Judge Thayer abandoned identification of Sacco and Vanzetti as the grounds on which the jury’s verdict rested, in denying a motion for a new trial. This motion was based on the discovery of a new eyewitness with better opportunity for observation than any of the other witnesses on either side, who swore that Sacco was not the man in the car. Judge Thayer ruled that this evidence “would simply mean one more piece of evidence of the same account and directed to the same end, and in my judgment, would have no effect whatever on the verdicts, for these verdicts _did not rest, in my judgment, upon the testimony of eyewitnesses, for the defendants, as it was, called more witnesses than the Commonwealth who testified that neither of the defendants were in the bandit car_.[1] “The evidence that affected the defendants, was circumstantial, and was evidence that is known in law as ‘consciousness of guilt.’” [Sidenote: II. Identification through “consciousness of guilt”] By “consciousness of guilt” Judge Thayer inferred that the conduct of Sacco and Vanzetti, after the murder, was the conduct of murderers. This inference of guilt was drawn from their behavior on the night of May 5th, before and after their arrest, and also from their possession of firearms. What was their conduct on the night of May 5th, and how did they come to possess firearms? It will be remembered that as the murder was being committed a car containing several other men drew up. The murderers threw the two boxes containing the money into the car, jumped in and sped away at high speed across near-by railroad tracks. Two days later this car was found abandoned in woods a distance from the scene of the crime. Leading away from this spot were tracks of a smaller car. At the time of the Braintree hold-up the police were investigating a similar hold-up in a neighboring town, Bridgewater. In both hold-ups a gang was involved. In both they made off in a car. In both eyewitnesses believed the criminals to be Italians. In the Bridgewater hold-up, the car had left the scene _in the direction of Cochesett_.[1] Police Chief Stewart, of Bridgewater, at the time of the Braintree hold-up, was therefore on the trail of an Italian owning or driving a car in Cochesett. He thought he had found his man in one Boda, whose car was then in a garage awaiting repairs. Stewart instructed the garage proprietor, Johnson, to telephone the police when any one came to fetch it. Pursuing his investigation, Stewart found that Boda had been living in Cochesett with a radical named Coacci.