Angelo LaMarca

Peter Weinberger (June 2, 1956 – July 12, 1956) was a one-month-old infant who was kidnapped for ransom on July 4, 1956, in New York state. The case gained national notoriety due to the circumstances of the kidnapping and the victim's family, as unlike many victims in kidnappings for ransom, Weinberger was not from a wealthy and prominent family, but from a suburban middle class family.

As was required by law at the time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) waited for seven days before they had the jurisdiction to involve themselves in the investigation. The investigation took approximately six weeks, during which state and federal authorities reviewed millions of documents and public records in their attempt to locate the identity of Weinberger's kidnapper. The investigation led to the arrest of then-31-year-old Angelo John LaMarca , who eventually confessed to kidnapping and abandoning Peter Weinberger due to mounting debts and financial difficulties. While LaMarca claimed to have abandoned Weinberger alive, investigators found Weinberger dead from asphyxia, with starvation and exposure being contributing factors.

During his highly publicized trial in Nassau County, New York, LaMarca attempted to attribute the murder to a state of temporary insanity caused by stress around his financial problems. He was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping and sentenced to death. After spending over eighteen months on death row, LaMarca was executed in Sing Sing Prison's electric chair in 1958.

Subsequent to the case, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation to reduce the FBI's waiting period in kidnapping cases from 7 days to 24 hours.

Perpetrator Angelo LaMarca was born in New York on April 13, 1925. On July 31, 1943, he was drafted to serve in World War II; his enlistment papers state that he had "dependents" at that time but was single, that he worked in the manufacturing of "paper goods", and that the most advanced education level he attained was attendance at grammar school.

Angelo LaMarca married Donna LaMarca on June 6, 1946. They had two children together, a boy named Vincent and a girl named Vivian; at the time that LaMarca received his death sentence, Vincent was 9 years old, and Vivian was 5.

In 1954, LaMarca was arrested for his participation in a bootlegging operation that also involved his father, Vincenzo, and his younger brother, Joseph, as well as two other men who were not related to LaMarca. The group set up an illegal still capable of producing 500 gallons of bootleg whiskey. Following their arrests, all five were charged with operating a still and possessing mash, the latter of which was a federal offense. LaMarca received a 90-day suspended sentence along with a year of probation. The documents filed in relation to LaMarca's probationary period would play a significant role in his capture for the Weinberger kidnapping.

Kidnapping of Peter Weinberger Peter Weinberger was born on June 2, 1956. On July 4, when Peter was 32 days old, his mother, Betty Weinberger, placed him in a carriage covered with mosquito netting on the patio of their house at 17 Albemarle Rd. Westbury, New York, a town in Nassau County, and left him unattended for approximately 10 minutes. She returned to find that someone had pulled open the netting, taken Peter, and left a ransom note on notebook paper in green ink. The note read, in part:

The note demanded that the Weinbergers leave the money next to a signpost near their house by 10 a.m. the next morning. Betty Weinberger's husband Morris, a wholesale pharmacist,

Trial

On August 29, 1956, LaMarca was indicted on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder. A week later, on September 5, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. On September 21, he motioned that the trial be moved out of Nassau County due to the pretrial publicity the case had received in the local press, but on October 1, the motion was denied; the trial ultimately took place in Nassau County.

LaMarca's trial began on November 5, 1956. In an unusual twist, Nassau County District Attorney Frank Gulotta decided to prosecute the case himself. and two of whom were grandfathers.

LaMarca's defense at his trial was that he was driven to temporary insanity due to his mounting debts and that he was otherwise a normal, hardworking husband and father of two. His argument was that he was in an unbalanced state of mind when he formed the plan to kidnap Peter Weinberger. He also testified that, on the morning of the kidnapping, he had made several futile attempts to borrow necessary money from friends and family in order to afford necessities for his wife and kids and stall creditors. LaMarca testified in his own defense, admitting during his testimony that he alone had kidnapped Weinberger and in fact did not have any accomplices. Reporters who witnessed LaMarca's testimony remarked that he sounded "often hazy and uncertain" and gave confusing responses to some of his defense attorney's questions under direct examination. He also gave two different stories to explain Peter Weinberger's kidnapping, abandonment, and murder; under direct examination, LaMarca said he did not know how he could have kidnapped another child when he had two children of his own, and also stated that he was not certain if any of the explanations he provided for Weinberger's kidnapping were correct, that he could not remember "how many versions of the confession [he] gave the police," and that he "kept giving different stories each time the police made new suggestions to [him] as to what happened". In all, LaMarca, his wife Donna, and Dr. Cusack were the only witnesses for the defense. The prosecution called another psychiatrist, Dr. Ernani D'Angelo, to rebut Dr. Cusack's testimony and LaMarca's contention of insanity. Dr. D'Angelo testified that LaMarca was sane and aware of his actions, stating, "I base my opinion that the defendant knew right from wrong on the fact that the act itself was so planned, so executed and so covered up to escape detection that only a person who knew what he was doing every second and every inch of the way could have accomplished this act."

When LaMarca attempted to use his military service as mitigation, the prosecution proved that he had deliberately exaggerated his service in an attempt to appear more sympathetic. Army records proved that LaMarca had lied when he testified that he served 3.5 years. In reality, he had only served 2.5 years, not 3.5 years as he had testified. On February 17, 1944, he was court-martialed and convicted of being absent without leave from Camp Edwards for a six-day period. LaMarca had also lied about driving an ammunition supply truck near the front lines in France three days after D-Day. In fact, LaMarca's service records showed that he only reached England nearly two months after D-Day, on July 31, 1944. The prosecution also suggested that a scar on LaMarca's left leg, which he said he got from a shrapnel wound, was actually caused by a childhood accident, which LaMarca disputed on the stand.

The trial concluded in early December, with the jury reaching their verdict on December 7, after deliberating for 6 hours and 24 minutes. In his final appeal before his execution, LaMarca argued that the jurors in his case were prejudiced against him. He also argued that the rejection of his motion to change venues resulted in an unfair trial. In rejecting his appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit pointed out that the size of the jury pool in LaMarca's trial was unusually large, that the time that it took to conduct jury examinations showed the care that county officials put into ensuring that LaMarca would have a fair trial, and that there was no evidence to support the claim that LaMarca had not received a fair trial in Nassau County. LaMarca's wife, Donna, also appealed to Governor Harriman by radio. LaMarca's second attorney, David Markowitz, stated that the intention behind making the radio appeal was "to try to contradict the feeling of antagonism that has been aroused against Angelo LaMarca. Maybe enough people will be moved to send telegrams to the governor asking him to save this man's life." His last meal had consisted of fried chicken, French-fried potatoes, vegetables, ice cream, and coffee. Prison officials stated that he repeatedly shouted "Maybe they'll save me yet" in the hours leading up to his execution. Vincent also stated that his father's predicament inspired him to become a police officer, stating in another interview, "It tore me apart when he did this horrible thing. But it taught me a lifelong lesson about responsibility. And I became a cop so that no one could ever say one single bad thing about me [and so I could] restore the family name."

Years later, in 1996, Vincent's son, Joey LaMarca, was implicated in a murder in Long Beach. After his arrest, Joey claimed that he was genetically predisposed to murder. The case, and Vincent's life as a whole, inspired the plot of the 2002 film City by the Sea.