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True Crime Historian

The Ugly Duckling Murderess

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture, Performing Arts

4.4729 Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2023

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sabella Nitti Gets Almost Pretty

Episode 230 is a story that turned out to be the exception to the rule in the 1920s, because a woman not only gets convicted of murder, but also faces execution for her alleged crime. Public indignation and sympathy for the homely defendant was so inflamed that it became part of the story. Culled from the historic pages of the Chicago Tribune, this story features reporting and commentary from legendary Chicago journalist Genevieve Forbes Herrick whose contributions will be read by guest voice Susan Ferman.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Popular.com

0:03.4

September 19th, 1922.

0:11.8

Investigation of the disappearance of Frank Nitty, 46 years old, from his farm near Stickney six weeks ago, was begun yesterday in the belief he may have been

0:22.9

murdered and his body thrown into the Desplains River. The inquiry was started on the strength

0:29.4

of the story of Nitty's seven-year-old daughter, Teresa, that she had seen her father's body

0:34.9

slung under a wagon and dragged to the river where it was thrown in.

0:40.1

Assistant State's attorney Michael Romano, Deputy Sheriff Paul Dasso, and Attorney William Wittie,

0:47.0

counselor for Niddy's sons, James 24, and Michael, 21 years old, are conducting the inquiry.

0:55.1

Shortly after the child's story reached the state's attorney's office,

0:59.3

Mrs. Sabella Nitty, wife of the missing man,

1:02.0

and Peter Crudella, the Nitty's farmhand,

1:05.4

were arraigned before police magistrate Frank McKee of Oak Park

1:09.7

on charges preferred by James and Michael. The two were

1:13.3

arrested by Deputy Dasso, who said he found them living together on the Nitty farm. At the time of the

1:20.3

arrest, he said, Mrs. Nitty attacked him and the two sons who accompanied him. The sons declared

1:27.1

they thought their mother and the hired man were somehow implicated in the

1:30.9

disappearance of their father.

1:33.2

Mrs. Nitty and Crudello waved a preliminary hearing and were held to a grand jury in bonds

1:39.2

of $3,500.

1:43.4

Sibela Nitty, a wizened up crouching monkey-like creature with chewed off fingernails, matted hair,

1:49.6

leathery skin, and inarticulate grunts, made herself known to all women, very beautiful or subtle,

1:55.7

throughout the state when on the 9th of June, 1923, she was sentenced to the gallows for her share in the murder a year earlier

...

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