Rain of Bullets: The True Story of Ernest Ingenito's Bloody Family Massacre

by Patricia A. Martinelli

  Despite all the charges initially filed against the defendant, Hannold announced that he would seek a conviction against Ernie on one count only-murdering his mother-inlaw, Pearl Mazzoli. His reasoning: To present the details of five murders in one trial would be too time-consuming and too repetitious for the jury to hear, since the facts were virtually identical for all of the charges. General information about the other shootings could be used during the trial, but the details would not be admissible. The veteran prosecutor obviously felt secure that the jury would convict Ernie on this single count of first degree murder, virtually ensuring that he would receive the death penalty. Did Hannold realize that by focus ing the trial on a single shooting victim, he was depriving eight other victims of justice by reducing the scope of Ernie's crime in the eyes of the jury?

  Prior to the start of the trial, Sahl told the media that he was basing Ernie's defense on temporary insanity, which resulted when his client was denied the right to see his children. In addition, he said he intended to establish grounds that Ernie was the victim of a "dominating mother-in-law." But as the trial date grew closer, the defense counsel didn't have to raise questions about Ernie's sanity. Instead, Sahl perfected a strategy that would prove to be his client's salvation. Thanks to his relentlessness and the prosecution's lapse, Ernie's trial would last more than the expected "three or four days" and have some surprising results.

  On the second day of the trial, Ernie once again wore his tan double-breasted suit and remained very quiet during the proceedings. He would, however, occasionally glance toward the spectators to try and get a glimpse of his wife. Tessie, dressed in black with a short fur jacket draped across her slender shoulders, had made a surprise appearance in court that day. She was accompanied by her grandfather Armando, Uncle Jino, and Cousin Jeannie. Frank Mazzoli was also on hand to watch the proceedings, although he had just been released the day before from the hospital. Tessie was the only one who commanded the defendant's attention.

  After listening intently to that morning's proceedings, Tessie and her family decided to leave when the noon recess was announced. According to the Vineland Times Journal, "Mrs. Ingenito shot a dagger-like glance at her estranged husband as he left the courtroom at lunch time. Neither she nor he spoke while passing each other." As she exited the courthouse with her family, Tessie told reporters that she had come to Ernie's trial "to see what he had to say and to see if he told the truth." She added that she still believed her husband should die in the electric chair for his crimes.

  Since the jury selection had taken so long, opening statements were presented by each side on Wednesday, January 10. Hannold asked the jury to convict Ernie on a charge of first degree murder. "It's murder foul," Hannold told the court, according to media reports. "The State intends to prove that this is such an atrocity there can be no possible recommendation of life imprisonment." Sahl, the defense counsel, contended that a finding of manslaughter would be more appropriate. The difference between the charges-murder involved premeditation, while manslaughter occurred in the heat of the momentcould mean the difference between life and death for Ernie.

  During his opening remarks, Hannold outlined for the jury what had happened that night on Piney Hollow Road. The state was seeking the death penalty, he said, which was then routinely sentenced for convictions of first-degree murder. The prosecutor did not see the need for any recommendation of mercy on the jury's part, because such an alternative would have meant a life sentence at hard labor. At that time, New Jersey's criminal justice system did not include a provision for sentencing someone to life without parole. As a result, if Ernie received a life sentence, he could be eligible for release after he served only about fifteen years in prison. No, the prosecution felt that since the defendant had taken so many lives, it was only right that he pay with his own.

  Hannold probably chose to prosecute Ernie for the shooting of Pearl Mazzoli because he felt it would become obvious to the jury that the defendant did not kill her by accident. After sketching in the other shootings, the prosecutor said, "I'd like to tell you how many times he shot Pearl Mazzoli. I know that she was shot through the thigh, in the knee, arm, right breast and in the lower part of the jaw, severing the nerve to the eye and brain." As a result, Hannold added, "There is no possible doubt as to what degree of murder the State will ask-the State will contend it was willful, premeditated murder in the first degree."

  According to the prosecutor, if the defense counsel pleaded temporary insanity on behalf of his client, the state was prepared to present testimony from Dr. Spradley and Dr. Garber, affiliated with the New Jersey Mental Hospital in Trenton. Spradley and Garber, the doctors who had examined Ernie immediately after his arrest, found that he was sane at the time he committed the alleged crimes. While Ernie might not have signed a formal confession, Hannold said the jury would listen to a number of witnesses who heard the defendant say after his arrest that he was guilty and was prepared to go to the electric chair for what he had done. The prosecutor explained that Tessie would not be one of those witnesses, however, because New Jersey state law prevented a wife from testifying against a husband unless she was the complaining party. Perhaps, if the state had prosecuted Ernie for the assault on his wife, then she would have been free to testify and lend more weight to the extent of the violence committed that night. As Hannold addressed the jury, Tessie watched once again from the courtroom, surrounded by family members and friends.

  In his opening remarks, Sahl decided to play on the jury's sympathy. The defense attorney said that Ernie was "very remorseful, very repentant and very sorry" for his actions. At the time, no one seemed to notice the contradiction-if, as Ernie repeatedly claimed, he couldn't remember what he had done, then why was he sorry? According to Sahl, Ernie had not been mentally normal before the incident, had not been mentally normal when the shootings occurred, and at the time of the trial, still wasn't "mentally right." The state was ready to have two psychiatrists testify that Ernie was sane at the time of the incident. Sahl said three other doctors who had exam fined Ernie after his arrest were ready to speak for the defense. He told the jury that two of them-Dr. Leopold and Dr. Banay-had first examined Ernie in 1940. After their interview with the accused, they were ready to testify that he still suffered from the same psychological problems that had existed then. As a result, their testimony would prove that the defendant could not be held responsible for his actions on November 17, 1950. But in the end, the doctors never took the stand on Ernie's behalf. Perhaps Sahl decided on a different strategy after reviewing the psychiatrists' less-than-kind reports.

  Sahl indicated that the jury should believe there had been an absence of malice and premeditation on Ernie's part on the night of Friday, November 17. As a result, the shootingscommitted in "passion and emotion"-should be considered manslaughter, not first-degree murder. Diving right in, Sahl told the jury about Ernie's reportedly miserable childhood and tried to raise sympathy for him by pointing out that he was the product of a broken home. Sahl continually referred to Ernie as "the boy" throughout his opening remarks-a phrase that he repeatedly used during the trial to emphasize his client's alleged inability to understand his actions. Much of "the boy's" troubles apparently started, Sahl said, after he fell out of a tree when he was twelve years old. Ernie was unconscious for about six hours afterward, and according to his father, he never seemed normal after that, although repeated medical examinations failed to discover anything wrong. Sahl then related Ernie's difficulties in school and his problems in the Army, which he said also stemmed from the fall.

  Outlining the domestic turmoil in the Ingenito household that led to Ernie's elopement with Doris Breslin of Wildwood when he was seventeen and she was sixteen, Sahl related the defendant's "disappointment" when he returned home from the service to find his wife living with another man. The defense attorney then detailed his client's relationship with his mother and father-in-law during his second marriage to Tessie. The Mazzolis ran his client's life for two y
ears, Sahl said. Although Ernie later admitted that Mike Mazzoli had paid him on previous occasions for working on the farm, his lawyer made it sound as though the defendant had been singled out for unfair treatment. His client had been paid less than Jamaican laborers on nearby farms, Sahl declared, although he did admit that it was an Italian tradition for family members not to receive regular wages.

  While such practices might have been difficult for outsiders to understand, most Italians accepted the idea as readily as they did a heaping plate of spaghetti on Sunday. In a culture where age was respected, the parents were always in charge, no matter how old the children. One of their beliefs was that everyone worked together for the good of the family. It was difficult for Ernie, who had essentially grown up with little parental authority, to recognize how ingrained this tradition was in his wife. Sahl claimed that the Mazzolis reinforced their hold on their only child by threatening if she left: "You are disowned. You are done. You are no longer our daughter." They repeatedly made it clear that Ernie could leave, but Tessie and the boys would be staying. It was difficult to determine how true such charges were since the Mazzolis were not in court to defend themselves. Claiming he did not want to speak ill of the dead, Ernie's lawyer still asserted that Pearl was to blame for the tragedy. It was all her fault because she wore the pants in the family, he said, and had run the Mazzoli household with a tight fist. What no one ever mentioned, either before, during, or after the trial, was that perhaps Tessie simply used her parents as an excuse to avoid living alone with a man she had reason to fear. No, such a secret could never come to light, especially in the presence of outsiders.

  According to Sahl, the Mazzolis had repeatedly refused to let Ernie see his children after he left the family farm in October. He said they had also sabotaged all of his client's efforts to settle their domestic problems in a reasonable manner. Mike and Pearl's attitude had forced Ernie to take drastic action, the defense attorney said. But then, Sahl claimed that Ernie had blacked out after he entered the Mazzoli home at about the same time that the shots went off. Sahl said his client heard the gun go off after Mike tried to push him out of the house. Ernie had told his lawyer that he remembered smelling smoke, hearing his father-in-law's screams, and seeing his wife fall to the floor. After that, he couldn't remember a thing, including his statements to the state police that he was the man they sought in connection with the crimes.

  On Thursday, January 11, the prosecutor presented the state's first witnesses. William Baum, the Gloucester County engineer, identified the locations of the Pioppi and Mazzoli farms on a map and explained the interior layout of each home. After he stepped down, twenty-eight-year-old Bruno Patella of Vineland took the stand.

  Patella, who worked at Owens-Illinois Glass Company, said that he had often spent time with Mike and Pearl over the past thirteen years, and he had befriended Ernie about one year prior to the shootings. A ripple of whispers ran through the courtroom when he testified that he had swapped an automatic pistol known as a P-38 Mauser with Ernie for a Sunbeam Mixmaster around the end of October. Ernie was then staying with the Rulis family, and according to Patella, Ernie visited him one night to ask if he owned a gun. When he brought out the Mauser, Ernie expressed interest in buying it, but Patella had turned down previous offers for the weapon and was reluctant to sell it. When Ernie offered to trade a new mixer for the gun, Patella couldn't refuse, because he knew how badly his wife wanted the appliance. He didn't see any harm in the trade, since Ernie claimed he just wanted the gun as a souvenir.

  An Army veteran of World War II, Patella said that he had initially traded a carton of cigarettes for the gun with a displaced person while he was stationed in Riggensberg, Germany. The war was over and the troops were preparing to head home. After he showed the gun to an officer, Patella was given permission to keep it, but the Mauser was not returned to him until after he had arrived back in the United States in December 1945. By then, the firing pin had been removed and Patella never bothered to have it replaced.

  Patella testified that shortly before the gun changed hands, Ernie had come over one night in October, looking depressed. When he asked his friend what was wrong, Ernie replied that he had family troubles. "Well, I guess we all have them," Patella said, but Ernie wasn't about to drop the matter that easily. He told Patella he was no longer living with his wife and then "he said something about his mother-in-law was interfering sometimes with him."

  An easygoing man, Patella never thought further about the conversation. But when his sister Hilda repeatedly urged him to let the authorities know about the proposed trade at the end of October, he told Ernie to accompany him to the state police barracks in Malaga. There the gun was examined by Lt. Hugh Boyle, who found eight bullets in the clip. Patella made his friend promise that he would register the gun in his name now that it had been inspected by the state police. That was the last time Patella saw Ernie or the gun until he testified in court. When presented with the Mauser, Patella identified it as the one he had previously owned.

  The next witness called to the stand was Peter Giglio, a clothing worker from Vineland, who had operated a gun repair shop for fifteen years in the basement of his home on New Elm Street. Giglio testified that Ernie had first come to his shop with the Mauser in October and asked if the firing pin could be replaced. Giglio said he told Ernie that it would take about ten days to get the necessary parts from California. The defendant was so anxious to get the gun back that he showed up at the shop two more times before the parts arrived. The Mauser was finally repaired on November 10. The cost to get the weapon back in firing condition was $6, which Ernie paid in full. On one of the earlier visits, Giglio testified that Ernie brought with him a German P-38 Luger for an appraisal. He testified that he told Ernie the Luger was probably worth $40.

  "Then I got a bargain," Ernie had said. "It only cost me $25."

  Henry Coia Sr. was a nervous wreck when he took the stand later that day. The Buena Vista Township resident had been released from Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia just four days earlier in order to be available as a witness for the prosecution. Described by reporters as "pale" and "visibly ill," he clutched the corners of the witness stand and spoke so quietly that the prosecutor had to repeatedly remind him to raise his voice. The forty-five-year-old farmer from Oak Road, who was married to Mike Mazzoli's younger sister Marie, said that he had known Ernie for about two years prior to the night of the shootings. The Coias and the Mazzolis occasionally visited each other at home during that time.

  Henry Sr. said Ernie had told him about separating from Tessie in October on one of his frequent visits to the Coia home. He testified that Ernie said he had "packed up and left," because "they were supposed to go out and then they couldn't get together to go out." According to Henry Sr., he often saw Ernie when he visited his brother-in-law, Tony D'Augustine, at his store in Landisville. The witness was noticeably grateful when the judge called a recess until the following day, but he was the first witness called by the prosecution when court resumed on the morning of Friday, January 12, 1951. Still unsteady, Henry Sr. related he had learned from Tony that Ernie had quit his job the day before the shootings.

  After telling the court about Ernie's visit later on the night of Thursday, November 16, 1950, Henry Sr. testified that he and Marie had gone to visit the Mazzolis on Friday morning, but Tessie and her sons were the only ones there when they arrived. The Coias waited and did talk with Mike and Pearl when the Mazzolis got home a short time later-a conversation that left Henry Sr. too upset to travel alone to Cecil. Dropping Marie at the D'Augustine house, Henry Sr. had Sonny drive him to see Ernie. After that exchange, the Coias returned home and were very surprised when Ernie turned up on their doorstep around 7:30 that same night. Their visitor was apparently excited by the prospect of meeting with a new attorney the following day; he carried a slip of paper with the name and address of Bridgeton attorney William Gallner, who had promised to help him.

  Henry Sr. testified that E
rnie, who was "dressed up" in his double-breasted brown plaid suit, had left his house around 8:00 P.M. The younger man seemed happy during the fifteen minutes he was there and reminded Sonny that he would have to watch the appliance store on Saturday morning until Ernie returned from his appointment in Bridgeton. Henry Sr. was so surprised by the unexpected visit that, about twenty minutes after Ernie left, he drove to Tony's store to tell his brother-in-law what had happened. He got there just in time to watch the popular television show Man against Crime with Tony while they talked. The half-hour program, which starred Ralph Bellamy as hard-boiled private detective Mike Barnett, had just ended at 9:00 P.M. when a disheveled Ernie flew into the store and asked Henry Sr. to look after his children. "Ingenito came walking into the store as if somebody was chasing him," Henry Sr. said. "His hair was rumpled on the side and he looked white as a ghost. He scared me. He asked me to pick up the kids. He said, `I've got to hit the road."' Disturbed by the younger man's erratic behavior, Henry Sr. testified that he drove home and told his wife, "We'd better go down there." When they arrived at the Mazzoli farm a short time later, they were shocked to see the state police patrolling the grounds. Within minutes, they learned from Jino Pioppi what had happened.

  During cross-examination by the defense attorney, Henry Sr. said that he didn't recall Ernie ever asking him to intercede on his behalf with the Mazzolis before that fateful Friday. He did remember that he and Marie were invited to the Mazzoli home in October to discuss Tessie's separation from her husband. At that time, Mike and Pearl asserted that Ernie was "running around with women," so Tessie was going to use adultery as grounds for a divorce. Henry Sr. admitted that after the couple separated, Ernie often asked his wife's uncle to stop by the appliance store to keep him company during the day. According to the witness, Ernie was very upset by his marital problems and often tried to get other family members to intercede on his behalf with the Mazzolis.