Of three workmen, who were at work in the same room, two testified that instead of pulling up the window, he (Pelzer) took shelter under a bench. The third was questioned thus: Q. “Did you hear him later talk about the shooting?” A. “I think I did, but I am not sure.” Q. “That day?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “What did you hear Pelzer say?” A. “Well, I heard him say that he didn’t see anybody, that’s all.” Q. “Is that all you recollect that you heard him say?” A. “Yes, sir.”
4. Lola Andrews, a woman of doubtful repute, testified that at about 11 a. m., the morning of the murders, with a Mrs. Campbell, she saw a car standing outside the factory. She saw a “very light man” inside the car (concededly neither Sacco nor Vanzetti) and another man “bending over the hood of the car,” whom she characterized as a “dark complexioned man.” She went into the factory in search of a job, and at the time had no talk with either of the men. When she came out, “fifteen minutes later,” the dark man “was down under the car, like he was fixing something,” and she asked him the way to another factory. He told her. That was the whole conversation between them.
After Sacco’s arrest, she was taken to the Dedham jail and identified Sacco as the “dark complexioned man.” She again identified him at the trial.
How came she to associate the “dark complexioned man” with the murder, which took place four hours later?
Q. (By the Commonwealth) “What came to your mind when you learned of the shooting?” A. “Why the only thing I can answer that is this: When I heard of the shooting I somehow associated that to the man I saw under the car.”
Four reputable witnesses completely discredited the foregoing Andrews testimony.
(a) Mrs. Campbell, an elderly woman, with Andrews throughout the episode, testified that although they saw an automobile in front of the factory, the man of whom they asked the way to another factory was not[1] the man under the car, but a man in khaki clothes standing near.
(b) Harry Kurlansky, a business man of Quincy, who had known Lola Andrews seven or eight years, talked with her in February. “She says, ‘They are bothering the life out of me.’ I says, ‘What?’ She says, ‘I just come from jail.’ I says, ‘What have you done in jail?’ She says, ‘The government took me down and want me to recognize those men,’ she says, ‘and I don’t know a thing about them. Unfortunately, I have been down there to get a job, and I have seen many men that I don’t know, and I have never paid any attention to any one.’”
(c) In February, 1921, Andrews complained to the police of an assault on herself in her apartment in Quincy. To George W. Fay, a policeman who investigated and who asked her if the man who assaulted her was one of the men she saw at Braintree the day of the shooting. She said she could not tell because she didn’t see the faces[1] of the Braintree men.
(d) Alfred Lebrecque, a Quincy newspaper man, secretary of the Quincy Chamber of Commerce, testified to a conversation with Andrews substantially to the same effect as Fay’s.