Accordingly it was by no means with confidence that the People went to trial, but throughout this remarkable case it seemed as if it must have been preordained that Strollo should not escape punishment for his treacherous crime. No defence was possible, not even the partially prepared alibi was attempted, and the only thing that savored of a defence was the introduction of a letter alleged to have been received by the defendant while in the House of Detention, and which, if genuine, would have apparently established that the crime had been perpetrated by the "Black Hand."
The offering of this letter was a curious and fatal blunder, for it was later proven by the People to be in Strollo's own handwriting. It was his last despairing effort to escape the consequences of his crime. Headed with a cross drawn in blood it ran as follows:
I swear upon this cross, which is the blood of my veins, Strollo is innocent. I swear upon the cross the revengeful Black Hand could save me. New York, Oct. 12, 1905. Sir Strollo, knowing you only by name, eight days after that I leave this letter will be sent to you. I leave at seven o'clock with the Steamer Britain the Harbor. Therefore I leave betraying my oath that I have held for the last three years belonging to the Black Hand. I will leave three letters, one to you, one to the Police Officer Capri, and the other to the law, 300 Mulberry Street. All what I am saying I have sworn to before God. Therefore your innocence will be given you, first by God and then by the law, capturing the true murders. I am sure that they already captured the murderer of Torsielli. Who lured you to come to New York was Giuseppi Rosa, who knew you for nearly two years, and who comes from Lambertville, came among us and played you a trick. He is a Calabrise and has a mighty grudge. He and four others are averse to them. Announce the name of the man who stabbed you with the knife was Antonio Villa. He had to kill you, but you was fortunate. He is in jail for the present time and I don't know for how long, but I know that he was arrested. Nothing else to say. I have done my duty in giving you all the information. 407 2nd St., Jersey.
First page of the "Black Hand" letter written by Strollo, and put in evidence at his trial, placing the murder of Torsielli upon members of that imaginary secret organization. This letter convicted him.
It is clear from the letter that Strollo had formed a vague plan for his defence, which should, in part, consist of the claim that he, as well as Torsielli, had been marked for death by the Black Hand, and that while both had been induced to come to New York, the plans of the assassins had in his case miscarried.
The reader has already observed that purely for the purpose of securing his continued interest in the present narrative the writer has, as it were, told his story backward, reserving as long as possible the fact that the finding of the beloved Vito was a pure fiction invented by the murderer. At the trial, however, the jury listened breathlessly while bit by bit the whole pathetic story was painted before them, like a mosaic picture. They heard first the story of the mushroom digger, there of the expedition of Petrosini to Lambertville, of the identification of Torsielli's body, of the elaborate fabrications of Strollo, and in due course, of the tell-tale letter in the murderer's pocket. Gradually the true character of the defendant's crime came over them and they turned from him in aversion. The natural climax in the evidence was Miss Phillip's extraordinary identification of the defendant sitting at the bar as the man who had mailed upon the 26th of July, at the Lambertville post-office, the envelope purporting to come from Yonkers and containing the forged letter from the imaginary Vito.
Strollo remained almost to the last confident that he could never be convicted, but when his own letters in prison were introduced in evidence he turned ashen pale and stared fixedly at the judge. The jury deliberated but fifteen minutes, their functions consisting of but a single ballot, followed by a prayer for the wretched murderer's soul. Then they filed slowly back and, in the waning light of the summer afternoon just one year after the murder, and at the precise hour at which Strollo had killed his victim, pronounced him guilty of murder in the first degree. In due course his conviction was sustained by the Court of Appeals, and on March 11th, 1908, he paid the penalty for his crime in the electric chair.