Nicola Sacco

The backstory

The crime

At about three o’clock in the afternoon of April 15, 1920, Frederick A. Parmenter, a paymaster, and Alessandro Berardelli, a guard, were carrying the payroll of the Slater and Morrill shoe company along Pearl Street in South Braintree when they were attacked by two or more armed men, according to the Supreme Judicial Court’s account of the evidence.¹² The court wrote that the men “shot them down inflicting wounds from which death ensued.”² The robbers took “$15,776.51 contained in two boxes” and escaped in an automobile; none of the money was recovered.¹⁵ Eyewitnesses said two men did the shooting and fled in a car with two or three other men.⁵ The 1926 opinion spells Berardelli’s first name “Alexander.”¹

The investigation and arrest

Bridgewater police chief Michael Stewart suspected political radicals, and an anarchist named Mike Boda (also spelled Buda) was at the top of his list, according to the Supreme Judicial Court’s exhibit on the case.⁷ Stewart learned that Boda’s car was being repaired at a Bridgewater garage and asked the owner to call the police when someone came for it.⁷ On the evening of May 5, 1920, four Italian men came for the car; the owner’s wife called the police, and later that evening officers arrested Sacco and Vanzetti on a streetcar in Brockton.⁷ The two other men were not detained.⁷

Sacco was carrying a loaded .32 Colt automatic pistol, and the 1926 opinion records that 32 cartridges were taken from him at the Brockton police station.⁷¹ He also had an Italian-language notice of an anarchist meeting at which Vanzetti was to speak.⁷ Vanzetti was carrying a loaded .38 Harrington & Richardson revolver.⁷¹ The opinion notes that an officer testified Vanzetti reached toward his hip pocket, and that both men denied any such movement.¹

Questioned at the station about their guns and their political beliefs, both men lied.⁷ “That false statements were made by both of these defendants is admitted,” the Supreme Judicial Court later wrote.¹ Their lies included denying their association with Boda and their visit to the garage.⁹ Writing in 1962, the author Francis Russell said Sacco first told the district attorney he had bought the pistol in Boston under an assumed name, and at trial said he had bought it in 1917 or 1918 in the town where he worked.²⁶

Indictment and trial

A Norfolk County grand jury indicted Sacco and Vanzetti for the murders on Sept. 11, 1920.⁸¹ The joint trial began in the Dedham courthouse on May 31, 1921, before Superior Court Judge Webster Thayer.⁸ District Attorney Frederick G. Katzmann prosecuted; Fred H. Moore was lead defense counsel.⁸ According to the court’s exhibit, 59 witnesses testified for the Commonwealth and 99 for the defense.⁹

The evidence against Sacco

Identification. Several witnesses placed Sacco at or near the scene. The 1926 opinion records that Lola Andrews identified Sacco as one of the men she saw at a car near the factory, and that Carlos Goodridge identified Sacco as the man who “poked the gun” at him.² A witness named Pelser described Sacco as “a dead image” of the shooter but would not say he was the man; the court held that such testimony was admissible and its weight was for the jury.¹ The court’s exhibit describes the eyewitness testimony as contradictory, and Thayer himself later wrote that “these verdicts did not rest, in my judgment, upon the testimony of the eyewitnesses.”⁹

The Colt pistol and Bullet III. The Commonwealth contended that “a bullet removed from the body of Berardelli, which had caused his death, was fired from the pistol found on Sacco.”² The fatal bullet was marked Bullet No. III.⁹ Two Commonwealth witnesses, State Police Capt. William H. Proctor and a Mr. Van Amburgh, testified about the pistol and the bullet, and two defense experts, Burns and Fitzgerald, testified that the bullet had not been fired from Sacco’s pistol.¹ Asked for his opinion whether Bullet III was fired from the Colt, Proctor answered: “My opinion is that it is consistent with being fired by that pistol.”²

The cap. A cap was picked up near Berardelli’s body, and the Commonwealth offered it on the theory that Sacco had worn it that day.² When shown it, Sacco first said “It looks like my cap,” the opinion records, and later doubted it, saying it looked too dirty to be his.¹ Prosecutors argued that a tear in the lining was made by a nail at Sacco’s workplace.⁹ The cap was a different size from other caps found at Sacco’s home; Sacco said it was too small, and the prosecution said it fit.⁹

Absence from work. The Commonwealth relied on evidence that Sacco was absent from his work at the factory on April 15, 1920.¹²

“Consciousness of guilt.” The prosecution argued that the defendants’ lies after their arrest, and their conduct at the garage on May 5, showed “consciousness of guilt.”⁹² The defense answered that they lied to protect themselves and their friends from punishment as aliens and radicals.⁹ The exhibit notes that a fellow anarchist, Andrea Salsedo, had died in custody on May 3, 1920, and that the defendants had learned of his death the next day and feared he had given their names.⁷⁹ Thayer instructed the jury that such evidence counted only if the consciousness related “to the murders of Berardelli and Parmenter and not to the fact” that the defendants were, in the charge’s words, “slackers, liable to be deported.”¹

Sacco’s testimony

Sacco testified that he went to Boston on April 15 “to get my passport.”¹⁹ He said the photograph he brought to the Italian consulate was too large, and a consulate official testified that he rejected the photo and remembered the date from a large calendar.¹⁹⁹ Other witnesses testified that they saw him on the way to or in Boston that day.⁹ Under cross-examination he denied ever being in South Braintree that day.¹⁹

He testified that on May 5 he and the others went to get Boda’s car to collect radical “books and papers” because “they were trying to arrest all the Socialists and the Radicals.”¹⁹ He admitted giving the police a false reason for being in Bridgewater.¹⁹

District Attorney Katzmann cross-examined him at length about his politics and his absence from the country in 1917.¹⁰ Asked, “Did you go to Mexico to avoid being a soldier for this country that you loved?” Sacco answered, “Yes.”¹⁰ He told Katzmann, “I don’t believe in war.”¹⁰ The Supreme Judicial Court’s exhibit says Thayer allowed extensive prosecution evidence about the defendants’ anarchist beliefs, immigrant background and refusal to register for the draft.⁵ On appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court held that the scope of the cross-examination was within the judge’s discretion and that the record did not show “as matter of law any abuse of the judge’s discretion.”¹ It noted that Thayer told the jury, “I therefore beseech you not to allow the fact that the defendants are Italians to influence or prejudice you.”¹

The verdict

On July 14, 1921, the jury found both men guilty of murder in the first degree.¹⁵

Motions for a new trial

From 1921 through 1926 the defense filed numerous motions for a new trial, and Thayer denied them all.¹¹ Under the law of the time, the trial judge alone decided such motions, and the Supreme Judicial Court could not review the strength of the evidence.⁵¹⁸ In 1923 Sacco dismissed Moore, and William G. Thompson and Herbert B. Ehrmann took over the defense of both men.¹¹

One motion relied on an affidavit from William Daly, a friend of the jury foreman, Walter Ripley. Daly swore that when he told Ripley before the trial that he believed the men were innocent, Ripley replied, “Damn them, they ought to hang anyway.”¹¹ The Supreme Judicial Court held that Thayer did not abuse his discretion in denying it.²

In October 1923, Proctor signed an affidavit saying he believed Bullet III had been fired from a Colt .32 pistol but could not conclude it came from Sacco’s, and that he had told Katzmann so before the trial.¹¹ Of his trial answer, he wrote: “I did not intend by that answer to imply that I had found any evidence that the so called mortal bullet had passed through this particular Colt automatic pistol.”² Thayer found that neither the district attorney nor his assistant “intentionally solicited an ambiguous answer” and denied the motion.²

The first appeal

On May 12, 1926, the Supreme Judicial Court, in an opinion by Justice Braley, found no error in Thayer’s rulings at trial and no abuse of discretion in his denial of the new-trial motions.¹³¹ It held that granting a new trial “was a matter of discretion” for the trial judge.² The opinion concludes, “Exceptions overruled.”²

The Madeiros confession

On Nov. 18, 1925, Celestino F. Madeiros, a prisoner already convicted of murder in an unrelated case, sent Sacco a note: “I hear by confess to being in the South Braintree shoe company crime and Sacco and Vanzetti was not in said crime.”¹²³ Defense counsel concluded that his account fit the Morelli gang, whose members were known to police in Providence and New Bedford.¹² Thayer denied a new trial based on the confession.¹²

On April 5, 1927, the Supreme Judicial Court, in an opinion by Justice Wait, upheld that ruling. It held that the decision stood unless “vitiated by errors of law, or abuse of discretion,” and that the question was whether the judge “could conscientiously, intelligently and honestly have reached the result he has reached.”³¹³ It held that the judge’s findings on the facts, including whether the confession was true, were final.³

Sentence, clemency and the last appeals

On April 9, 1927, Thayer sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death by electrocution.¹³ Vanzetti wrote an appeal for clemency to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller on May 3, 1927; Sacco refused to sign it.¹³ Fuller appointed an advisory committee of Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell, MIT President Samuel W. Stratton and retired probate judge Robert A. Grant.¹⁴ Its report concluded that the trial was fairly conducted and that both men were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; it also found that Thayer had been indiscreet in talking about the case off the bench, but that this did not affect the trial.¹⁴ On Aug. 3, 1927, Fuller denied clemency, stating that he believed, with the jury, that the men were guilty and had received a fair trial.¹⁴

A new lawyer, Arthur D. Hill, moved to revoke the sentences on the ground of Thayer’s alleged prejudice; Thayer denied the motion on Aug. 8, and the Supreme Judicial Court upheld him in August 1927, holding that the new claims of bias came too late.¹⁴ Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court also failed.¹⁴

The execution

Sacco was executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison in the first minutes of Aug. 23, 1927.¹⁶²⁰ Madeiros was executed first that night, then Sacco, then Vanzetti.²⁰ The New York Times reported that Sacco “marched to the death chair at 12:11 and was pronounced lifeless at 12:19.”²⁰ According to the Times, he cried out in Italian “Long live anarchy,” then said in English, “Farewell, my wife and child, and all my friends!” and “Good evening, gentlemen,” and his last words were “Farewell, mother.”²⁰ The Times reported that mounted police charged a crowd of several thousand.²⁰ Because a hunger strike had depleted his body of salt and water, Sacco received a higher voltage than Vanzetti, as the execution certificates show.¹⁶ The funeral procession through Boston took place on Aug. 28, 1927.¹⁶

Personal backstory

Early life and emigration

By his own testimony, Sacco was born in Italy in 1891.¹⁹ The Supreme Judicial Court’s exhibit places his birth in southern Italy.⁶ He testified that he arrived in Boston on April 12, 1908.¹⁹ At trial he said he had been “crazy to come to this country” because he “liked a free country.”¹⁹

Work

Sacco testified that after working at other jobs he learned a trade, and that from 1910 he worked as an edge trimmer at the Milford Shoe Company in Milford.¹⁹ He testified that he began working for a Mr. Kelley at the 3-K shoe company in Stoughton in November 1918, “one week before the armistice.”¹⁹ The court’s exhibit describes him as a skilled craftsman who worked at several shoe factories.⁶ A 1927 pro-defense summary of the testimony described him as “an industrious workman with a family.”³³

Family

Sacco testified that he married in 1912.¹⁹ At the time of his arrest, he and his wife had one son and were expecting a second child, according to the court’s exhibit.⁶ His wife visited him at Charlestown prison on Aug. 22, 1927, the day before the execution.¹⁶ Living descendants are not named here.

Anarchism and the 1917 trip to Mexico

The Supreme Judicial Court’s exhibit describes Sacco as a committed anarchist who subscribed to Cronaca Sovversiva, the newspaper of Luigi Galleani, and helped raise money for it.⁶ Galleani, who advocated the violent overthrow of the government and published a bomb-making manual in the paper, urged his followers not to register for the draft after the 1917 conscription law; he was deported in 1919.⁶ The exhibit says that Sacco met Vanzetti in the spring of 1917 and went to Mexico with a group of Galleanists that summer, returning in September 1917.⁶ It also states that the two men were never implicated in violence.⁵ At trial, Sacco testified that he was “outside of this country” in 1917 and used his mother’s maiden name, Mosmacotelli, “to not get in trouble by registration.”¹⁹ He agreed under cross-examination that he went to Mexico to avoid military service.¹⁰

Life in custody

Sacco was held in the Dedham jail during the years of motions and appeals.²¹²⁸ In February 1923 he wrote, in Italian, to Aldino Felicani of the defense committee about talks with Fred Moore and a hunger strike; the letter is held at the Boston Public Library.²¹ According to a 2025 article by the Medfield Historical Society, Sacco refused food for more than a month in 1923 and was transferred to Boston Psychopathic Hospital, and both the district attorney and Judge Thayer engaged state hospital superintendents to examine his mental state.²⁸ The sources reviewed do not state what the examiners found, and no diagnosis is given here. He was on a hunger strike again before his execution in 1927.¹⁶

In his own words

In a letter published by The New York Times on Aug. 5, 1927, Sacco named Gov. Fuller, Judge Thayer and District Attorney Katzmann as responsible for his and Vanzetti’s deaths.¹⁴ He refused to sign Vanzetti’s appeal for clemency.¹³ The sources reviewed contain no statement by Sacco admitting the crime; he and Vanzetti maintained their innocence through the trial and appeals.²⁵

Theories about his guilt

Whether Sacco took part in the crime is still argued. Felix Frankfurter, who criticized the conviction, wrote that “every reasonable probability points toward the Morelli gang.”¹² Francis Russell, writing after the 1961 ballistics tests, concluded that Sacco’s Colt was the murder weapon and that Sacco was probably at the scene or one of his associates was the shooter, while still believing Vanzetti was innocent; he cited the anarchist editor Carlo Tresca’s private statement that “Sacco was guilty, but Vanzetti was not.”²⁶ The 1983 firearms panel reported that the fatal bullet was “identified as having been fired from Exhibit # 28,” the pistol reportedly taken from Sacco.²² Others have suggested that the bullets and casings examined were not the originals from the scene.²⁷ The Supreme Judicial Court’s exhibit says experts still debate whether one or both men committed the crimes.⁵

What the victims’ families said

The sources reviewed contain no statement from the families of Frederick Parmenter or Alessandro Berardelli.