Read Online The Mad Sculptor by Harold Schechter - Free Book Online
Authors: Harold Schechter
Tags: United States, General, History, Psychology, True Crime, State & Local, Murder, Psychopathology, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA)
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morning, “I drank the whole bottle. It made me sort of light-headed.”
As he started to leave the hotel for the studio, where he and Julia had arranged to meet, he spotted the hammer in the tool chest beside the telephone booth. “I took it with me,” he said, “more for a joke than anything else, I guess.”
As soon as he and Julia met in the studio, they started arguing. They had quarreled frequently, he explained, “and always because I wanted to leave her and go back to my wife.” “She got very excited,” said Ross. “She slapped me. I told her if she felt that way, she should go ahead and kill me. I gave her the hammer. She hit me on the left shoulder and arm. I took the hammer away from her and hit her back. I don’t know how many times.
“She fell to the floor. I don’t remember striking her after she fell. Maybe I did. I don’t know. I don’t remember trying to hide the body like the police say I did. I was in a daze. You fellows know how badly a whole bottle of wine will make you feel.
“I didn’t think she was dead. I left her there on the floor and went away. The next thing I remember I woke up in my father-in-law’s home in Monticello.”
Asked by a reporter if he felt sorry for the slaying, Ross replied, “Naturally.”
Two weeks later at his sentencing, Ross stood weeping self-pitying tears while Leibowitz appealed to Judge Saul S. Streit for clemency: “I don’t think this man went there with murder in his heart. They had a quarrel and he lost his head. There was a genuine affection between them for two years. A life sentence would not serve any purpose. He is not a criminal at heart. It was a crime of passion.”
Judge Streit, however, was unmoved. Referring to the prisoneras a “heinous, brutal murderer,” he scoffed at Ross’ contention that Julia had struck him first with the hammer. “I can’t see why he brought the hammer here in the first place, or why he struck her from eight to twelve blows with it. I think there’s sufficient evidence here for a jury to find him guilty of murder in the first degree.”
With that, Judge Streit handed down a sentence of thirty-five years to life.
It was not the outcome Ross had hoped for. “I didn’t expect to get more than twenty years to life,” he groused as he was led from the courtroom. For Samuel Leibowitz, however, the case only added to his reputation as the greatest criminal defense attorney of his time—the man who had never lost a client to the chair. 2
22
----
Henrietta
S ITUATED AT THE CORNER of Euclid Avenue and East 12th Street in downtown Cleveland, the Statler was one of the city’s finest hotels, each of its seven hundred rooms equipped with such state-of-the-art amenities as a “private bath with anti-scald device, running ice-water, electric closet light, and a thermostat which keeps the temperature at any point desired by the guest” (as one advertisement touted). A popular site for business conventions, wedding receptions, and charity balls, it was also the favorite gathering place for the Cleveland mob, which not only rented rooms there for its secret initiation ceremonies but also, in 1928, held a historic event on the premises: the first summit meeting of organized crime leaders from around the country, among them such Mafia bigwigs as Joe Profaci, Vincent Mangano, and Pasqualino “Patsy” Lolardo. For any hotel employee, from kitchen helper to concierge, a job at the Statler meant “working within the elite of the service industry.” 1
One of those employees was Henrietta Koscianski. A buxom, black-eyed nineteen-year-old whose face—apart from her blocky, deeply cleft chin—had a delicate prettiness, Henrietta was thedaughter of poor Polish-American parents who had struggled to send her through high school. She had gone to work immediately after graduation, toiling at various menial jobs before finding a steady position at the Statler. She worked as a pantry maid, preparing vegetables and
As he started to leave the hotel for the studio, where he and Julia had arranged to meet, he spotted the hammer in the tool chest beside the telephone booth. “I took it with me,” he said, “more for a joke than anything else, I guess.”
As soon as he and Julia met in the studio, they started arguing. They had quarreled frequently, he explained, “and always because I wanted to leave her and go back to my wife.” “She got very excited,” said Ross. “She slapped me. I told her if she felt that way, she should go ahead and kill me. I gave her the hammer. She hit me on the left shoulder and arm. I took the hammer away from her and hit her back. I don’t know how many times.
“She fell to the floor. I don’t remember striking her after she fell. Maybe I did. I don’t know. I don’t remember trying to hide the body like the police say I did. I was in a daze. You fellows know how badly a whole bottle of wine will make you feel.
“I didn’t think she was dead. I left her there on the floor and went away. The next thing I remember I woke up in my father-in-law’s home in Monticello.”
Asked by a reporter if he felt sorry for the slaying, Ross replied, “Naturally.”
Two weeks later at his sentencing, Ross stood weeping self-pitying tears while Leibowitz appealed to Judge Saul S. Streit for clemency: “I don’t think this man went there with murder in his heart. They had a quarrel and he lost his head. There was a genuine affection between them for two years. A life sentence would not serve any purpose. He is not a criminal at heart. It was a crime of passion.”
Judge Streit, however, was unmoved. Referring to the prisoneras a “heinous, brutal murderer,” he scoffed at Ross’ contention that Julia had struck him first with the hammer. “I can’t see why he brought the hammer here in the first place, or why he struck her from eight to twelve blows with it. I think there’s sufficient evidence here for a jury to find him guilty of murder in the first degree.”
With that, Judge Streit handed down a sentence of thirty-five years to life.
It was not the outcome Ross had hoped for. “I didn’t expect to get more than twenty years to life,” he groused as he was led from the courtroom. For Samuel Leibowitz, however, the case only added to his reputation as the greatest criminal defense attorney of his time—the man who had never lost a client to the chair. 2
22
----
Henrietta
S ITUATED AT THE CORNER of Euclid Avenue and East 12th Street in downtown Cleveland, the Statler was one of the city’s finest hotels, each of its seven hundred rooms equipped with such state-of-the-art amenities as a “private bath with anti-scald device, running ice-water, electric closet light, and a thermostat which keeps the temperature at any point desired by the guest” (as one advertisement touted). A popular site for business conventions, wedding receptions, and charity balls, it was also the favorite gathering place for the Cleveland mob, which not only rented rooms there for its secret initiation ceremonies but also, in 1928, held a historic event on the premises: the first summit meeting of organized crime leaders from around the country, among them such Mafia bigwigs as Joe Profaci, Vincent Mangano, and Pasqualino “Patsy” Lolardo. For any hotel employee, from kitchen helper to concierge, a job at the Statler meant “working within the elite of the service industry.” 1
One of those employees was Henrietta Koscianski. A buxom, black-eyed nineteen-year-old whose face—apart from her blocky, deeply cleft chin—had a delicate prettiness, Henrietta was thedaughter of poor Polish-American parents who had struggled to send her through high school. She had gone to work immediately after graduation, toiling at various menial jobs before finding a steady position at the Statler. She worked as a pantry maid, preparing vegetables and
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