Q. Did you pay much attention to the men when you first came in? A. Not much, only I saw them smoking.
Heron, too, said that the man he saw wore a hat and was respectably dressed, which conflicts with descriptions of the murderer.
Neither man had any outstanding physical characteristics, according to Heron. He admitted he didn’t see Sacco to identify him until six weeks later.
After Police Chief Stewart of Bridgewater and State Policeman Brouillard had lined up Heron as a witness for the prosecution, the defense sent an investigator, Robert Reid, to interrogate Heron. He refused to give the defense any information. When asked in cross-examination why he refused to talk to Reid he gave a curious answer for a man who had been a police officer six years.
“Because I didn’t want to be brought into it.”
This man’s testimony was attacked by the defense from the same angle that Tracy’s story was attacked. Defense counsel asked: Is it reasonable to suppose that Sacco, if intending to rob and kill three hours later in that town where he had worked, would have lingered in places where many persons would have opportunity to observe him?
Mrs. Lola Andrews, a lady of miscellaneous avocations, attested that on the morning of the crime-date she and Mrs. Julia Campbell went from Quincy to South Braintree to seek work in the shoe factories. They arrived between 11:00 and 11:30. Mrs. Andrews said that she saw an automobile in front of the Slater and Morrill plant, and a man working around the hood.
When they came out of the Slater factory, this man was under the car fixing something. She called him from beneath the car, she asserted, and asked him how to get into the Rice and Hutchins’ factory. She identified this man as Sacco.
But at that moment, according to her own statements, another man was standing near that automobile—a light-complexioned emaciated Swedish-looking man. Mrs. Andrews’ testimony does not explain why she addressed her inquiry to the man under the automobile instead of asking the man standing near.
While Mrs. Andrews was being cross-examined by Defense Attorney Moore, and when he was showing her some photographs she fainted, and was carried out. Prosecutor Katzmann left the room, returned, scanned the faces of the audience, then conferred in whispers with the court. Judge Thayer ordered the courtroom doors closed, and various spectators were searched.