Prescription: Murder! Volume 1: Authentic Cases From the Files of Alan Hynd Read Online Free PDF Page A

doctor in Brooklyn, New York running a delicatessen.

    Then Bolber, too, decided to sing. Everybody was singing his own tune, to save the flesh around his vocal chords. A whole raft of faithless wives were caught in a dragnet as a result of the confessions of the master plotter and his associates.
    Herman Petrillo’s trial began on March 13, 1939 in Philadelphia’s City Hall. The presiding judge, Harry McDevitt, no relation to the D.A. Vincent McDevitt, was a defense attorney’s worst nightmare. The judge was known in legal circles as “Hanging Harry.” Petrillo’s lawyer, Milton Leidner, was a close friend of the judge, but the defense attorney did not expect any leniency.
    During the trial, Herman Petrillo didn’t offer much of a defense, other than to claim that Bolber, the faith healer, had mesmerized him with “the evil eye” and forced him to do all that bad stuff. The jury wasn’t buying it and neither was Hanging Harry.
    On March 21, 1939, the jury foreman, 42-year-old Margaret Skeen, read the verdict to the court. Guilty, with a recommendation for death, she announced.
    “You lousy bitch,” Petrillo snarled as he lunged toward the jury foreman. However, guards quickly restrained him and the judge banged his gavel in an attempt to bring order back to the courtroom. When the courtroom settled down, Judge McDevitt congratulated the jurors.
    “You can see how mean and vicious this man is,” he told the jurors. “You now realize that was the only verdict you could have returned.” He then sentenced Herman Petrillo to die in Pennsylvania’s electric chair. Following the verdict, defense attorney Leidner stood up and apologized to the court.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t have defended this man had I known he was such scum.”
    Further inquiry would follow. Upon the conclusion of the trial, investigators announced that 70 bodies would be exhumed and examined for signs of arsenic.
    But Little Herman wasn’t finished. In an effort to escape the electric chair, he agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. By May 21, 1939, 21 more arrests were made in connection with the poison ring. As the investigation continued, detectives discovered that Herman Petrillo and Bolber also had a matrimonial agency, which was apparently created in order to find new husbands for widows of their victims. Upon finding a new mate, the recent widows would marry and then take out life insurance policies on their new spouses. Afterwards, it was up to the members of the ring to do away with the insured and collect the money.
    On May 25, 1939, Morris Bolber pled guilty to murder, possibly hoping that his plea would earn him a lesser sentence. His plan worked and he was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. A few months later, in September 1939, Paul Petrillo also pled guilty.
    Nevertheless, Paul was not quite as nimble as Bolber and was sentenced to die in the electric chair. But the last major player in the poison ring, the Witch, Maria Favato, also drew a life sentence. In the end, 13 men and women besides Bolber and the Petrillos were either convicted of or pled guilty to first-degree murder. All of these convicted killers served long sentences, the shortest being not less than 14 years in prison.
    Paul Petrillo died in the electric chair in April 1941.
    Seven months later, Herman Petrillo, who was involved in maybe a hundred murders, died like a coward. When his rubbery legs failed him, guards dragged the weeping man to the death chamber, forced him into the chair and forcibly bent his arms in order to strap him in. He made several attempts to stand up and had to be held in place while other guards fastened the straps.
    “Gentlemen, you don’t want to see an innocent man die!” he cried. “Give me a chance to prove my innocence. I want to see the governor.”
    They didn’t and turned on the juice.
    Thirteen years later, on February 15, 1954, Morris Bolber died of natural causes while awaiting his third parole