Evening star. [volume], June 30, 1940, Page 5, Image 81

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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Dared he omit ttiat last, crucial witness?
Wiggins, the young D.A., felt that
he had assembled his mass of circum
stantial stuff with telling effect. Every cop on
the force knew they had nabbed the right
party. The defendant’s guilt shrieked to
Heaven. It might be possible to convict with
out
Wiggins grew more uneasy as the moment
when he had planned to call his cherished
surprise witness approached. The man's ex
traordinary story and method of identifica
tion could backfire ludicrously. And this was
a headline case. Wiggins’s lirst.
The jurors sat deep in their chairs, bored,
drowsing. Wiggins appraised them darkly and
knew he would have to take the risk.
But he observed with satisfaction, a little
later, that the manner in which he had elicited
the fantastic testimony had brought the jury
forward, alert. He was trembling a little from
gxcitement as he turned his man over to the
lawyer for the defense.
' Q. What is your name?
A. Peter Parmelino.
v Q, And you are totally blind"'
A. Yes, sir. Ten years back, now, I was get
ting letter, when that firecracker —
Q. Never mind the reminiscences. You have
positively identified a man charged with mur
der in the first degree you, a blind man.
What do you do for a living?
A. I keep a newsstand — nearly twelve
years now on the corner of Fourth and
Newton.
Q. That 's around the corner from the Trad
ers National Bank!
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Can you see the bank's entrance from
your stand?
A. No. sir. I couldn’t see nothing. I already
told you 1 was blind. (Scattered ner
vous laughter in the courtroom.
Q. But you told the police (read
ing from transcript), "As soon as
this man drove away from the bank
I recognized him." Right?
A. That’s right.
*Q. You have a daughter?
A. Yes. sir.
FIRECRACKER
Q. So, although you couldn’t see him and
you couldn’t hear him talk, you identified this
boy as one of the gang that held up the
Traders Bank and killed two people? No, Mr.
Parmelino, you didn't see him and you didn’t
hear him talk because he wasn’t there. Do
you expect the jury to believe any such far
fetched identification?
A. Yes, sir. because I heard him laugh.
Q. You heard him laugh, a good sixty feet
away and around the corner? You mean to
tell me you heard a man in the midst of stag
ing a holdup laughing?
A. 1 did.
Q. When had you heard him laugh before?
A. ’Bout ten years ago, when he was ’leven.
Here Kaufman, the attorney for the de
fense. moved that the case be dismissed for
ning I was sitting in my stand. It was the
Fourth of July and I was thinking about
things and sort of dozing. First thing I knew
a giant firecracker went barn! right in my
eyes. Knocked me clean down off my box.
Some boys had done it and I heard one of ’em
laugh. A sort of giggle, keen and high like. I
been total blind ever since then, but I remem
ber that laugh. Later, Joe Culley went off to
reform school and one of the boys told me he
done it to me with the firecracker.
Q. When did you encounter him the next
time?
A. About three weeks ago, but I didn’t
recognize him. He gave his name as Johnson,
like he did to the cops when they grabbed i
him, and said he was from Philly.
Mr. Kaufman: I object. Your Honor. De
A. Sure. Remember that old lady who was
hit by the robbers’ car? The one that was spun
around, with her arms full of bundles, so that
she sat down in the middle of the street and
sprained her spine? Well. Joe Culley was
laughing at that. He’s about the only man in
the world who would laugh at a thing like
that. So 1 knoii-. Mr. Wiggins. I know that
was Culley.
Wiggins: The prosecution rests.
Kaufman: Wait. Stay where you are,
Parmelino. I want, with the indulgence of
the jury, to try an experiment. I am going to
point in turn to four people sitting near the
defendant and ask them to laugh, as naturally
as they can, in turn. I am also going to ask the
defendant to laugh and then you will tell me
whether Culley was the first, second, third.
The lawyer for the defense smiled grimly. "You
are completely blind. You couldn't see or hear
this man. Yet you identify him as the murderer.
Do you expect to make anybody believe you?"
by James Aswell
(dwfrafwl by Arthur Samoff
TI»o blind man frippod;
daffoiod to tho floor
Q. She’s seventeen years old and her name
is Christina. Is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. She had been keeping company with the
defendant, Joe Culley, and you disapproved?
A. Not exactly keeping company. This guy
hung around the stand and my Christina. It
was a good place to case the bank from —
Q. Wait a minute! Your observations and
opinions are of no interest, except, perhaps,
to the attorney for the prosecution. You hate
Joe Culley, don’t you?
A. Yes. sir. I hate his guts. (Laughter.)
Q. And you’d do anything, anything, to
keep this boy from marrying your daughter?
A. No, sir. Wasn’t no danger of him marry
ing her, and I wouldn't lie on nobody in a
business like this. But I know he's the one.
p Ain't no doubt about it.
*_Q. But you had a grudge against him?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
lack of evidence. Judge Reynolds overruled
the motion. Wiggins took the witness.
Q. (by Wiggins) Now let’s get at the bot
tom of this. Tell the jury, Pete, the circum
stances of the last time you heard Culley
laugh, the last time, I mean, before you heard
him laugh at the scene of the robbery.
A. Well, it was like this — About thirteen
years ago I was working in a chemical plant
in New Jersey, when some acid splattered in
my eyes. They was getting better and I had
this newsstand and I could see a little. Light
and dark, things like that —
Kaufman, interrupting: I object, your
honor. The condition of this witness’s eye
sight ten years ago isn't relevant.
Judge Reynolds: He’s come this far, let him
go on. Objection overruled.
Kaufman: Exception.
The witness continued: Well, late one eve
fendant admits he used an alias, for
reasons unrelated to this case. I ob
ject to this irrelevant matter going
before the jury.
Judge Reynolds: Objection sus
tamed. (Murmuring in the courtroom.)
Q. The point was. you couldn't forget that
laugh. You associated it with this man. didn’t
you?
A. Absolutely.
Q. How many times did you encounter him
in the three weeks before the robbery?
A. Three, four times, maybe. He just hung
around the stand when my daughter was work
ing for me. He left when I come, always.
Q. You didn’t hear him laugh?
A. Yes. I did, once.
Q. Didn’t you place the laugh, then?
A. Not quite. I come up to my stand and
he was gassin’ with Christina and laughing,
but not loud — quiet like. An old drunk had
been tryin’ to climb the “el” stairs and could
n’t make it, my daughter said. It was then I
told Christina I didn’t like that guy. I didn’t
want him hangin’ around.
Q. How did you positively identify the
laugh during the robbery?
A. Well, there was the shots, see? It was
the Fourth of July and it might have been
firecrackers, that was what I thought. But I
knew it was just about the time when the
Traders National got the money after the
sixth race at Pembroke Park Track. Even
holidays, like the Fourth, I knew the bank
opened up long enough to get that dough from
the armored car men. Then I heard the shots
and that laugh — and it all come back. Soon
as I heard them shots, you know, like fire
crackers, and then that laugh, I knew Joe
Culley was up by the bank.
Q. You know what he was iaughing at —
this man in the act of committing a robbery?
fourth or fifth person who laughed. Do you
understand?
A. Yes, sir. I’ll try.
The five, including the defendant, laughed
as Kaufman pointed to them. The witness,
after a long pause, picked the bailiff as
Culley. There was whispering in the jury box
and a flurry in the courtroom.
Kaufman: This is, you see, quite ridiculous.
The only positive and unqualified identifica
tion of the defendant has been made by a
blind man who admits bearing him a grudge.
Gentlemen of the jury, I won't waste your
valuable time any longer. This is a simple
• case of persecution by an old man who may be
well-meaning but who is certainly suffering
from delusions. The defense rests.
Peter Parmelino, the witness, shook his
head from side to side as a policeman helped
him down from the stand; he began, using his
stick, to grope his way to his seat on the far
side of the prosecuting attorney. Wiggins
groaned in disgusted resignation.
Then he stiffened desperately — and shot a
leg out in front of Peter Parmelino, who was
passing his chair. The blind man tripped,
made a funny noise in his throat and clat
tered to the floor, stick flying, in a belly
whopper.
From the throat of Joe Culley there burst
one of the oddest noises imaginable: a muf
fled, paroxysmic, snorting giggle, rising to a
weird crescendo of squealing mirth.
“You see?” cried Peter, from the floor.
“That’s him! That’s him! I told you, Mr.
Wiggins, I told you — ”
The judge was pounding for order. Joe
Gulley's temple veins grew blue with his
effort to shut off that laugh. He shut it off
But it was too late.
The End