This is Part 6 of a Moral Quandary. Click here to read Part 1.

Francesco Caruso’s fight for a new trial hinged on the arguments his team of attorneys could make. His attorneys advanced a number of arguments, the best one being that the DA insisted on proceeding without an interpreter and Caruso didn’t understand everything that was happening.  They also said the prosecution affected to believe the crime was a fully planned, deliberate murder, and the DA was permitted to show that Dr. Pendola left a widow and 6-month-old baby.

On November 22, the Court of Appeals reversed Caruso’s conviction and granted a new trial.

“Doubtless on this record the defendant might be convicted of some crime.” Judge Andrews wrote in his opinion setting aside the verdict of the lower court. “Either murder in the second degree or, if his testimony on the stand is accepted, manslaughter in the second degree. Either verdicts might be sustained on the facts; not the one actually rendered.”

Caruso’s team rejoiced and immediately began to plan for his new trial. So far in this story, it has been Caruso’s harsh sentence, heartbreak, and personal tragedies that have been at the center of the story. Who could help feeling for a man who endured so much and the wife and children who were left destitute by his absence?

But this story is a moral quandary because there is another side to all of this.

Helen Pendola, the doctor’s widow, was 24 years old when she learned her husband’s murderer would be retried. By all accounts, Helen hated Caruso with a white-hot passion. He had taken her husband and her little daughter’s father away forever. She and Catherine had just returned from visiting his grave when the news came about Caruso. She could be found in St. John’s cemetery every Sunday, praying for his soul.

Reporters provided her with the findings of the Court of Appeals. “They say Caruso killed in grief and did not premeditate murder,” she said. “If that were true, why did Caruso cover the dead child up and lead my husband into the bedroom, where they would be alone, as if the patient were still alive?” Nobody could blame Helen Pendola for her cold fury at Francesco Caruso. No matter what his state of mind was at the time, he had robbed her of the life she had and the future she had built.

Helen’s life had been anything but easy in the year since her husband’s death. Though not in as dire of circumstances as the Carusos, the doctor’s widow didn’t have much. Dr. Pendola had no insurance so she was left to make her way in the world and care for little Catherine. As a trained nurse, she opted to turn her home into a private maternity hospital. It cost quite a bit of money to do so. She had an $11,000 mortgage is on the house, $1,000 in renovations to make it functional as a maternity hospital, and the cost of installing five beds is yet to be paid.

Helen Pendola vowed to be in the courtroom for Caruso’s retrial.

Go to Part 7!