. Saco thought he was being detained on
(10:47):
a quote radical charge.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
No other arrests were made. None of the stolen money
was ever linked to either or both men, nor was
any of that money ever recovered. Charged with first degree
murder on May fifth, nineteen twenty Saco and Vencetti were
indicted by a grand jury in September that same year,
and their trial began in May of nineteen twenty one,
(11:12):
with Judge Webster Thayer presiding. That trial lasted nearly seven weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
District Attorney Frederick Katzman was lead prosecutor. The prosecution called
fifty nine witnesses to the stand, forty five of whom
were considered eyewitnesses. The defense called ninety nine. The question
you'd probably expect the trial should have explored was were
Saco and Vencetti the men who robbed and killed two
(11:39):
men or were they not? But it wasn't so straightforward
in so many ways. The first problem in the courtroom
was the volume of conflicting evidence presented. In those fifty
nine testimonies. Many of the eyewitnesses called by the prosecution
gave versions of the events that were inconsistent with each other,
and many accounts fully contradict each other. Only five witnesses
(12:03):
could identify Sacho, and none conclusively. One witness from the
shoe factory, Lewis Pelser, provided the court with the license
plate number of the car and gave a detailed description
of Soco, but when two of his coworkers testified, they
both stated that Pelser had hidden under a bench after
the first gunshot and had not seen a single thing
(12:24):
with his own eyes. Another witness, Mary Splain, also gave
an incredibly detailed description of a man in the getaway car,
including the length of his hairline and the size of
one of his hands. Her description matched Sacho, but that's
a lot of detail to observe when the person she
saw was roughly eighty feet away from her and in
(12:46):
a moving car, and was in her line of sight
for literally less than three seconds. Of all those eyewitnesses,
only one testified he'd seen Vancetti at the scene of
the crime. Vansetti, he stated, drove the getaway car.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
The defense team was led by Fred Moore, longtime attorney
for the Industrial Workers of the World organization and chief
council in many labor and IWW trials around the United States.
He lined up witnesses who could establish alibis. Vanztti claimed
to have been in Plymouth selling fish on the afternoon
(13:23):
of the murders. More than one witness testified to this,
stating they had bought fish from Vanzetti the day of
the crime. Additionally, a fisherman and a boat builder also
remember having spoken with Venzetti in Plymouth. Saco claimed that
he had taken the day off of work that day
to go to Boston to get a passport, and offered
the photo that he attempted to use to obtain that passport.
(13:46):
An official from the Italian consulate testified that he remembered
Soaco and he had rejected the photo because of its
very large size. He stated that the photo size made
Sacco's visit memorable. Three other witnesses testified to having had
lunch with Soaco in Boston that day. The jury, however,
(14:07):
was instructed by the court to discount the testimony of
fifteen other witnesses for the defense strictly because they were
Italian immigrants.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
In addition to witness testimony, the primary physical pieces of
evidence that the prosecution used to connect Saco and Vincetti
to the crime scene were the guns they were carrying
when they were arrested. Prosecutors claimed that Vancetti's gun belonged
to Barrodelli and that Vancetti had stolen it from the
guard's body, though there was nothing to suggest that that
(14:40):
was the case. Baradelli was shot four times, and the
prosecution claimed it was Soaco who fired their shots. State
Police Captain William Procter testified that, in his opinion, one
of those four bullets, bullet number three, as it was called,
was quote consistent with being fired from Sacco's gun, But
(15:00):
two years later Proctor would sign an affidavit stating he
did not believe Sacho's pistol fired bullet number three and
that he had shared his doubts with the prosecution prior
to testifying. Yet he still testified.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But there was something else that the court was focused on.
Well two things. One the men were Italian immigrants, and
two they were anarchists. The judge permitted the prosecution to
present extensive evidence about their anarchist ideology, their immigrant background,
and the men's refusal to register for the military draft
(15:36):
during the First World War, none of which had to
do with the crimes that they were on trial for.
According to testimony, both Sacho and Vanzetti both admitted that
they supported the anarchist movement and that they had both
fled to Mexico with other galianisti to avoid the draft,
and that was all true. District Attorney Catsmen peppered Soacco
(15:57):
with questions about why he went to Mexico and stated
that this decision most certainly was proof that he did
not quote love America. He also insinuated it was proof
that Sacho didn't love his family. In addition to answering
questions about dodging the draft, both defendants also testified why
they were with Boda at his mechanic on the day
(16:19):
they were arrested, and it was not a popular answer
in the courtroom. If you recall, Sacho had anarchist materials
in his possession when the men were apprehended flyers about
an upcoming rally they had been at the shop with Boda.
They both stated to hide those materials. People were being
arrested for simply having radical publications, whether they held radical
(16:42):
beliefs or not, and Sacho and Vanzetti, who planned to
distribute those flyers, were trying to stay under the radar.
It's unclear from their testimony whether the men planned to
hide the publications at the shop or if they intended
to use the car to take them to a hiding place,
but it is clear what mattered to the court they
(17:03):
had been in possession of radical materials period.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Throughout the trial, the jury foreman Walter Ripley could be
heard muttering unflattering stereotypes about Italians, but was never told
to stop, nor was he removed from the jury. While
filing appeal's post trial, the defense submitted an affidavit stating
that before the trial began, Ripley had said to a
friend who thought the two men were innocent. Quote, damn them,
(17:32):
they ought to hang anyway. Judge Thayer began his instructions
to the jury by stressing, they remember their quote supreme
American loyalty. After only a few hours of deliberation, the
jury convicted Saco and Vincetti of first degree murder.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Judge Thayer sentence Saco and Vinzetti to death by electrocution,
a sentence that was met with worldwide protests. An excerpt
from Vincetti's statement in court that day follows, quote, what
I say is that I am innocent. I am suffering
because I am a radical, and indeed I am a radical.
I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed
(18:11):
I am an Italian.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Judge there said a Vansatti. Quote this man, although he
may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him,
is nevertheless morally culpable because he is the enemy of
our existing institutions. Having sentenced the two men to death,
the judge later boasted to a friend, quote, did you
(18:34):
see what I did to those anarchist bastards the other day?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
We're going to take a break here for a word
from our sponsors, and when we return. We will talk
about these six years' worth of appeals that Saco and
Vanzetti's defense team submitted while they were on death row,
and how none of it mattered in the end.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Welcome back to Criminalia. The outrage over Saco and Vincetti's
trial and sentence was global. Let's talk about their attempts
to get a new trial and their six years on
death row.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Four days after the arrests Aldino Felicani, an anarchist who
often found himself the liaison between Italian anarchists and lawyers
that they did not trust, had established the Saco Vanzetti
Defense Committee. Feliicani and Vinzetti had worked together on the
Italian language anarchist newspaper Kara Campagna, and were, by all accounts,
(19:39):
good friends. He also worked at a Boston based publication,
Lando Tizia, and he used that paper to publicize the arrests,
as well as appeal for contributions to the defense fund.
The committee's goal was twofold, one to keep the names
Saco and Vinzetti in the public consciousness, and two to
(20:00):
free the men from their incarceration. The committee raised money
to pay for both men's legal expenses. And published and
distributed news that refuted every aspect of the prosecution's case.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Both Saco and Vencetti wrote letters during their years on
death Row, many of which endeared them to the public. Vencetti,
in a letter to Sacco's son Dante, wrote quote, what
I wish more than all in this last hour of
agony is that our case and our fate may be
understood in their real being and serve as a tremendous
lesson to the forces of freedom, that our suffering and
(20:35):
death will not have been in vain.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Another letter by Venzetti, however, shows how hopeless he felt quote,
Oh the blessing green of the wilderness and of the
open land. Oh the blue, vastness of the oceans, the
fragrances of the flowers, and the sweetness of the fruits. Yes, yes,
all this is real actuality. But not to us, not
(20:58):
to us.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Chained, Many people felt they had been convicted for their
anarchist beliefs, which was not a crime, and many in
the United States and internationally protested a judicial system that
was biased and unjust. The trial, for many, symbolized the
prevalent prejudiced views against immigrants, against labor unions, and against
(21:21):
political radicals, and felt it hadn't been at all about
the crime of murder.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Over the next eighteen months, while Saco and Vince Eddie
were held in prison, Fred Moore, lead defense counsel, filed
several motions for a new trial. Some of these motions
involved witnesses who had recanted their testimony, such as Proctor's
Affidatat stating he said bullet number three came from Saco's gun,
(21:46):
knowing it likely did not. Another motion challenged the judge's
inappropriate behavior in the courtroom, including his appeals to patriotism
and his open contempt for the defendants and their lawyers.
An appeal was filed regarding the court's focus on the
defendant's patriotism and character too specifically, were the questions asked
(22:09):
unduly prejudicial. Judge Thayer denied the defendant's first six motions,
which were filed between nineteen twenty one to nineteen twenty three.
The Supreme Court found no problems with any of Judge
Thayer's rulings and concluded that he did not abuse his
judicial discretion in refusing to grant a new trial to
(22:30):
the pair. In nineteen twenty three, Saco and Vinzetti fired
Fred Moore, and they were subsequently represented by William Thompson,
a respected Boston attorney, and his associate Herbert Erman.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
In nineteen twenty five, there was a potential turn in
the case when a convicted murderer, a man named Celestino Maderos,
confessed to participating in the shoe factory crime, writing, I
hereby confess to being in the shoe company crime of
South Braintree on April fifteenth, nineteen twenty and that Saco
(23:05):
and Venzetti were not there. If what Madero said was true,
Sacco and Vincetti were not guilty, but because some of
his description of the crime contradicted well established facts, police
didn't investigate his involvement. Ermin, curious, started an investigation of
his own. Using information supplied by Maderos, he tracked down
(23:27):
a group of professional thieves known as the Morelli Gang,
who operated primarily out of Providence, Rhode Island. The Morelli
Gang had already been charged with stealing shoes from Slater
and Moral, and maybe the most important part here, the
police in nearby New Bedford, Massachusetts, where the gang also operated,
had originally suspected the gang of committing the shoe factory robbery,
(23:49):
and they dropped their investigation after Socco and Vincetti were arrested.
Erman considered the Morelli gang information a good lead and
wanted to officially reopen that investigation, but when he filed
a motion for a new trial, Judge Thayer denied it.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Six years after Saco and Vinzetti sentencing, Massachusetts Governor Alvin
Fuller appointed an independent commission to review the case, with A.
Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard University, leading that investigation.
The Lowell Commission, as it was known, took only ten
days to investigate the case and issued a report on
(24:26):
July twenty first, nineteen twenty seven. It concluded that Sacho
was guilty and that Vinzetti was quote on the whole guilty.
According to the commission, the Governor was correct with his
original refusal to grant clemency. After learning of Governor Fuller's decision,
defense attorneys Thompson and Urban retired from the case.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
The Saco Vinzetti Defense Committee retained Boston attorney Arthur Hill
to handle what would be the final appeals. Hill filed
a motion to revoke the death sentence and allowing new
trial on the basis of Judge Fair's alleged prejudice against
the defendants. Judge Fare deny the motion. Yes, he denied
a motion about his own prejudice. The trial judge at
(25:13):
this time had sole authority to decide the defendant's motions
for a new trial, and with that power there denied
them all. The defendant's last minute appeals to the United
States Supreme Court also failed.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
After years of failed legal appeals, the men were executed
by electrocution on August twenty third, nineteen twenty seven, at
Charlestown State Prison. Vanzetti made his farewell statement to the
witnesses of his deaths, saying quote, I wish to tell
you that I am innocent and that I never committed
any crime, but sometimes some sin. He then shook Warden
(25:51):
William Hendry's hand and said quote, I want to thank
you for everything you have done for me. Warden.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Apparently he shook the hands of all the guards and
like banked them all, and I'm like, through this whole thing,
I'm like, I really like van Setti. And when his
second letter that I put in there, I only put
in because it was like a little poem that he wrote,
I was like I know, okay. More than two hundred
thousand people lined the streets of Boston during the funeral
(26:18):
procession for Saco and Vincetti after their execution. They came
to symbolize the failure of the nineteen twenties American justice system,
and their deaths ignited protests all around the world. In
Boston that night, more than two hundred Soaco and Vanzetti
sympathizers congregated in Thompson Square to join a march out
to Bunker Hill. Police set up restricted areas, and they
(26:41):
heavily patrolled the city. Similar vigils, some peaceful, some not
so peaceful, sprung up in cities around the world of.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
The verdict and execution. In nineteen twenty seven, Harvard law
professor and later United States Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
condemned the prejudice of the judge, as well as procedural
errors during the trial, errors that included the prosecution's failure
to disclose eyewitness evidence favorable to the defense.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So let's jump to nineteen sixty one. New testing conducted
on Sako's gun using modern forensic techniques concluded it was
a bullet from his gun that killed the guard. Critics, however,
claimed that the bullet had to have been planted because
bullet number three, alleged to be from Sako's gun did
not match the three other bullets found in the body,
(27:35):
yet the other three bullets all matched each other. Police
files made public in nineteen seventy seven reported that the
gun in Vincetti's possession when he was arrested could not
have been taken from the victim as claimed in court,
because it was a different caliber. Testimony has been questioned
two over the years. For example, that one eyewitness who
(27:55):
identified Vancetti as the driver is problematic because Vanzetti never
learned to drive and had no driver's license.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Fifty years after their executions, in nineteen seventy seven, Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed that Sacho and Vinzetti had not
been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated
with their names. He stated that the atmosphere of their
trial quote was permeated by prejudice against foreigners and hostility
(28:25):
toward unorthodox political views. Still, though that proclamation was decades
after their deaths, it reignited the controversy over the case,
with some people protesting that the pair had been found
guilty and so they had to be in fact guilty.
The argument got heated enough that the mayor of New
York City canceled plans to issue a similar proclamation in
(28:49):
his city.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Today, some historians have come to believe Saco may have
been guilty in the shoe factory robbery and murder, but
that Benzetti was innocent. Those modern beliefs, though, don't matter,
not really, since in the end, the evidence that the
duo were murderers was insufficient to convict either one of
that crime of being anarchists and Italian immigrants. Though, yes,
(29:14):
and for judge there that was enough. Woof, that's a story.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You want to make it a double yes, I do.
You accidentally have brought up a perfect opportunity for me
to do a drink I've been wanting to make for
a couple weeks because, as you know, when I was
recently in London, I had a version of a drink
that I historically don't like that I absolutely loved, and
(29:40):
so I wanted to recreate it. So here we go. Excellent,
and this one is called conflicting evidence because I wanted
to do this because it is a case similar to
the Vanzetti and Soco case where you think you know things.
I thought I didn't like this drink, and then your
opinion changes because more things come to light, and now
(30:02):
I like this drink because I like this version amazing.
So here's what you have to do to start before
you make it. You have to prep some things. In
this case, you are going to infuse some gin with espresso,
So to do that it's really super easy. I had
some ground espresso already. I put about two pretty hefty
(30:25):
tablespoons in a jar with six ounces of gin and
gave it a good shake, and I let that sit
for like, I don't know, an hour and a half,
two hours, not very long. That was probably probably longer
than I needed to do. And then you have to
really fine strain it because you don't want any of
those those fine strained grounds. The reason I did espresso
(30:47):
rather than regular coffee is because, as you know, espresso
finer grind, so more surface area, so more infusion. If
you want, you could use regular coffee here and it
will just be not as flavored, which is fine. Again,
as always have drinker's choice. So once you have your
(31:08):
espresso coffee and Obviously, six ounces of gin is more
than you need in a drink. As I was as
I was prepping this, my husband said, you're really in
the mood for gin today, and I was like, I'm
not drinking all of it. You only need an ounce
of it actually, because once you have that, you are
going to pour into a glass with ice, one ounce
of this espresso infused gin, one ounce of sweet vermooth,
(31:33):
and one ounce of apparol. This is essentially a coffee
and gronie with some twists on it. So I had
a coffee and groni. I had several coffee and grannies
in a restaurant in London that does It's a little chain.
It's a little breakfast chain, and I absolutely love their
(31:53):
cocktail menu. It's small but quality, and so they did it.
I will say I did a version of this which
is more of a true nigronie, where in lieu of apparol,
I used kampari, which is normally what you would put
in an agroni. But it was still a little too bitter.
There's an interesting thing that happens where the coffee, even
though coffee is bitter on its own, it undercuts the
(32:16):
type of bitterness that you get from an amorrow, from
an apparol, from a you know, any of the orange
liqueurs that have a bitter taste, And with the kompari
it just still was a little too bitey for me.
If you love an agronie, use the kompari. But if
you don't love an agroni and you maybe want to
dance with this one, use aparol instead. It's a little softer. However,
(32:39):
there's another optional play here. You can also if you
want to just kick up the coffee aspect of it,
just throw a splash of a coffee liqueur in there.
So you're I have a yummy Galiano. That's an espresso liqueur.
You're mister black, You're you know, any of the coffee
liquurs are great, And that's conflict evidence. It's oddly smooth
(33:01):
and delicious. To do the mocktail version of this, we
have to shift things around quite a bit because it's
literally all.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Because it is an alcohol friendly.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Ever, so to do a similar one, you're gonna do
two ounces of the coffee of your choice. You're gonna
add one ounce of orange syrup. You can use a
blood orange syrup. Ideally, if you can get it, because
that is a little has a little more bite, and
it has that slight bitter edge to it, and you
get closer to what this drink actually is. That's really
(33:36):
all you need to get pretty close. But I also
if you are not adverse to bitters, throw a couple
drops of bitters in there. Uh, if you do zero
alcohol whatsoever, you can also do a couple drops of
your saline or even just sprinkle a little salt in
there and give it a good A black salt did
something really cool and gave it a smoky note that
I loved. So play with it and see what you
(33:58):
like for the mocktail. But also here's the thing, play
with it and see what you like for the cocktail,
because I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to.
If you like me drink flavored coffees, you could use
a flavored coffee to do this infusion and get something
with a completely different thing, right, Like I have a
(34:20):
Halloween chocolate coffee that I want to try this with
and see if you end up with like an alcoholic
chocolate orange essentially, that also would be great to carry
you through Christmas.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I think that a chocolate in here would be tasty.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, so you have some options to play with. But
that is conflicting evidence, because there's a ton ofment in
this case, because man, and this is you know, conflicting
evidence of whether or not I like negronies because I
drank a lot of nigronies in London, but they were
all coffee once uh, and I found I like them. Heaps.
We are very very thankful that you spent this time
(34:56):
with us considering this very complex, very well known, but
also so nuanced case that it merits, you know, a
closer look. We will be right back here again next
week with more stories and more drinking. Criminalia is a
(35:31):
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podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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