“I am an accountant by occupation,” said the fifty-eight-year old Lynch, with an Irish accent. “I am employed by the City of New York and have been so employed for the past 20 years.” Swann showed Lynch the letter that he had sent to the Italian courts three years ago. Lynch admitted it was his handwriting.
“I had a young daughter,” Lynch said, quietly, “who died.” He went on to explain that he thought her death had been caused by the same criminal agencies that killed Ruth Cruger.
“From my personal investigations,” Lynch said, “I was of the opinion that the said Alfredo Cocchi was in some way connected with the persons responsible for my daughter’s death. I thought that if he were brought back to America, the prosecution against him would be helpful to me in bringing to justice those responsible for the death of my daughter.” He wiped his eyes. He admitted that he had no facts to connect them.
Swann made him say it again, though he took no pleasure in it.
“I am personally in possession of no facts and no information in any way directly or indirectly connected to the disappearance of the death of Ruth Cruger by the said Alfredo Cocchi; I never knew Ruth Cruger in her lifetime. My daughter never knew, to my personal knowledge, Ruth Cruger in her lifetime. I never knew Alfredo Cocchi.”
The Reverend Gaspar Moretto testified on February 9. In his forties, he was still a young, strong, and good-looking man. He had a soft smile with some gray at his temples. Cocchi named the priest as the man who harbored him as he waited in New York before escaping to Italy. When questioned by the police and Helen Cruger during that time, Father Moretto had only intimated at things, avoiding them directly. He was more forthcoming now.
“I am a naturalized American citizen,” he said with gusto. He explained how he was ordained in Italy but came to the United States in 1903. He was still attached to the Saint Raphael Society, an Italian mission. Reverend Moretto visited Ellis Island every day, he said, to help the Italians with their spiritual needs as they arrived under the shadow of a giant, expressionless woman who had been hammered from copper.
The reverend knew Cocchi through Ernesto Bregagnolo, a member of the society who had a motorcycle. “In the fall of 1914,” Moretto said, “I remember one occasion when Mrs. Cocchi called at the Mission.” She asked Moretto to talk to her husband because he was being unfaithful to her with other women. “This, however, I never did,” said Moretto. “I had not seen her husband before this occasion except the early summer of 1914. The next time I saw Alfredo Cocchi was in the early evening of the 15th of February, 1917.” Moretto had been on Ellis Island, leaving on the late afternoon ferry for home at four forty as the sun rolled west. The reverend had arrived back at the mission around 5 o’clock.
“When I arrived there,” Moretto said, “Alfredo Cocchi was waiting for me. I was informed by one of the sisters attached to the mission that he had been waiting for two hours. He spoke to me and requested me to hear his confession. I then heard his confession according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Under the rules of the Roman Catholic Church and under my vows as a priest, I cannot disclose any part of the confession,” said Reverend Moretto. Swann stared at him.
“I never saw Alfredo Cocchi after this day,” Moretto said. Then he stopped as if he had remembered something.
“I am informed,” Moretto said, “that Alfredo Cocchi was married on the 3rd day of October, 1907, at Ellis Island, and that I was the officiating clergyman. This is undoubtedly true, but I have no distinct recollection of the marriage. I do recollect that when Mrs. Cocchi saw me at her husband’s shop in 1914, she recognized me as the priest who had solemnized her marriage at Ellis Island.”
The next witness was a young blond woman who turned heads when she walked in. Her name was Mary Probst. She had also been named by Cocchi as a possible witness, and when she spoke, it was all business. “I am employed as a packer in the candy factory of D. Auerbach at 640 Eleventh Avenue,” she said. Mary Probst told the story of how she lived with her parents in the same house as the Cocchis and helped out with paperwork and cleaning. “I frequently made out statements and bills for Alfredo Cocchi,” she said, “because he could not read and write English.” Her father was the janitor of the building. It was on 301 West Eighty-third Street.
“One day while I was dusting the house and helping my father,” Mary said, “Mr. Cocchi met me in the hallway.” She paused and looked at the judge, who nodded. “He opened his trousers and exposed his private parts. Mrs. Cocchi immediately followed him out of the apartment after this occurred and called me back into her home. I told her what occurred, and she told me not to tell my mother or anyone else. I promised that I would not.”
Mary then recalled how, several weeks later, she went to the motorcycle shop with a friend to get two bicycles to go for a ride. Cocchi was always happy to loan them bicycles. When Mary returned on her own, Cocchi put his arms around her and embraced her. Mrs. Cocchi entered the store and got very angry with me. “She told me to leave the store,” Mary said, “and not to come there again.” The court asked Mary her age. “I am nineteen years of age,” she said. At the time of the events she was relating, she had been fourteen.
Several more girls whom Cocchi named as witnesses were also summoned. Francesca Triolo was twenty years old, dark haired, and very quiet. “He never made any improper advances to me,” she said. Florence Leonetter was seventeen and worked at a tea store. She said that Cocchi would sometimes give her and her brother rides in his motorcycle sidecar. She paused. “I frequently saw Cocchi in front of his shop; he always used to smile at girls when they passed by.”
Agnes Powers was older, married, and had two children. Her husband was an inspector at the New York Globe. Powers told Swann that in late 1916 she visited Cocchi’s shop to have a baby carriage repaired. She liked his work, so she went back six or so times after. The last time she went, on a Sunday, she had to leave the carriage for an hour or so.