Bartolomeo Vanzetti

(1888 - 1927)

Following the murder of a shoe-factory paymaster and a guard on April 15, 1920, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, both Italian-born anarchists, were arrested on May 5. Despite having alibis that were corroborated by witnesses, the two men were convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. In 1925 another man confessed to involvement in the crime, as part of the Joe Morelli gang, but Sacco and Vanzetti’s appeals to the supreme court of Massachusetts were not heard. The two men were sent to the electric chair on August 23, 1927.