Grace then allegedly tried to induce Ida Burch—one of the witnesses who claimed to have seen Snowden leave the Brandon home—to change her testimony. The district attorney told Grace that she would be arrested if she continued to badger his witness. Murray rushed to Grace’s defense and said that the DA’s bullying was just “one of many endeavors made by certain interests to discredit a woman who was appointed assistant to Attorney General Charles Bonaparte by President Roosevelt.” That old title still carried weight in Washington. Murray also revealed that she was “strongly warned by three highly prominent men, all connected with the case, not to bring Humiston back to Annapolis.” Time was running out, but Grace had, as always, one more card to play.
Inside the jail, as John Snowden looked straight at the camera in front of him, he could hear hammering somewhere in the background. The sound of iron and wood was strangely comforting. Snowden was wearing his brand-new blue suit, black tie, and black shoes. The suit fit nicely across his broad shoulders. Another man walked in, and Snowden could feel the muscles in his legs fly away into air.
“Marshal Carter,” Snowden said to the man. “I want to say before I go, that I forgive you for the way you treated me in that sweatbox in Baltimore.” A man then took his photograph. Snowden did not smile. The words attributed to him appeared in a newspaper.
Outside, a band played. John Snowden could hear lots of footsteps as he walked out to cheers and song. He walked up the stairs.
Many people in the crowd said that it was a good thing that John Snowden was a client of Mrs. Grace Humiston. She had met with him just last night, and they all knew she was working on some last-minute plan.
When the hood was placed over John Snowden’s head and he dropped through the trapdoor to his death, his body swinging in the chilly Annapolis air, over one hundred people stood outside the jail singing “God Will Take Care of You.” His body, in the best suit it had ever worn, was taken down and given to his sister. A three-hour funeral followed.
A few hours before he was led to the gallows for the murder of Lottie May Brandon, Snowden had said a few words:
In a few hours from now, I shall step out of time into eternity to pay the penalty of a crime I am not guilty of. God knows that I am telling the truth, and after I have been hanged, I am asking the authorities to please continue to search for the murderer. Though I have suffered, if it would have proved to the world that I was innocent, I would have willingly gone through that awful degree again.… I could not leave this world with a lie in my mouth.
A few days after the execution, the sheriff’s office received a printed letter from Washington, D.C. It read:
I am sorry you killed Snowden today. He is not the guilty man. I am the man. I could not stand to see another man live with my heart so I put Lottie May out of my way. I hope his sins fall on my head. He is not the man. God will bring things right some day.
The letter was unsigned.
21
The Invisible Places
Bologna was a medieval town once dominated by tall stone towers, piled up into the cloudy sky. But over the years, most of these towers had fallen, having been destroyed by invaders, or having been built too high and hopeful to begin with. Of the few left, the most famous were the two—the leaning Garisenda and the taller Asinelli—that could be seen from anywhere in the city. The Asinelli had been used by medieval philosophers to study the rotation of the earth. During the Second World War, it was a post for rescue efforts. The Garisenda ominously leaned toward the ground. Dante referred to the tower in the “Inferno”: “like the Garisenda looks from beneath the leaning side, when a cloud drifts over it, so that it seems to fall.”
The towers could be seen from the square of the beautifully ornate Barochi palace, where Cocchi’s trial was to be held. The outdoor piazza was always filled with a moving, murmuring crowd, who were now discussing every detail of the family history of Cocchi and commenting on the identities of the ten jurors. Venturini, Cocchi’s lawyer, argued that his client had never lost his Italian citizenship. This had been ratified, some thought, by the fact that Cocchi was a reservist in the Italian army. Even though Italy did have an extradition treaty with the United States, she did not give up her citizens lightly. Especially in times of war. So Cocchi was stuck in his dungeon cell, with his father and brother forced to provide food from outside for him, as was the custom. As all parties prepared for his trial, the mayor of Bologna sent a formal letter to the New York City government to express his deep regret and shame over Cocchi’s horrific acts.
On June 23, 1919, Alfredo Cocchi, son of Giocondo, born at Malalbergo on June 24, 1881, appeared before the Italian court of assizes at Bologna, accused of attempted rape, murder, and giving misleading information while entering the kingdom under a series of false names.
Inside, the court of assizes was dark and wooden, very much like a church. The high ceilings had dark panels with small lights. Yellow murals on the walls served as background to white marble statues of men in robes. The floor was stone, and a high chandelier watched over the room like an ironwork cloud.
Now, two years after Cocchi’s confession, Judge Zucconi was gone. Chief Justice Signor Bagnoli now sat in a wide, wooden chair on one end of the room. Chairs lined the sides. On a riser stood a few more rows of stiff-backed chairs and the dreaded cage, where the accused would stand. A balcony set out on the opposite wall. The center of the long room was ready to be filled—as it was every day—with somehow different versions of the same story.
After the room filled and it was time for Cocchi to testify, they let him step into the middle of the court. He looked nervous. Despite all the buzzing in the square, it was not expected to be a long trial. The Americans needed a trial, and the city needed to just put Cocchi away in that cell for good. These proceedings were a foregone conclusion. Cocchi had already confessed to the crimes so no one was expecting any surprises. It would just be a matter of how much his lawyer could pare down his sentence.
Free of cells or shackles, Cocchi started walking down one end of the space in front of the bench. Some wondered if he might make a swift run for the doors. Instead, Cocchi began to talk, gesturing with his hands, pointing through people and at things that weren’t there, to show where things in his bicycle shop were placed thousands of miles away and several years before. Cocchi noisily moved desks and pointed to clerks to act as stand-ins for pieces of furniture and people. He started to tell the true story of that day in his shop.
“I was talking to the signorina,” Cocchi said, pointing to the clerk in front of him. Cocchi told how Ruth Cruger had come into his store to have her ice skates sharpened. Cocchi was, to all present, a glittering fool, talking and waving at ghosts.
Cocchi turned swiftly. He motioned to the lawyer on the other side of the room. “Then my wife struck her on the back of the head with one of my tools.” The gallery of people froze.
“It was not I who struck the fatal blow,” said Cocchi, “it was my wife. I hid the body to protect my wife.”
As the courtroom rose as one, the enormity of Cocchi’s words reached the judge. Not only had Cocchi just retracted his confession, but he had just claimed, in front of the entire court, that his wife, Maria, was the real murderer of Ruth Cruger.