Andrew Manganaro, Goodridge’s disgruntled employer, related that
Goodridge had told him he “saw this automobile going by and as he did
one of the men pointed a gun at him and he run in. When he saw the
gun he was so scared he run right in from where he was. He could not
possibly remember faces.” As for Goodridge’s reputation for veracity,
Manganaro announced with emphatic satisfaction that it was bad.
After the identifications there followed a string of residual
witnesses to establish at length for the bored jury facts that were
for the most part apparent at a glance. Charles Fuller and Max Wind
told of finding the Buick in the Manley Woods, whereupon Moore
engaged in a lengthy dispute with Judge Thayer as to whether or not
the Buick should be admitted as evidence. Francis Murphy, the owner,
testified that the car was his. Warren Ellis identified his stolen
license plates. There was more interest in the story of William Hill,
the police officer who had driven the Buick to Brockton. He had spent
fifteen or twenty minutes looking the car over in the police garage
and found it undamaged, yet the next morning he had noticed a bullet
hole in the right rear door.
Assistant District Attorney Williams, putting Napoleon Ensher on the
stand, announced that the Commonwealth would “show that this man
Boda ... was seen driving a car of the type which is of interest to
us in this case; that he was associated with one Orciani, that he
was associated with Sacco, and we shall ask the jury ... to draw
the inference that the car which Boda was then driving was the car
concerned in this murder, and we shall tie up the car and Boda,
by evidence of other association between these four men, Sacco,
Vanzetti, Orciani and Boda.”
Unfortunately for this theory, there was no link for Williams to
connect the murder car with the one Ensher claimed to have seen Boda
driving. The assistant district attorney admitted that all he could
hope to show was that it was the same kind of car; he could not,
however, “place the four men together at any time in this particular
Buick car.” For lack of such a connection, Judge Thayer excluded
Ensher’s testimony.
Officers Vaughn and Connolly again told their tale of arresting
the two Italians, Connolly elaborating on the story he had told at
the Plymouth trial. Vanzetti had so far controlled his feelings,
but as Connolly told of Vanzetti’s reaching for his revolver the
Italian jumped up in the cage and shouted “You are a liar!” The
deputies forced him down, his eyes sparkling with anger, as Connolly
continued.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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