in Stoughton, had taken a day off (about which more later) on April 15. Hence, while he could not be charged with the Bridgewater crime, he was charged with the Braintree murders; Vanzetti, as a fish peddler at Plymouth and his own employer, could not give the same kind of alibi for either day, and so he was held for both crimes.[1] Stewart's theory that the crime was committed by these Italian radicals was not shared by the head of the state police, who always maintained that it was the work of professionals.
Charged with the crime of murder on May 5, Sacco and Vanzetti were indicted on September 14, 1920,
- ↑ In an account of the joint trial of Sacco and Vanzetti the details of Vanzetti's separate trial cannot find a place, but Vanzetti's prosecution for the Bridgewater job grew out of his arrest for, and was merely a phase of, the Braintree affair. The evidence of identification of Vanzetti in the Bridgewater case bordered on the frivolous, reaching its climax in the testimony of a little newsboy who, from behind the telegraph pole to which he had run for refuge during the shooting, had caught a glimpse of the criminal and "knew by the way he ran he was a foreigner." Vanzetti was a foreigner, so of course it was Vanzetti! There were also found on Vanzetti's person, four months after the Bridgewater attempt, several shells, one of which was claimed to be of a type similar to shells found at the scene of the Bridgewater crime. The innocent possession of these shells was accounted for at the Dedham trial. More than twenty people swore to having seen Vanzetti in Plymouth on December 24, among them those who remembered buying eels from him for the Christmas Eve feasts. Of course all these witnesses were Italians. The circumstances of the trial are sufficiently revealed by the fact that Vanzetti, protesting innocence, was not allowed by his counsel to take the witness stand for fear his radical opinions would be brought out and tell against him disastrously. From a verdict of conviction counsel took no appeal. The judge and district attorney were Judge Webster Thayer and Mr. Katzmann, as also in the Braintree trial. The Bridgewater conviction was played up with the most lurid publicity when Vanzetti faced his trial for the Braintree crime.
"R." means "Defendants' Exceptions in Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti"; "M. R." means "Defendants' Amended Bill of Exceptions on Motion for New Trial, 1926."]
