Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, with Jan Brogan (episode 236)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to hub history where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 236, the combat zone with Jan Brogan.
Hi, I’m jake in just a few minutes. I’m going to be joined by Jan Brogan, author of the recent book the combat zone Murder race and boston struggle for justice.
In the book, Jan turns her impressive research and reporting skills in the case of Andy Puopolo a 21 year old Harvard football player who was killed in a fight in the combat zone in 1976.
The case would pit one of the most privileged groups at the most privileged school in the world against three poor black men on the margins of society.
While in the background, boston tore itself apart on racial lines.
The book plumbs the depths of white working class boston’s racial resentments during the bussing era criminal justice system that stacked the deck against black defendants and a police department that was compromised at its core by organized crime.
It highlights the street violence that helped cement boston’s reputation is the most racist city in the country as well as the two trials that came two diametrically opposite verdicts in the same city just a couple of years apart,
it also puts the reader in the mind of the younger brother of the victim left behind to deal with his feelings of grief and guilt while wrestling with the possibility of revenge.

[1:34] But before we talk about the Puopolo case.
I just want to pause and thank john?
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[2:29] Now it’s time for this week’s main topic. Jan Brogan is an award winning journalist and novelist living in the boston area.
She’s been a staff writer for the providence journal in Worcester telegram and her pieces have appeared in the Globe boston magazine and several other periodicals when she’s wearing her novelist hat.
She writes mystery novels that feature a journalist as the intrepid investigator rather than a more traditional hard boiled detective.
Her Helio Hearn series is anchored by a confidential source, which has been optioned by transactional pictures for development into a television series.
Her new nonfiction book is the combat zone murder race in boston struggle for justice, which is in stores now,
at the heart of the book is a terrible crime 1976 stabbing of Andy Puopolo a white Harvard football player at the hands of a black man who was characterized in court as a pimp.

[3:27] The crime took place in the combat zone, the nearly lawless red light district at the heart of boston that was caught up in what time magazine called the age of porno.
The case played out against the backdrop of the peak of racist violence during the bussing conflict, with the trial becoming a proxy for white rage against efforts to desegregate boston schools.
Jane was incredibly generous with her time and somehow always still barely scratched the surface of the Puopolo story which sells the book short beyond our conversation.
Combat zone is the story of racial tension in boston and the explosive late seventies and a trial that changed massachusetts law seemingly forever as I go back and listen to our conversation.
There are times when we seem to dance around the most sensitive aspects of the case.
In retrospect that may have been because I assumed that we would disagree on some of the fundamentals of the story.
Jan seems more receptive to the idea that Andy, Puopolo and the Harvard football team were innocent victims of a crime.
Maybe I worked in Harvard Square bars for too long, but I tend to believe the defense’s theory from the second trial that Andy and the football team were a drunken wolfpack who went into the zone looking for trouble.

[4:42] I think that you need to pick up a copy of the book using our affiliate link which you can find it hub history dot com slash 236.
Read it for yourself and see which version of events convinces you whether you think justice was done at the first or the second trial.
I’ll also note that there’s an occasional crackling sound from a loose connection in Jan’s mike it gets better as our conversation goes on, but it never quite goes away.
I did my best to minimize it and editing. But please forgive the sections when I wasn’t quite successful.
I’m joined now by Jan Brogan author of the Combat zone Murder race and boston, struggle for justice.
The book opens with a party at the Harvard Club in Boston celebrating the end of the 1976 football season.
And then it follows the players to an after party in the combat zone.
I love the way it starts out because it sets up these two environments in these two groups of characters who just couldn’t be more different from one another.
Can you just set the stage and talk a little bit about what the Harvard Club would have been like?

Jan:
[5:48] It was, you know, just this beautiful old world steeping with tradition.
Everything at Harvard was steeped in tradition.
The football players were there to congratulate them for their year.

Jake:
[6:03] Was it a winning season?

Jan:
[6:04] They were favorites to win and they did not.
So it was a disappointing season, but they were still celebrating the end of it.
Ethel Kennedy was there to award the scholarship in her husband’s name. It was a very classy event.

Jake:
[6:23] So then nearly the whole team plus the equipment manager or some other add ons go to the combat zone.
First of all, where in boston is this district that we’re talking about and then what sort of legal businesses were operating there And then what other maybe less legal entertainment could you find there?

Jan:
[6:41] Okay, so it’s like a four block area centered around lower Washington.
A lot of the business fronts are on Washington parts of Lagrange and Boylston Street and some of essex and beach.

Jake:
[6:54] Mhm.

Jan:
[6:56] It’s bounded on one side by Neil in ST you know, it’s right next to chinatown and kind of downtown crossing on the other side.

Jake:
[7:05] Almost what we just think of as the theater district today was just other theaters at the time.

Jan:
[7:08] Yes.
And so at the time, I think there were like 35 36 adult entertainment enterprises, They’re like strip clubs.
X rated movies were big.
Then there’s a steam bath. These little peep shows where people go, you know, you put in a quarter for the porn reel to go, You have to remember, this is before the internet or vcrs,
so this is where people want to get their pornography, adult bookstores.
There was lots of prostitution. So it’s centered around Liberty Tree Square.
There’s sort of a, it’s like a triangle off Washington and on Boylston in 1976 which is the year this happened that would have been just on a saturday night that just would have been packed with prostitutes all waiting for the men to come out of the strip clubs.

Jake:
[7:59] We have the Harvard players than descending into this environment.

Jan:
[8:03] Right? It was a Harvard tradition because it was a place of danger.
People got mugged, they got pickpocketed. Uh There were fistfights.
Um You know, you went there for the excitement of the danger at B. C. They called it forced night because you went in force.
The team went in force because then it was safer.

Jake:
[8:24] And at some point, I’m not sure if it was when the club closed or when they decided they had enough, they leave the strip club.
And there’s an interaction with these two sex workers, both of whom are Black, one of whom you say it was only 16 at the time.

Jan:
[8:39] Right there at the naked eye, they leave the naked eye and they’re headed,
to their cars and one group of maybe six football players and the equipment manager walked past the carnival lounge and as they’re walking by a couple of young black women dressed as prostitutes start talking to them and they’re,
some of them are ignoring them because just,
in the news the week before,
there had been a lot about what was called,
with a rubber horse scheme which was women dressed as prostitutes would sidle up to men, it was called the fondle, they would fondle them and while they were distracted they would pick pocket them.
So some of the, some of the students do about it and told him to get lost, but some of them were drunk and there was a conversation about having $50 in their wallet and what were their charges and they all ended up back at the Harvard van,
One of the women that got in I think was a 16 year old and she was there, they all agree for about two or three minutes there’s discussion about having her come back to the fret and she bolts and he realizes the wallet is gone,
and that’s when the trouble starts.

Jake:
[9:51] There’s one young man who is at the center of the story and I’m gonna have to go to you for the pronunciation, is it Andy Puopolo.

Jan:
[9:58] Yeah, it’s Andy Puopolo he’s in a different car with another student and they’re just waiting for the driver as the first group chases the prostitute down Boylston street,
The friends who are about to get into the car, they call them, they say there she goes, she’s got they got Charlie’s wallet chaser.
So a couple of those kids start chasing the prostitute.
And so now you’ve got maybe eight Harvard football players chasing this young black woman down the street, she stumbles on the street.
One of the Harvard football players who reaches her first picks her up and she says she screams at him, I don’t have the wallet, so he says okay and he lets her go,
someone puts her in a taxi and um,
another black guy comes and all of a sudden knocks down the guy who picked her up,
and they jumped to their feet just as all the other Harvard football players arrive and they wind up around the T station on Boylston Street, you know that get the edge of the common,
and tom Lincoln says he doesn’t have the walt, let’s go home.
And just as they’re about to turn, another black guy comes in any stabs tom Lincoln.

Jake:
[11:15] These football players very much feel like they’re the victims in this situation, They have been robbed.
They feel like they’re trying to write something that’s been done wrong.
But the way it presents to anybody who happened by after the first instant would have been, oh, here’s this dozen or more big guys chasing after one or two much smaller younger.
In one case, woman, girl, I feel like it could be very confusing for both parties involved.

Jan:
[11:43] The 16 year old was in a different area at this point, but still she’s only 21, she’s black and they’re all white.

Jake:
[11:50] There were black members of the Harvard football team and they were there that night.
But it sounds like from your description that not one of them participated in this chase, then the fight that ensued. Is that right?

Jan:
[12:00] I spoke to one of them and he said that was the middle of bussing, you know, they weren’t going to subject themselves to chasing a prostitute and get caught by pops or get beat up. They were too smart to get involved.

Jake:
[12:13] Yeah, It seems like as sort of a very privileged group of the football team within a very privileged group.
A lot of the white players probably felt a lot of license to that.
A lot of the sort of boys will be boys behavior. They knew they would get away with up to a certain point of escalation and maybe the black players didn’t have that same freedom.

Jan:
[12:34] I don’t think it was that thought out to tell you the truth. I actually think they stole charlie’s wallet and charlie, charlie went after them and I think they went after charlie to make sure he didn’t get in trouble.

Jake:
[12:47] They end up sort of arranged around the T station on Boylston Street and a fist fight happens.
There’s a moment of escalation. What was the outcome.

Jan:
[12:58] Leon Easterling jumps in and stabs tom Lincoln,
and they all say knives, oh my God, he’s got knives and they all turn around and bolt the Harvard, all the Harvard players turn around and bolt and run back to the van.
Um and this is where they stop being, you know, if there’s,
there’s any instance that if they are the aggressors, they’re no longer the aggressors and then they get chased back, They all of them get into the van except charlie and then there’s another guy who is a mystery the man and the cranberry jacket.
Some people say he’s black, some people say he’s white, some people say he’s hispanic, but everybody agrees on the cranberry jacket,
and he pulls charlie out by the time and starts beating him against the door, He must have been pretty big because charlie, charlie was a big guy, but he’s also very drunk,
Andy had, but this point gotten out of the back of his car and at that moment he sees his teammate charlie being beaten against the side of the fan.
He grew up in the city, he’s a city kid from the North End, he goes in to help his friend Edward sores, raises his fists and they get into a fistfight and then Easterling jumps over sores is back and steps Andy.

Jake:
[14:17] In the chest it sounds like.

Jan:
[14:18] Uh well first it’s first it’s in the chest and then and another teammate appears um scott Coolidge and he picks Andy up and he grabs me and he says let’s get out of here.
And he says yes and this point and he’s okay and they’re retreating from the alley, they’re back on Boylston.
And Easterling comes out in his second time and this time he takes the The knife and he stabs him in the stomach and twists it by, according to the medical testimony, 6″ up into the heart and and punctured the heart in two different places.
Police are there within a matter of seconds and they take uh Andy to Tufts which is just down the street to the emergency room, he arrives dead on arrival,
but they’re able to restart his heart and take him into surgery.

Jake:
[15:07] At the same time, tom Lincoln’s getting taken to Mass. General. Um, what was his condition when he got taken in.

Jan:
[15:13] He was stable, it was it was a serious wound but it wasn’t life threatening.

Jake:
[15:19] Pretty immediately? Andy’s family is going to come into Tufts while he’s still in an emergency trauma surgery. We should take a minute and introduce the Pop aloes.
You said that Andy was a city kid that they were from the north End.

Jan:
[15:35] Andrew Pablo sr the father is an italian immigrant, he came at age five and his mother’s from,
italian descent and their families from the north end and they raised the kids mostly in the, you know, 22 bedroom apartment over a leather good shop in the north end till they’re like 14 and 12 I think.
And then they have an older sister who was like 16 and that’s why they move because she’s sleeping in the castro convertible couch in the living room.
The younger brother said we thought we had it made because we had our own bathroom, A lot of apartments in the north end did not have their own bathrooms, you shared one.
So they moved to a modest house in Jamaica Plain.
That’s where he is when he’s in college. Um obviously is living at the Harvard going, but that’s that’s where his parents houses.
So they come from jp he’s there, he’s in surgery and they wait the night, you know, and and at that point the emergency room is just packed.

Jake:
[16:31] And not only friends and teammates and supporters and families, but also it seems like outside the emergency room there is every form of media in New England.

Jan:
[16:42] It’s immediately a big story.

Jake:
[16:46] There are a couple of trends in boston at that time to help explain the intense interest in this case, the bussing controversy, which we’ve we’ve hinted at a little bit and the porno panic.

Jan:
[16:58] It’s hard to wrap your head around just how violent the protesting over bussing was, boston is very ethnically divided, boston’s very poor to start off with.
I mean cities were in general weren’t doing well, boston was really even poorer and that’s because the middle class had moved out in the sixties and early seventies, leaving only,
the very rich and the poor and the poor at that time were white, it’s a very poor poor neighborhood.
And these poor neighborhoods are told you’re getting bust and so Charlestown and Southie were just up in arms, they were they were protesting thousands of people would be in the streets, grown adults.
We’re throwing rocks at bus busses full of black Children coming to school, you know, trying to imagine that.

[17:53] You know kids were getting stabbed and you know when he got stabbed in the street, people were riding in the streets, it was a very violent place.
So it’s very racially tense. Then you have the pornography thing, which is actually the bigger thing at the moment.
So at the time, x rated movie houses in downtowns are relatively new and Supreme Court decision said that the First Amendment protected them, boston dealt with it, boston.
The city that banned everything.
You know, the city of puritans had created an adult entertainment district, it was very controversial even though the city did it to restrict the growth of the business. It was viewed as license and it was Harvard right.
Harvard white kid had gotten gotten stabbed in the combat zone.
This kind of proved how stupid boston was for taking this approach.

Jake:
[18:46] It sounds like the boston Police Department also took a very hands off approach to the combat zone, while the Angelo Crime Family took a hands on approach. Can you tell us a little bit about how, how those two groups interacted with the combat zone?

Jan:
[18:54] Exactly, exactly.

[19:00] Yeah. So um I guess once some of their studies said that 40-50% of the, of the businesses were owned by the mob.
You know, this is, this is the mob in its heyday. This is a couple years after the the,
godfather movies, you know, which, which gave them kind of this patina of, of glamour,
while they’re making I think estimated like in today’s dollars, about half a million dollars a week off their businesses, they are flush with cash and boston police are at this point,
really corrupt de Gracia.
The police commissioner had been brought in to clean up the department.
The commissioner himself starts a 32 month secret investigation into his own police force.

[19:51] And feels he’s got to make it public rather than give it to the mayor and it reveals that they’re drinking at the bars in the clubs for free.
One of the things to Carozza said was what shocked him was how cheaply a cop could be bought, You know, not all of them, but like at least he said in the combat zone, 50%.
They often would sabotage their own investigations by telling off the mob.
They would basically arrest small time hustlers who weren’t connected.
So they had some arrests and and leave alone any mob related activity.
They would extort sex from the prostitutes and this report illuminates this robert Horry scheme.
So a week before this happens in the news, people are reading that there’s this,
new wrinkle to the rubber horse game where the women have male protectors who if they get caught doing it will come in and protect them from the mad mark.
It’s going to be big news in boston because it’s Harvard, it’s white kids, it’s black defendants and it’s big news nationwide mostly because of the pornography.

Jake:
[21:02] Thank you for taking that diversion with me from Andy Puopolo those hospital bed to get a little bit of the background.
You said that he was brought in dead on arrival, but the doctors were able to restart his heart. It sounded like there was a lot of optimism that first night and maybe the first morning. What what was the prognosis for Andy at first?

Jan:
[21:24] The fact that they could restart his heart. They considered a miracle and they put some light in his eyes and they see the pupils dilate.
So they think they got them there in time. So it’s supposed to be a miracle.
And that’s what at the press conference the next morning that police district one are giving these police got them there to the hospital in time. This is the same district one that has, yeah.

Jake:
[21:51] Has gotten all this criticism right.

Jan:
[21:53] So now it’s at that point, the information they have is that he’s going he’s going to be okay because of their fast action.
And this is the news that goes out.

Jake:
[22:03] And then Andrew Sr and his little brother, Danny, Right.

Jan:
[22:09] Yep. His sister and his mother Helen, they’re coming back to the hospital after like an hour to.

Jake:
[22:15] Go get some fresh clothes, maybe have a cup of coffee, get cleaned up, and the story changes then.

Jan:
[22:21] So when they come back to see him, he’s immediately seizing a seizure is a sign that the oxygen is lacking in his brain.
And about then the doctors, I think, yes, that they were wrong.
But the family still wants to believe in the miracle and in the beginning he looks so healthy and you know, he’s on,
you know, all sorts of life support, but he’s he’s strong and he’s healthy and he’s a fighter and you know, the whole city wants to believe he’s going to fight his way through it, that the city wants a happy ending.

Jake:
[22:55] And it becomes, I mean, spectacle doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Not even the media spectacle, but just all the political leaders, the religious leaders, the hacks, who are coming in to somehow get a part of this Puopolo story.
They’re using him to grandstand with their opinions about the combat zone. Right, what’s the sort of the balance of opinion there?

Jan:
[23:18] Um, I don’t know if they’re using him to grandstand, I would say the city wasn’t happy all that happy about the combat zone.
So immediately people are calling for the shutting down of the combat zone. Ray Flynn, you know, who goes on to become the mayor.
He actually had coached Andy Puopolo So he knew him and he also, he had opposed, he’d been at the meeting opposing the zoning from the start because he knew the area from his youth.
So he’d been opposed all along. But now the next day he’s down there with a petition to shut it down.
I actually think with Ray Flynn it was a very sincere feeling.
You know, he goes on to become the ambassador room. He’s a very religious man and he did not like the combat zone in the combat zone was a wild place.
You know, it was wild, but it was, you know, then it was also, it was the beginning, it was a sexual revolution, right?
So it wasn’t without social value, you know, it was the place where gays could come where there was a steam bath.
There was some gay bars nearby, You know, an interracial couple could live in one of the few apartments my husband calls the pornographic DmS in the rest of the city.

Jake:
[24:24] Yeah.

Jan:
[24:27] If you were a town, you couldn’t go into south and vice versa, but everybody would sit at the bars together in the combat zone.

Jake:
[24:35] A group of business leaders in, uh, what they call the boston Adult district tried to play up that value that the combat zone brought right with a pr campaign that I thought was really interesting.
Who did they get to speak for the adult businesses?

Jan:
[24:51] Yeah. So um, it was called, I love the name of the, the acronym for the organization was bad boston adult district calendar Andrew’s sister yet.
So they had a spokeswoman Deborah Beckerman who was a former dancer.
She’s very attractive. She likes the spotlight and she’s, she’s smart and she’s well spoken and she also has a little pr background.
So I think she might have done some pr for one of the hospitals or something. Um.

Jake:
[25:18] So what what does she, how does she frame the problem, quote unquote in the zone?

Jan:
[25:23] She says, she says the police are responsible for Puopolo is murder and this is before he’s even dead.
Um, she blames it on, she says that the businesses were calling for more police presence in the district, which is, you know, that’s, it’s sort of, they might have been, but they were also, you know, wooing them with alcohol.
So it’s, you know, but you know, some of the price, the prostitutes who call themselves, the legitimate prostitutes are mad about this pickpocket scheme because it’s driving away business, right? It doesn’t make them look good.
Immediately following the murder. The same week, a state trooper dies after a fistfight in the combat zone.
So the streets are flooded with police.
It goes from no police to just so much police presence that there’s no, you know, the prostitutes are basically cleared of the area.
There’s nothing going on. The strip clubs are empty business is off and they organized, they were actually organized before this happened.
But this is where they really get their most get a lot of press.

Jake:
[26:33] I find some of her arguments pretty convincing, especially around the lack of policing.
That certainly wouldn’t be the first time that police either were paid to look the other way or just didn’t give as much protection to people or areas they thought were less deserving of it.

Jan:
[26:52] Well, yeah, yeah. Part of the deal was when, when they, when they zoned it, they were supposed to spruce up the area and, you know, and and increased police presence. And neither of those two things happen.

Jake:
[27:04] So we have the porno plague driving everybody’s interest in the case to a near frenzy. As Andy’s condition starts to get worse, he was At Tufts for 31 days in all.
How did the trajectory of his condition fair, after that sort of initial burst of hope.

Jan:
[27:23] He flatlines pretty early and doctors talk about,
Pulling the plug but they’re also cautious about it because this is 1976 and the Karen Ann Quinlan case was only, I think maybe six months, eight months before.

Jake:
[27:39] For our listeners? What is the Karen, ann Quinlan?

Jan:
[27:41] Oh so Karen ann Quinlan who died of who, who overdosed in New Jersey and was basically a vegetable.
Her family wanted to remove her from life support, you know, arguing that she was gone and they didn’t want to see their daughter waste away on life support and they had to go to court to be able to take her off life support.
They did not have that right that case established the precedent that you could take somebody off life support,
but still it was, it was, it was a relatively new concept and you know, the populace are very religious people and they were praying for a miracle.

Jake:
[28:17] And so the family basically never even seriously considers ending the life support measures.

Jan:
[28:23] No, they never do that. He dies on life support.

Jake:
[28:26] And so how did he finally die? What was the cause?

Jan:
[28:28] He just wasted away. You know, he just waste away. They knew he was, he was going and they called the family to say goodbye.
His father was with him when he, I think machines just stopped.

Jake:
[28:40] Obviously Andy’s family, friends, his immediate circle are just overwhelmed with grief with shock.
But in the old neighborhood in the north end, there were some folks who had a different reaction to his death, and it seems like the rumor mill immediately got started after Andy died. What did people say was going to happen?

Jan:
[28:58] Susan Wornick who was a radio reporter then she said nobody thought there would be a trial because the rumors were so strong that the mob was going to kill them in jail.
You know, the thinking goes, the mob had a couple of motives. One thing, this murder cost them a lot of money in terms of revenues of the combat zone and also this kid represents the pride of the north end.

Jake:
[29:21] It sounds like the Puopolo shoes would have had some exposure to members of the Angelo family in their time in the north End.

Jan:
[29:28] Yeah, so Andrew sr went to New all of them. He went to school with them like grade school with them and he was a marine.
He was in, he would juma you know, and he came back and he was offered a corner and he politely turned it down because he was pretty straight laced.
You have plenty of mob exposure. People would come up Danny all the time and said don’t worry, it’s going to be taken care of, don’t worry, you’re not going to have to go through a trial. It’s going to be taken care of.

Jake:
[29:59] Just as a reminder how old is Danny, the younger brother? At this point.

Jan:
[30:02] Danny’s 19 when this happens. And you know, he looks up to his brother, his brother is his everything. He still is.

Jake:
[30:10] Despite all the rumors that something was going to happen to the defendant’s, Amazingly, all three of them were indicted the same morning that Andy died.
So just to introduce some of the characters that we’re going to meet in the trial we have at the defense table, Henry Owens, he was so excited about this this case, he offered to take it pro bono. Why was that?

Jan:
[30:32] Henry Owens is a black attorney um he’s young at the time, his father owned Owens, I think a moving company that was very successful.
He could have, he could have gone into the business and it would have been easy, but he really for civil rights, he went into law, he worked in the prosecutor’s office I think in Middlesex county, he started his own defense firm and he wanted in on this trial.
So he offers to represent Richie Richard Allen pro bono so he can get the case.

Jake:
[31:02] He said at the time, his main concern before the trial started was Judge James Roy, So what was his reputation like that made Owens concerned?

Jan:
[31:13] A judge James Roy was known as the hanging judge. He was very, very uh favorable to the prosecution.
Defense lawyers believed that he was chosen when it was important for the case for the state to win the case and that these these three black men were not going to get a fair trial with judge Roy on the bench.
You know, Henry Owens called him out and out racist.

Jake:
[31:42] In both the initial trial and then the appeal that gets a new trial, one of the key factors is the makeup of the jury. What made the makeup of a jury back then different than it is today.

Jan:
[31:53] So at the time jurors were called,
in for like a month, so because jurors were called in for a month, they also allowed just a ton of exceptions for people who could claim financial difficulty and that was basically anybody with a good job,
because so many people were excluded granted exclusions.
What you were left with was the very young, the very old and union workers who whose contract covered jury service.
Also the roles came from registered voters and blacks did not register to vote in the same rate.
So there weren’t that many blacks in the jury pool to start off with.

Jake:
[32:33] And then there are other considerations that would whittle that number down even further, you talk about the challenge process for jurors.

Jan:
[32:41] The way it works is they call, I think 185 people got called.
That’s the jury pool and then they get divided up into veneers which go to the different cases and then they go to the judge and the judge and the lawyers, you know, the judge interviews them.
They can they can be struck for two reasons. One is for cause and for cause might be they’ve already made up their mind and they can’t be fair.
They are interviewed about their views. How much publicity have you heard? How has it affected you?
Do you know anybody who’s involved in this? Are you related to a cop? Are you related to a lawyer?
Because the publicity was so massive. A lot of people were excused for cause and it took a long time to see a jury in addition to being struck for cause.
The lawyers were all given a certain amount of peremptory challenges and these are challenges that they can just strike someone and they don’t have to give a reason.
The prosecutor winds up striking. I think it’s 12 of 13 black jurors, potential jurors using his peremptory challenges and they choose one token black as a means of protection. And they figure they’re covered.

Jake:
[33:52] The sole black juror was made the foreman right to make sure that who would still be there at the end of the trial.

Jan:
[33:58] Exactly. So they were covering their bets. They thought they thought they were covering their bets.

Jake:
[34:03] So once we finally get a jury impaneled what was prosecutor tom monday, able to have the witnesses established what was the narrative that he put together of what happened that night?

Jan:
[34:16] Tom monday. Also to give you some background was at the time the top prosecutor, defense attorneys say that at the time there weren’t a lot of great prosecutors.
He really is a super intelligent guy in a really good prosecutor, he can try a case.
So um, he, you know, he has a super lot of evidence in this case.
He’s got eight eyewitnesses, he’s got witnesses from the street who weren’t involved in it,
he has witnesses who say and these are the Harvard students who say that when the, when the black guys came after them, they said we are going to get you were going to cut you whities.
So tom Bundy is going after the three of them using a joint venture, even just being there and providing assistance so that the person feels they have the protection to stab somebody that could be considered joint venture.
Monday is trying to establish joint venture two ways, he’s establishing it by just the fact that they knew Easterling had a knife and he would use it and then he followed him.
They go with him to the al already knowing he had a knife and he used it on tom Lincoln That alone can establish joint venture but he’s also saying all three of them,
we’re protectors for the prostitute that they came out to chase the Harvard football players.
Not because they saw a young black woman in distress, but because they were in on it and that they were doing it for a take of the wallet.

Jake:
[35:39] For the rest of the trial, which members of the family would attend and then who would stay away besides Danny.

Jan:
[35:47] So in the first trial father Andrew sr he testifies but he also goes in his sister in law, Janice, Puopolo accompany center.
The family. The family is told not to come because if you cry and you know it’s very painful for starters but to hear that all that and if you cry out that can cause a mistrial,
so the prosecutor tells them not to come and they don’t.

Jake:
[36:17] One thing I was really struck by a description that Judge Roy, it seemed like he essentially couldn’t tell Henry Owens apart from his client.

Jan:
[36:27] Yeah, yeah, he calls him Alan throughout the whole thing.

Jake:
[36:32] Do you get the impression that he was trying to put his thumb on the scale? Or was he just confused about the identity of the attorney in front of him?

Jan:
[36:41] He does not like Henry Allen’s that’s very clear and he every time he objects to anything immediately puts him down.
I do think he was trying to show disrespect for his case.

Jake:
[36:54] Can you give us a sense of how each of the three attorneys capped off the trial with their closing statements?

Jan:
[37:00] So Henry Owens basically says he, my client is being tried for murder the crime.
His only crime is being a black man in the area, you know, there’s no, there’s no testimony. He touched Puopolo there’s no no testimony, he was involved in either fight.
Um you can’t convict somebody of murder for just being in the area.
Suarez is like Hurley says you can’t use joint venture, this is nothing like a bank robbery, it doesn’t apply.
He is very derogative about his clients. He says basically they’re just a product of that.
He actually says, I don’t put this in the book, but he says they’re a product of the ghetto and you can’t blame them.
Kind of. I mean it’s it’s a very weak defense I thought and well, assurance says, look,
he’s Eastern Wings lawyer and eastern wings Easterling says, look we’ve we’ve heard testimony, you know Andrew Puopolo was a noble young man, he put his life at risk to save a friend,
but if he was noble, so was leon Easterling, he was saving his friend,
well assurance that you expect to believe that these Harvard boys, they,
were drinking all night, but they weren’t drunk, this young prostitute forced her way into the van, you know, but he concludes with the noble act and um I thought that I thought I thought his closing was very compelling.

Jake:
[38:25] So the trial comes to its natural conclusion. We have the closing arguments by each of the defense attorneys.
Tom monday delivers his masterfully crafted closing argument.
But then, when I was really struck by was the almost Byzantine complexity of the jury instructions that Judge Roy came to the jurors.
What were some of the scenarios that he had to prepare them to consider when, when they were going to go back and deliberate on this case.

Jan:
[38:53] Well it is very complex because there’s three different defendants and then he has to, he has explained joint venture.
They believe they share the intent and they all have to go for first degree murder if they don’t share the intent or if you believe that Easterling was really trying to defend saw rez then it could be manslaughter.
It’s very complicated and I thought that the judge did a good job with the jury instructions.

Jake:
[39:17] To the tune of ours? I think I read of jury instruction.

Jan:
[39:21] Yeah. So it’s a complicated case. I mean both both. It’s very and it’s hard for the jury to understand.

Jake:
[39:28] After all that. How long did it take to come to a verdict?

Jan:
[39:32] Not long. So I think they recess around noon and they only they deliberate till fork in the afternoon And then they don’t have a decision that day, but they have a decision at 10:15 the next morning.
First degree murder for all three men and sores has additional charges for the the fight that took place where he kicked somebody like assault and battery with the shot foot.

Jake:
[39:58] In massachusetts, at the time, first degree murder carried an automatic sentence of life without possibility of parole. Is that, am I remembering that right?

Jan:
[40:05] Yeah, no, it still exists. I think.

Jake:
[40:07] They all got life sentences. And then, almost immediately,
public opinion starts to change in the months or the the year or so after this trial concludes, what’s happening to shift public opinion in the city of boston about this case.

Jan:
[40:27] So this this is where bussing really comes into play at the time when the first when the Puopolo jury is called whites are really still feeling quite put upon.
But public sentiment is starting to change. Some of the violence is there is more evidence of white violence against blacks.
And then there’s the case of brian nelson which is just heinous where and it’s in Medford.
A carload of whites.
Chase’s three black guys in a car and they’re all young and it’s a snowstorm and the black guy’s car spins out,
They get out of the get into a fight and Brian Nelson was like, I think 18 at the time,
gets stabbed to death with I think a broken coke bottle and beaten with a tire iron.
Immediately, the judge, you know, all, all, all of the whites are arrested.
The judge immediately lets all the other whites except a white marine, but he never gets charged with murder. I think he gets charged with manslaughter than an all white jury equipment.

Jake:
[41:33] The contrast into the popular case is pretty extreme.

Jan:
[41:36] Yeah, the contrast that that provides a really strong contrast and the city is changing. They’re getting they’re getting sick of bussing Wednesday hicks is voted out, pixie Palladino is voted out.
You know, the demographics of the city are changing too.

Jake:
[41:54] Hicks, who I think in 76 was the city council president in 77 loses her council seat.

Jan:
[41:59] Yeah. So there’s the case of a tourist group.

Jake:
[42:04] I think this example is going to resonate with our audience because we’re all history nerds and I’m sure many of our listeners have walked the Freedom Trail and walked up the many, many stairs of the Bunker Hill Monument. It’s a private school, right? Maybe even a religious school from somewhere I want to say in the midwest.

Jan:
[42:18] Yeah, no, no in pennsylvania, you know, they’re coming to boston to see the bunker hill monument and clearly did not get the memo that you can’t go to Charlestown if you’re black.
So they go and on their way home they get,
Beaten by 3, 3 White guys with hockey sticks, you can’t be a tourist and go to a bunker hill monument in in this city without getting beaten.
And the police go and they arrest three white guys and they bring them to trial an all white jury acquits the three hockey players.
Now there’s so much violence black people are trying to move into dorchester, they’re getting their houses fire bombed and that’s in the press and the idea is like, well, so what good does it do if you arrest these guys, if you know an all white jury is going to let them off.

Jake:
[43:11] Puopolo case, or the popular trial is also sort of a turning point forward the combat zone to write what changes happen there because of the trial.

Jan:
[43:21] Um Well this, it actually starts right after the murder, you know, so the police, you know Suffolk County district Attorney and the and the new police chief, joseph Jourdan just announced combat zone is failure.
It was a failed, is basically a failed experiment. It’s got to go.
And so they go after all the, the strip clubs and pretty soon Ray Flynn becomes mayor, he’s very determined, he does everything he can to shut down the combat zone.
I mean he won’t succeed, but he’ll succeed in shrinking it.

Jake:
[43:57] A very affecting moment for the family that happens among all this is in the fall of 1977, which I think would be almost exactly a year after the crime, or the attack. The city named a park after Andy.

Jan:
[44:08] Yes, yes, so the north end gets together and they petitioned the city to rename the waterfront park where Andy Pablo and his younger brother, you know, they first began youth sports and it becomes Andrew popular park,
and that becomes political, but who shows up and who doesn’t?
The governor shows up the biggest anti bussing opponents show up? But kevin White doesn’t show up.
Yes. Well the tragedy for for for the popular family, I mean one of the many tragedies their son’s name becomes intertwined with first with combat zone and now with racism.

Jake:
[44:47] So when I was one month old, March 1979, the Supreme Judicial Court overturns the convictions in the Puopolo case.

Jan:
[44:56] Uh, okay. Yeah.

Jake:
[44:58] What was the rationale behind the SJC decision?

Jan:
[45:02] The decision is interesting a couple of levels.
For one thing, shortly before they announced her decision, California High Court had been the first to say, you know what these peremptory challenges this use of peremptory challenges to get an all white jury that’s racist.
So the SJC says, You struck 12 out of 13 potential black jurors, that’s a pattern of racism.
They also reject all the defense’s arguments that there wasn’t enough Evidence to convict all three men first degree murder, that there was plenty of evidence to support joint venture.
And so that’s what the family sees. So that makes the setting aside of the convictions even more painful for the family.

Jake:
[45:46] And coming into a new trial, then there’s a lot of turnover on both sides of the case.
We have prosecutor tom monday is going to try the case again the second time, and Henry Owens will continue representing Richard. Allen everybody else turns over.
And I think most importantly, I think you should introduce us to the new judge, but also how did that change the second trial?

Jan:
[46:11] Well let’s start with the defense attorneys. So now you have norman’s al kind and Henry owns.
A former prosecutor told me They’re the kind of lawyers who give $50 of effort for every $1 of state fee.
You know, they’re very motivated and very bright uh norman’s al kind is a very, very savvy and smart lawyer and Andrew good is he had worked for Henry owns,
so they have a completely well prepared, aggressive and savvy defense team,
and then the judge, the new judge uh Judge McGuire, he’s brought back from retirement from this case because he’s known for his fairness.

Jake:
[47:01] To me, and you can correct me if this is a wrong impression, but that seems like almost a direct rebuke to judge Roy’s, the perception that he was sort of in the tank for the prosecution.

Jan:
[47:13] I think in this instance the review probably came with the more on the jury selection part of it because Owens was objecting,
every time a black juror was struck and and the judge was just saying yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up,
basically they need a new judge and they get, you know, they try to get one that is known for his fairness.

[47:37] The appeal is called is called the Suarez decision.
It establishes new parameters for how lawyers can use their peremptory challenges.
And the first time these new parameters are employed in the second popular trial and it’s like fireworks from the beginning.
I think monday actually did a better job of proving that there was a joint venture scheme that these defendants may have been involved in at least Easterling and Alan,
I think where he falls down is I don’t think sorry’s was involved in it and he’s trying to lump them all together.
I think the mistake he makes is by trying too hard to prove that Easterling and Alan were they regularly worked for them.
So monday tries to compensate from the way he questions Easterling about how could he have all?
He’s basically trying to prove he’s a pimp. How can you have a gym membership with?
How can you have this? How can you have that? How can you have a and he’s got a white wife who is in the seating.
He doesn’t say it, I love, but he’s pretty clear, he means how can you have a white wife?
And it sounds very demeaning and racist? And it turns the jury.

Jake:
[48:54] So eventually the jury goes away to deliberate, and I don’t think anybody who served in Suffolk County jury is eager to draw out the experience.
But you have a funny note about why this particular jury might have been especially motivated to wrap things up quickly. What moved them along.

Jan:
[49:10] The trial started I think like in October 19 and now it’s November 22. Thanksgiving is the next day, so they want to go home.
Defense attorneys told me there was also a juror who was who was drinking too much and smelled and they wanted, they had asked to get the person removed and the judge said no and they wanted this over and done with but they still deliberated 2.5 days I think.

Jake:
[49:32] Two more than the first time around.

Jan:
[49:34] Yeah, more than the first time around.

Jake:
[49:36] So what did they come back with In the end.

Jan:
[49:39] So they acquitted both saurus and Alan of all charges and they found Eastern laying guilty only of manslaughter.

Jake:
[49:48] You introduce the concept of jury nullification.
I’m not sure whether you would argue that it was a case of that. You certainly bring it up as a possibility. What does that term mean?

Jan:
[49:59] So during nullification came into kind of layman’s speak during the O. J. Simpson trial.
You know the argument was that that jury, it wasn’t necessarily saying that O. J. Was innocent but they’re making a statement on the L. A. Police department rather than on O. J.
The term nullification means most instances, it means you’re nullifying the law. Like so during the fugitive Slave Act, you know, it was illegal to harbor slaves.
Slaves would run away to New England and someone might get charged with aiding and assisting that and making them liable, they go to court and that no jury would convict them because the jury didn’t agree with slavery.
So it’s when the jury consciously or unconsciously is making a statement on the law itself or on on circumstances.

Jake:
[50:50] And in this case, the circumstances are the background of intense racial violence in the city.

Jan:
[50:56] Intense racial violence and I think it’s that the globe had also done a spotlight series showing how all white juries had consistently sentenced blacks to longer sentences and to harsher prisons and whites for the same exact crime.

Jake:
[51:11] Whatever you or I might think about the justice of the verdict in the in the second trial seems like it had a really long lasting impact on Danny Puopolo How did his life change in the,
I guess, the months and maybe the years following that second verdict?

Jan:
[51:28] You know, because so many people told him that it was going to get taken care of.
He felt that it should be taken care of, you know, they had offers to get them whacked in prison and they put their faith in the criminal justice system and the criminal justice system had failed them.
He as the, as the sun is the remaining son whose whose brother had always had his back and always been loyal to him.
He felt his job, his job to be loyal to his brother.

Jake:
[51:56] It sounds like Danny, almost dead Stock Richard Allen for maybe a decade after Andy’s death.

Jan:
[52:03] Yes, it was pretty easy to stock Richard Allen because he was always at the combat zone. But Edward Store is, yeah, I don’t think he hung around the combat zone anymore and Easterling was in prison.
So he was in the combat zone all the time.

Jake:
[52:17] So how does Andy go from driving aimlessly around the combat zone may be fantasizing about doing something to Richard, Allen to hiring somebody, or trying to hire someone to break Allen’s legs.

Jan:
[52:30] You know. Studies have since shown it’s a really common response to murder.
Murder is just a different kind of grief and particularly hard on adolescence.
It creates trauma and Danny wood for periods it would obsess on revenge. But then he would go, he was also very religious and he would go to church on their knees praying to be delivered from this revenge.

Jake:
[52:54] What did Liani sterling’s release Due to Danny Puopolo State of Mind?

Jan:
[53:00] It will refocused him away from Richard Allen who after all hadn’t been the one to brutally murder his brother to leon.
Easterling and the idea of leon is dealing walking free was just incredibly painful for him.
There are times when Danny can forget this, you know, he is moving on with his life. He’s got, he starts a successful business with his father, he marries, he has Children, he’s living a productive life and he just has bouts of this.
But sometimes he can’t help it and it returns.

Jake:
[53:35] It sounds like maybe one of the worst of those returns, or maybe the worst and last of those returns was a couple years after easter things release, he talked himself into plotting a murder for hire scheme. Did he go through with that?

Jan:
[53:49] He made the initial inquiries and he was about to set up a meeting.
He was frustrated with himself for never kind of pulling the trigger. But I don’t think he was ever going to pull the trigger.
I think early on maybe when he was 19 years old, if he had encountered them in a dark alley when it was all fresh, who might have, who knows what might have happened.
But I think as the years progressed it was part of his grief as opposed to a real plan.
His good friend says to him, Andy was gonna be a doctor. He was going to heal people.
He would not you keep because he kept thinking he had to do this for his brother. It was his obligation to do this for his brother.
And his friend convinced him it’s not for your brother. Your brother wouldn’t want this.
And then the friend said the way to honor him is to tell his story, tell his story.

Jake:
[54:39] Besides participating your ebook How How is He Told Andy’s Story?

Jan:
[54:43] Well originally when when he decided to do what they were going to do a film and they had, you know, they had a Hollywood director who was a classmate at Harvard with Andy,
and when I got involved I said I’ll do the screenplay on spec on condition I can do a book and the way I see it,
I don’t know if this book is healing for Danny.
I think maybe it didn’t accomplish what he wanted, wanted it to do because I did see things differently.
But you know, he’s done what he can to tell his brother’s story and.

Jake:
[55:14] Stanley doing okay these days.

Jan:
[55:15] I think he is there are very strong, very together family and I think someone else in the same circumstances, I don’t know what would have happened to them.

Jake:
[55:27] I appreciate your spending as much time with me today on this, this conversation as you have. And as I get ready to let you go, if our listeners want to follow you or your work online, where should they look for that?

Jan:
[55:37] Well my website www jam broken dot com.
Also you can follow me on instagram Jan Brogan with an underscore at the end or look me up on facebook or twitter Jam Grogan. No underscore.

Jake:
[55:51] No, underscore. And are there events? Book events in the boston area that people who come out meet? You learn more.

Jan:
[55:59] I’m going to be speaking at the, it’s through the Tewksbury library but it’s a multi library virtual event,
And I will be talking about how the 1976 murder left a lasting imprint on the city state and on criminal justice.
And I will be at the new ruling crime Bait November 12 and 13. That’s that’s really for mystery.
I’ve been talking about true crime panel, that’s I think that that might be sold out And I’m going to be speaking December eight as part of the Master List Book Club author talk,
I’m going to be interviewed and to register for that virtual event.
You need to go to Master List which is a free newsletter from Statehouse News.

Jake:
[56:46] And we’ll make sure to link to all the events in the show notes this week.
As well as linking to a way that you can purchase the book, which once again is the combat zone Murder race in boston struggle for justice by Jan Brogan. I just want to say thank you so much for joining me today.

Jan:
[57:05] This was a lot of fun. You’re a great interviewer.

Jake:
[57:08] Thanks to learn more about Jan Brogan the combat zone murder race in boston struggle for justice and the Puopolo case.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 236.
We’ll have an affiliate link where you can support hub history and your favorite local bookstores.
When you buy a copy of Jan’s the combat zone, I’ll also link to a december 1976. WcVB News report about the Puopolo case as well as a handful of globe stories about the case.
Plus I’ll have links to Jan Brogan’s website and social media profiles as well as details about our upcoming book events at the Tewksbury library and the new England Crime Big.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake:
[58:24] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.