The paymaster's $15,776 payroll — and the widows who testified

The paymaster and the guard were carrying two boxes along Pearl Street, an ordinary errand on an ordinary Thursday.

The boxes held the payroll for the Slater and Morrill shoe factory, about $15,776 in cash.

Two men approached and opened fire.

The guard was shot four times and died at the scene.

The paymaster was shot twice and died later that day.

The gunmen grabbed the boxes, jumped into a waiting Buick driven by a third man, and fled.

Witnesses reported seeing several men in the car.

Who were the two men who stepped out of that car?

Why were they carrying so much cash?

Why those two workers, on that street, at that moment?

The identities of the gunmen are not established at this point in the narrative.

Police later linked the South Braintree robbery to an earlier attempted holdup in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, on December 24, 1919.

In that attempt, a paymaster had escaped unharmed.

The earlier job failed.

The later one did not.

She was on the ground below, or so the scene suggested.

The guard's widow would testify at trial, years later.

The paymaster's widow would testify too.

But on April 15, 1920, that was still ahead of them.

What remained was the street, the boxes, the Buick, and the dead.

THE WIDOWS IN COURT

The paymaster was 42 years old. The guard was 32.

They worked at the Slater and Morrill shoe factory, carrying the payroll in two boxes along Pearl Street. The guard's widow, Vincenzina Berardelli, took the stand at trial. She testified in the same courtroom where the two men charged with the murders sat. The paymaster's widow, Mary Parmenter, also remarried after the events.

She remarried and lived quietly.

The two men charged with the murders were Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco was a shoe worker. Vanzetti was a fish peddler. Both were Italian-born anarchists and labor activists. The courtroom filled with their politics, their radical circles, their cause. The widows sat through it.

What did Vincenzina Berardelli say on the stand? What words did she choose for the man who was shot four times at the scene? That is not in the record. What Mary Parmenter said is not in the record either. The testimony is documented as having happened; its content is not preserved.

The victims' families received little public attention compared to the defendants. The men charged had protests, intellectuals, and labor groups rallying around them. The widows had the stand, then the quiet.

She was a widow in a courtroom. She was also a footnote in a global cause célèbre. It is one thing to be remembered. It is another to be the reason the trial happened at all.

THE ARREST AND THE EVIDENCE

They were arrested on May 5, 1920, on a streetcar in Brockton.

They were armed with pistols. They were carrying anarchist literature.

They lied to police about where they had been and what they had done. The prosecutor used those lies as evidence of consciousness of guilt. The defense said the lies were fear, not guilt.

The prosecution’s ballistics expert testified that a bullet recovered from the guard’s body was fired from Sacco’s pistol. Defense experts disputed this. The bullet matched, the expert said. The bullet did not match, the defense said. That would require evidence.

A cap found at the scene was a key piece of evidence. Prosecutors claimed it belonged to Sacco. The defense disputed this. Whether the cap belonged to Sacco is not established.

Eyewitnesses placed the men at the scene. Several witnesses gave conflicting accounts. One saw the gunmen. Another saw a different man. Another saw a car. The testimony was documented as having happened; its reliability is not preserved.