The+Murder+of+Professor+Kotkov



It was a frigid night in February 1921 and Professor Wilfred Phineas Kotkov had just gotten off of the A Train at the Boyd Avenue (88th Street) Station on Liberty Avenue in Woodhaven. The 36-year old professor of philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan was accustomed to coming home late and often cut across the empty lot at the corner of Benedict (87th Street) and Liberty to get to his home where he lived with his wife, Anna, and two children.

It was in that dark vacant lot, just after the clock struck midnight, that four young men lay in wait with robbery and mayhem in their minds.

Cries for help were heard by Patrolman George Burling, of the precinct in Richmond Hill, on patrol several blocks away. When Burling arrived at the scene, he found Kotkov lying face down in the snow, a bloody iron bedpost at his side. Four young men were seen fleeing the scene; Burling pursued the young men and managed to quickly apprehend two of them.

Peter Nunziata and Joseph Alfano of Brooklyn were immediately arrested and, once at the precinct, they confessed and implicated Frank Cassesso, also from Brooklyn, and Alphonso “The Turk” Verona, of Water Street, Woodhaven in the attack. According to their confessions, it was Verona who had suggested that they prepare for a "stick up." An abandoned iron bed frame was found in the vacant lot and the heavy post, with a brass knob, was pried off. The quartet stood near the Boyd Ave. station, the iron post hidden under Nunziata’s long coat, waiting for someone who appeared prosperous enough to rob.

When Professor Kotkov walked down the stairs at Boyd Avenue (now 88th Street), the young men spied his briefcase and gold watch and quickly decided that he would be their victim. Kotkov didn’t notice the young men as he passed them by, nor did he notice them fall into step behind him as he crossed the dark, empty lot.

Only when the four young men asked Professor Kotkov where he was going did he notice them and he began to walk faster. The four young men ran after him, with Nunziata leading the way with the iron in his hand.

According to the police, Nunziata cast the first blow, knocking Professor Kotkov to the ground and once blood was spilled, the attack turned into a brutal frenzy with blow after blow rained down on the fallen man’s head.

Alfano, the police said, turned out Professor Kotkov’s pockets, looking for money, but very little was to be found. Instead, the quartet of thieves had to settle for Kotkov's horn-rimmed glasses, his fountain pen and gold watch.

Kotkov was taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica where he held on for a few days. Emergency surgery was performed on the stricken man and several pieces of bone which were pressing on the brain were removed. But all efforts to save his life failed and he succumbed to his injuries 3 days after he was first attacked.

There were immediate calls for swift justice, owing to the fact that Kotkov had made no resistance, nor was he even given the opportunity. Newspaper editorials called for the ultimate retribution – the electric chair.

The wheels of justice were indeed swift. Within a week, indictments were handed down and by the first week of April, just over 5 weeks after the attack, the trial of Peter Nunziata began. The 17-year old, the youngest of the four attackers, was a cool customer in court, often seen yawning during testimony. At one time during the trial he was scolded by the judge for trying to light a cigarette in court.

A witness to the attack, a woman who lived in a house adjacent to the lot, told how she watched the young men chase Professor Kotkov down and beat him. The Professor’s widow told the jury about the dreams of a happy life that had been shattered; she fainted in court when shown her late husband’s glasses and fountain pen, which had been a gift from her on his last birthday.

Nunziata’s defense was a vigorous one. His lawyer was Edward J. Reilly, who would later go on to defend Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was convicted of the abduction and murder of the 20-month-old son of Charles Lindbergh.

Reilly had Nunziata take the stand on his own behalf and declare that it was Verona of Woodhaven who had killed Dr. Kotkov. He claimed that Verona told him that he had some trouble with “a Jew up in Woodhaven” and that he wanted to settle the score. He also claimed that Verona induced him to go out on this fatal errand by intoxicating him with liquor.

When it seemed that this argument was not persuading jurors, Reilly also had Nunziata claim that his confession was beaten out of him by the police with a rubber hose and that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">"If the detectives bungled this case, smeared over it, jumping at conclusions and then presented their facts to the District Attorney,” Reilly said in his summation, “it is your duty to acquit this defendant.”

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">On April 18th, the jury deliberated for less than two hours and came back with a verdict of guilty, and that included an hour for lunch. Nunziata sat unmoved when the verdict was read. The judge explained to the young man what the verdict meant; that he would soon face death in the electric chair.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A few days later the judge set the date of execution as June 5th, about 6 weeks away. The attack, the investigation, the indictment, the trial, the deliberation and the sentencing all took place within a 105-day window. The public demanded swift justice, and they received it.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Peter Nunziata was the youngest person ever sentenced to death in New York and he received the sentence coolly, without flinching. He was escorted out of the courtroom to a car waiting to drive him to death row in Sing Sing, where “Old Sparky” was waiting.



The second young man to go on trial was Joseph Alfano of Brooklyn. He shared the same lawyer as Nunziata and his defense was pretty similar. Alfano claimed to have been drinking ‘bad whiskey’ for several hours before the attack and though he admitted to being present, he said he had been physically unable to take part in the holdup.

Aflano also claimed that he had been beaten so badly by police that one of his eyes was swollen shut for several days. His attorney declared that Alfano was not asked any questions by the detectives and that the confession was handed to him with the order to sign it – or else!

The trial lasted 2 days and Alfano was found guilty. Days later, Alfano wept like a child as he was sentenced to death and transported to Sing Sing, his execution scheduled for just a few weeks after Nunziata’s.

The remaining two men awaiting trial – Frank Cassesso, from Brooklyn, and Alphonso “The Turk” Verona, Woodhaven – no doubt swayed by the results of the first two trials, rushed to plead guilty.

In sentencing the remaining scoundrels, Queens County Court Judge Burt Jay Humphrey called both Verona and Cassesso cowards, but saved most of his scorn for “Turk” Verona, whom both Nunziata and Alfano testified planned the attack.

"You are as much a murderer as either Nunziata or Alfano, whom you persuaded to join with you in this terrible crime," the judge said.

“Cassesso was also brought into it by your urging. But when the time came for the actual carrying out of the crime you remained in the background and let Nunziata and Alfano do the work."

Cassesso was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter in the first degree and was sentenced to eight to sixteen years. Alphonse “The Turk” Verona was sent to Sing Sing for twenty years to life.

Nunziata and Alfano’s lawyer immediately appealed their death sentences, first on the basis of their sanity. Upon being declared sane, their lawyer filed appeal after appeal, delaying their executions. Their cause was helped by several activist groups who protested executions in general and executions of young men in particular.

However, the appeal process wound down and finally, on June 6th 1922, Nunziata’s nineteenth birthday, he was told that he was out of appeals and would die in just over a month.

With hours to go, Nunziata’s last chance evaporated when Governor Nathan Miller of New York refused to grant him clemency.

"Am I to stop the execution of the law because the defendant was slightly under 18 when the crime was committed? If so, where shall the line be drawn? A few weeks over or a few weeks under 18 can make little difference on the question of responsibility,” he said.

“This was a calculated, deliberate, brutal murder for a sordid purpose.”

The night of his execution, Nunziata was visited in the death house by his parents and other members of the family, who came from their home in Williamsburg. None of his family was permitted to embrace him or touch him in any way, a heavy mesh screen keeping them a foot away from his cell door.

His family had brought a bounty of food, but Nunziata was not allowed to have any. Instead, he requested that it be divided among the twenty-nine other condemned men occupying nearby cells.

When it came time to take the final, fateful walk to Old Sparky, Nunziata’s family members were consumed with grief as they said goodbye. Nunziata had remained calm throughout the visit, but seeing his parents in tears shattered his resolve.

But he gathered his composure and comforted members of his family by telling them that he was glad his troubles would soon be over.

"I am ready," he said, and turned his back on his family, and walked past the cell doors of other men who were also soon scheduled to die. Ten minutes later, Peter Nunziata, nineteen years old, was pronounced dead.

It would be a year later that Alfano would take a similar trek to the electric chair, paying the ultimate price for his part in the murder of Professor Wilfred Phineas Kotkov of Woodhaven.

Of the remaining two men arrested for the crime, little is known. Cassesso served his time and, upon release, disappeared. And Alphonso “The Turk” Verona of Woodhaven, believed to be the devious mind behind the brutal crime, was eventually released from prison when in his 50s and took up residence in Richmond Hill, where he lived ten quiet years until passing away at age 62.

Of Kotkov’s wife and two children, even less is known. After the trial, they vanished from the public eye and began life anew, without the husband and father who had been brutally taken away from them on a frigid night that ruined many lives forever.

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