Sing Sing is a name synonymous with a grim history. Even its original name ‘Sinck Sinck’ translates into English as ‘Stone upon stone.’ A myriad of tales abound of harsh discipline, bad food, forced labor and executions, especially executions. The legendary harshness of New York’s attitude to murderers led to Sing Sing (already notorious) acquiring an equally legendary new building.
The ‘Death House.’
Nowadays it has long fallen into disuse for executions. New York abolished the death penalty in 1972, the last execution being that of Eddie Lee Mays in August, 1963. He was the 695th person executed in New York State since the adoption of the electric chair and the world’s first electrocution, that of murderer William Kemmler, at New York’s Auburn Prison in August 1890. Mays was the 614th in Sing Sing.
Upstate New York’s most infamous address, Sing Sing Prison.
Single executions were the norm, while doubles, triples and multiples were less frequent, but still a regular feature. But one day, August 12, 1912, stands out for being the busiest day in Old Sparky’s long and checkered history, a day when the world’s first ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis earned more money for one hour’s work than most manual workers in 1912 earned in a year, and Sing Sing emptied more ‘Death House’ cells than on any day in its history.
Seven of them.
John Collins was slated to die for what seems more like manslaughter than murder. He’d been drunk. Very, very drunk, in fact. So drunk that when he started randomly firing a pistol into the walls and ceiling of his own apartment (which, for some reason, led to neighbours calling the police) he shot the first officer who came through the door. Patrolman Michael Lynch took a bullet in the chest and died shortly afterward. On August 12 Collins was set to follow him.
Joseph Ferrone was a different breed of cat. A violent, aggressive, nasty character, Ferrone had murdered his wife. His response to being convicted and condemned was to break a glass in the courtroom, use the jagged end to wound a juror, spit at the trial judge and then attempt suicide then and there. If he wanted to die then Edwin Davis was slated to grant him his death wish right after he’d finished with Jon Collins.
A double execution wasn’t unusual at Sing Sing. But, as fate and the trial judge would have it, it wasn’t going to be a double. Six Italian immigrants had attempted a robbery at the farm of one Henry Giffin, expecting to find $3000 to rob from what they thought would be an easy target. It was, only three women were there on the night of November 8, 1911 when they forced their way in. They fled with pennies, not finding the $3000 they expected. What they didn’t know was that, after the others had left the building, one of them had fatally knifed one of those women, Mary Hall.
They were equally unfamiliar with New York State’s rules regarding joint criminal enterprise. Rules stating very clearly that, as one of them had committed a murder and all of them had committed the bungled robbery, they were now all equally liable for a seat in Old Sparky. This would become terrifyingly apparent to them very, very soon.
It was Santo Zanza who committed the murder. His accomplices in the robbery were the Demarco brothers (Felipe and Salvatore), Lorenzo Cali, Angelo Guisto (who later blamed Zanza and claimed to have tried to stop him stabbing Mary Hall) and Vincenzo Cona. Zanza committed the murder. All would die in the chair.
Zanz, Guisto, Cona and Felipo Demarco were arrested the next day in the vicinity of the farm. Cali was arrested two days later at his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Salvatore DeMarco would remain at large until December 6, 1911 when he was arrested at his apartment in East Flatbush, New York.
Their trials were remarkable for their brevity, if not necessarily their fairness or taking things methodically and patiently. New Yorkers were up in arms about the crime. They were often prejudiced against immigrants in general and Italian ones in particular. The courthouse in White Plains was kept under heavy guard amid fears of hordes of Italian gangsters storming it to free their obviously (in the eyes of many New Yorkers of the day) guilty brethren.
Felipo DeMarco and Santo Zanza chose to be tried together while Guisto, Cona and Cali were tried separately. Salvatore DeMarco was arrested on December 6, 1911. By that time, in four trials lasting a total of less than thirty hours, Cali, Zanza, Guisto, Cona and Felipo DeMarco were all tried and convicted, the juries deliberating for less than fifteen minutes over every defendant except Guisto (whom they found guilty on a later date). It made no difference.
On December 4, 1911, two days before Salvatore DeMarco’s arrest and only 26 days after the murder of Mary Hall, all five men arrived in court to hear their sentences. Under New York law at the time there could only be one sentence which was duly passed on all of them.
Death by electrocution.
In fairness, lacking any understanding of the idea of joint enterprise, they had done much to convict themselves. They’d thought that, if they were to admit going on the robbery while strenuously denying the murder, they would serve time for the robbery only. In doing so they did the District Attorney’s job for him. By admitting their parts in the robbery they, under New York’s rules on joint enterprise, had by default set themselves up to be convicted of murder, a crime for which New York State then had a mandatory death penalty.
Two days after their sentencing Salvatore Demarco was arrested at his apartment in East Flatbush, New York. In another striking example of New York pursuing lightning justice in every sense, his trail began on December 19, 1911. It also ended on December 19, 1911 with his being convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. By Christmas Day, 1911 all six men would have a no doubt emotional reunion within the grim walls of the Sing Sing ‘Death House.’ Collins and Ferrone were, of course, already there.
Not a very Merry Christmas.
Zanza, to his credit, not only freely admitted his guilt, but did all he could to save his friends from a brief acquaintance with ‘State Electrician’ Edwin Davis. He not only accentuated his own guilt (dooming himself in the process, assuming anybody had been minded to seek a reprieve), but also stated repeatedly that he and he alone had committed the murder. Guisto had firmly blamed Zanza at trial, claiming that he’d tried to stop Zanza committing the murder. It was probably that testimony along with being the youngest of the defendants that caused the jury to take an extra few minutes before deciding to send him to the chair anyway. Zanza, having probably guessed his goose was cooked, spent the remaining months of his life trying in vain to help his friends. He failed, but not for lack of trying.
Which left Sing Sing’s boss, Warden John Kennedy, with a seriously unpleasant date in his diary. New York’s judges didn’t have any set schedule for setting execution dates. Granted, prisoners known as ‘rap partners’ who committed capital crimes together would usually walk their last mile together as well. With Collins and Ferrone already slated to die on August 12 and their appeals having failed, the new date for the DeMarco brothers, Cali, Cona and Guisto was also set for August 12. In the meantime, Santo Zanza had gone to his death on July 8 still admitting his guilt and their innocence. The executioner, who until 1919 was paid a flat rate of $50 per inmate instead of $150 for the first and $50 for each additional inmate when executing more than one, had picked up his $50.
On August 12 he would earn $350 more, more than immigrant laborors like the men he was about to execute would earn in a year.
Warden Kennedy wasn’t looking forward to it. He wasn’t fond of executions anyway, few prison wardens really are. They’re unpleasant, stressful, an administrative nightmare and a public relations hassle even when the public aren’t baying for blood and the press aren’t intent on selling as many papers as possible describing all the gory details. In this case both press and public were doing exactly that, with the additional media interest created by the simple fact that New York had never electrocuted seven men in one batch and, in fact, no other American prison had electrocuted so many at once, either. All in all, he wasn’t a happy man.
He would be even less happy with how things went.
The original execution chamber at Sing Sing. It would never see a busier day.
Zanza had already walked his last mile on July 8 in a triple execution, George Williams and Guiseppe Cerelli having formed the rest of what Illinois prison officials nicknamed a ‘triple hitter.’ Zanza wasn’t a problem. Neither were John Collins or Joseph Ferrone who, as it turned out, went to their deaths without resistance as did one of the condemned Italians, Guisto.
The other four were far less co-operative.
Salvatore and Felipo DeMarco, Vincenzo Cona and Lorenzo Cali didn’t understand the idea of joint enterprise and so didn’t see the reason for their executions. In the hours leading up to their executions and even while they were being taken one-by-one through Sing Sing’s infamous ‘green door’ they shouted, screamed, hollered, sobbed and generally went mad. This was bad enough for the staff and official witnesses in the execution chamber, separated as they were by only a single door. For the other condemned inmates (there being 18 in total until the seven walked their last mile) it would have been torture.
The original ‘Death House’ had the cells and execution chamber in adjoining rooms. Separated by only the notorious ‘green door’ inmates could hear each and every detail during an execution. They could hear the last words if an inmate had any. They could hear the sound of the switch being thrown, of the generator cranking up, of the power flowing through the cables, the voices of prison doctors and the Warden. Worst of all, New York law required an autopsy immediately after an execution and, the autopsy room adjoining the death chamber, the inmates could hear the bone saw as the prison doctor removed the top of an inmate’s skull to confirm the cause of death.
Not exactly what anybody wants to hear when they’re looking at that green door, knowing all the time that they’re likely to be walking through it sooner or later.
Collins went first to the accompaniment of Cali, the DeMarco brothers and Cona’s symphony of the damned. Witnesses and officials stood around growing ever more uncomfortable as Collins walked in, and sat down at 4:59am. Minutes later he was dead. Next up was Felipo DeMarco, who incoherently protested his innocence while his three rap partners continued their acapella arias. He died quickly and without further incident. After him came Cona, then Giusto (the only Italian that day to go quietly), then Cali followed by Salvatore DeMarco. Last of the seven was Joseph Ferrone, who went relatively quietly, the baying and insane howlings of Cona, the DeMarco’s and Cali having been permanently silence by Edwin Davis, much to everybody’s relief.
Collins had entered the room at 4:59am. Ferrone was wheeled out at 6:14am. In that time seven men had died, the eleven waiting their turn had been traumatised along with the staff and witnesses and Edwin Davis had made his hefty payday. The bloodlust of the public and the media’s desire for higher circulation figures had been satisfied.
But not everybody was as pleased with the event. New York’s Italian community were outraged and disgusted. Local banker and member of the Italian Chamber of Commerce Giovanni Lordi described it thus:
“It’s a fine advertisement for the United States. Brutal butchery is what I call it.”
He then went further:
“The most rabid advocate of ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ cannot justify such an outrage.”
Mrs. Champ Clark, wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was no less disgusted:
“The seven executions today by New York State are shocking examples of the inefficiency of the death policy. I believe with Bulwer Lytton that ‘The worst use to which you can put a man is to hang him.’”
Despite the seeming harshness of these men dying for a crime that only one of them committed it was all perfectly legal according to the laws and standards of the time. They had all gone to commit a robbery. During the robbery a murder was committed. Hence, as they were all guilty of the robbery, they were all equally guilty of the murder.
With an innocent victim like Mary hall and rampant public prejudice against immigrants, especially Italian ones, the case was never going to attract public sympathy. As such, and facing an election in November, 1912 only three months after the executions, Governor John Alden Dix wasn’t going to sacrifice himself to the voters when he could sacrifice a group of admitted criminals to the law and public attitudes. It’s somewhat ironic, therefore, that if he allowed the executions to go ahead in order to protect his electoral interests he was doomed to be disappointed. Dix didn’t even get as far as fighting for re-election, instead losing the Democratic nomination to William Sulzer who also won that election.
Rather ironic, all things considered.