While the jury was being drawn, Harry Dolbeare, piano tuner from South Braintree, was excused from service after a whispered conversation with the judge. Summoned later as a prosecution witness, he testified that he asked to be excused because he recognized Vanzetti in court as a man he saw in South Braintree on April 15, fourteen months before he testified.
Dolbeare asserted that on that uneventful morning he saw an automobile moving along the street with five men in it, and he noticed particularly the middle man of the three in the rear seat. This man was leaning forward talking with somebody in the front. Dolbeare got only a profile view of him against the background of the black curtain.
“What was it about them that attracted your attention?” asked Attorney McAnarney.
“The appearance of the whole five attracted me. They were strangers to me, and appeared to be foreigners.”
“What else?”
“Well, that carload was a tough-looking bunch.”
Dolbeare agreed that he had seen many cars containing three, five or seven foreigners coming from the Fore River shipyards.
“Give me some description of the men on the front seat,” said McAnarney.
“I wouldn’t like to be on record, for my impression isn’t firm enough. The men on the front seat impressed me hardly any.”
He thought they wore old clothes, but he didn’t know whether they wore overalls and jumpers, nor whether they were clean or grimy.