This is Part 2 of a Moral Quandary. Click here to read Part 1.

When the Caruso case was heard in April, it appeared the prosecution had benefited more from the delay than the defense.

Their first witness was 15-year-old Florence O’Hanlon, who lives in the same building as the Carusos. She wore a “jaunty green hat” and testified that on the day of the killing, Caruso made incriminating statements.

Caruso had evidently walked down to the O’Hanlon apartment immediately after killing the doctor. He exclaimed, “The doctor killed my boy, and I killed the doctor!”

“And he had blood on his hands, and he washed his hands at our sink,” the girl said. “I called my father but I didn’t tell him about Mr. Caruso having blood on his hands,” Florence said. She also recalled seeing 6-year-old Joey Caruso playing in the street a few days before he died. He had a rag and a piece of lettuce tied around his neck. The lettuce, it turned out, was one of the home remedies the boy’s father tried.

Florence’s father, Thomas O’Hanlon, quoted Caruso as saying to him: “The doctor killed my child.”

Assistant District Attorney Joseph V. Gallagher was attempting to prove that Caruso had planned the murder–that it was premeditated. But the defense was contemptuous. Caruso had gone out of his mind with grief, that was all.

The doctor’s widow, Mrs. Helen Pendola, was in the courtroom with her infant daughter Catherine. She was a petite blonde with a stern and sorrowful face.

Mrs. Pendola put aside her heavy mourning veil when she testified. Her husband had told her about the Caruso boy when he came home the night before his death. He told her, “Helen, you never saw such a rotten case of diphtheria. That child’s neck was swollen out like this.” Diphtheria being highly contagious, Dr. Pendola had made a point to bathe and disinfect his clothes immediately. The next morning, he went back to treat the sufferer and she never saw him alive again.

Dr. Rocco Abbate came twice to the Caruso apartment with the Holy Family hospital ambulance —before and after Dr. Pendola was murdered. On his first visit, he found the dead child and Caruso, tearful but seemingly coherent enough to answer questions. On the second call, Dr. Abbate said, the other doctor’s body was stretched out on the floor, “a big bread knife, crimson smeared, was on the table and Caruso was gone.”

The knife, which was still covered in dried blood, was introduced into evidence, and waved with a flourish by Assistant District Attorney Gallagher. Mrs. Pendola and other relatives of the doctor cried and buzzed angrily.

Through all of the testimony, Caruso was a pathetic figure. He didn’t understand everything that was being said. At times “he clenched his large thick hands and his face deeply flushed.” He became more upset as the day wore on and struggled not to cry when Mrs. Pendola was on the stand.

The defense posited that Dr. Pendola gave Joey an overdose of diphtheria antitoxin. The druggist testified that the 10,000 unit size Dr. Pendola ordered was the one most commonly sold.

“Didn’t you tell this defendant this was too large a dose for a 6-year-old child?” defense attorney George Voss asked.

“I did not,” the druggist replied.

With that, it was time to hear from Francesco himself.

Go to Part 3.