Summary Of Sacco And Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders

Bruce Watson, the author of Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind, breaks down many aspects of the case to help better understand it. He begins the novel by telling the life stories of both men to show the things that influenced them in their beliefs and also their thoughts on their new home in America. It was evident Vanzetti and Sacco weren’t happy in New York because they believed it was “the immense hell pit of the poor and paradise of the rich” (Watson 21). But their answer to the problem didn’t contain violence; they just contemplated “returning to simpler lives in Italy” (Watson 12). After portraying their life stories, Watson began examining the murder and robbery incident. He went through all the details

The police knew that both of them had ties to a well-known anarchist in town, and since both men told police contradictory statements, the police believed they must be guilty of something. The police then insisted that they must have been the two men from the robbery and murder. The two major inconsistencies in the trial were dealing with the weapons used in the incident and both men’s alibis. Sacco’s Colt .32-automatic was claimed to have shot one of the men despite the prosecution’s chief expert believed the gun wasn’t the gun that killed the man. The expert still testified that Sacco’s gun was the one that was used due to ballistic results because of an agreement before the trial with the District Attorney. Also, the District Attorney knew the gun Vanzetti had wasn’t the same gun taken from the guard due to different serial numbers on the guns, but he still claimed it was the same gun by holding the serial number evidence from the trial. Sacco also had a firm alibi during the murders because he was in Boston getting his family’s passports to go back to Italy during the murder and robbery time