Word: fiorenzas
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Dates: during 1936-1936
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Last Good Friday morning one John Fiorenza, 24-year-old upholsterer's assistant, went to the apartment of Lewis H. Titterton in Manhattan's quiet Beekman Place. Mr. Titterton had gone to his work as continuity editor at National Broadcasting Co., but his wife was at home, alone. At the door Fiorenza said he had called to get further instructions about repairing a couch, was admitted. Fiorenza then over-powered & raped Mrs. Titterton, knotted a rope of clothing around her neck, left her to strangle in the bathtub...
Eleven days later New York's police methodically traced a piece of twine found near Mrs. Titterton's body to the shop where Fiorenza worked. A thrice-convicted thief, Fiorenza had been late for work Good Friday morning, could establish no alibi. When he was indicted for murder, all New York papers except one dropped the Titterton case off the front page...
That one was the Hearstian tabloid Daily Mirror, recently put under the direction of Jacquin Leonard ("Jack") Lait, oldtime Hearst thrill-writer. Fortnight ago the Mirror began a six-part daily feature called "Fiorenza's Own Amazing Story." Authorship was credited to "John Fiorenza, as told to David B. Charnay, Mirror staff correspondent." Gist was that the upholsterer's assistant had nourished an unrequited but undiscouraged love for Mrs. Titterton, who had previously rejected his advances, but, as an aspiring writer, had not hesitated to "pump" him for "copy...
Among the 554,939 people who read "Fiorenza's Own Story" was Publisher Julius David Stern of the New York Post. Publisher Stern heartily despises William Randolph Hearst. Twice before he has used his front page to give his fellow-publisher unmerciful Hayings, once on the New Deal, once on the Lindberghs' self-exile. Last week aggressive Publisher Stern spread a blistering two-column editorial on the Post's front page accusing the Mirror of a blatant fabrication...
...Post claimed that the District Attorney had assured the paper that no Hearst representative had seen Fiorenza in Tombs Prison. His only three visitors, his lawyers and his mother, swore they had told the Mirror nothing. The prison psychiatrist was quoted as saying that Fiorenza told him: "I never gave an interview to anybody from a paper." Thundered the Post: "How many prospective veniremen for the Fiorenza trial have absorbed the Mirror's vile insinuations that Mrs. Titterton led Fiorenza on; that she encouraged him to spend time with her while she probed for literary material; that she permitted...