Josephine Terranova (1906)
The People of the State of New York v. Josephine Terranova
In 1884 Josephine Pullare, five years old, travelled from her native Sicily to live with her uncle, Gaetano Riggio, and his wife, Concetta, in the Bronx. The young girl, according to her own account, was treated less as a relative and more as a domestic servant, working from dawn to dusk cleaning the house, preparing the meals, and running errands.
The uncle, Gaetano Riggio, began to molest Josephine in 1900 and frequently raped her throughout her puberty and adolescence. In 1906 Josephine, then eighteen, met and married Joseph Terranova, a building contractor, but the marriage quickly collapsed after she confided that her uncle had raped her. Joseph Terranova immediately renounced his new wife and Josephine, distraught at the sudden collapse of her marriage, armed herself with a gun and a knife and made her way back to her uncle’s house.
On February 22, 1906 she attacked her uncle and his wife – Gaetano died two days later and Concetta succumbed to her wounds on March 2 – and on May 14 the district-attorney, William Travers Jerome, indicted Josephine Terranova for the murder of Concetta Riggio. The trial attracted enormous publicity on account of the defendant’s radiant beauty and the graphic nature of her testimony.
Public approval of the death of the uncle and aunt was universal and the jury, despite the judge’s recommendation of a guilty verdict, took only a few minutes to acquit the defendant. The district-attorney abandoned the second indictment for the murder of Gaetano Riggio and Josephine Terranova emerged triumphant from the courthouse to the hosannas of the waiting crowd.
The trial of Josephine Terranova was notable for the use of an insanity defense – Terranova’s attorney claimed that the defendant suffered temporary insanity on account of her abuse – and the apparent willingness of the jury to be swayed by emotional appeals rather than legal arguments. The criminal justice system seemed increasingly ineffective as defense attorneys succeeded more and more in winning acquittal for their clients in the most improbable circumstances.
Source: Jacob M. Appel, "The Girl-Wife and the Alienists: The Forgotten Murder Trial of Josephine Terranova," Western New England Law Review 26 (2004): 203-232.