A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger Page B

Commonwealth versus Roy Smith,” began RichardKelley, the prosecutor. “He is charged—and the Commonwealth shall prove—that on March 11, 1963, he robbed, raped, and murdered Mrs. Israel Goldberg, Bessie Goldberg, at 14 Scott Road, in Belmont.”
    Kelley then plunged into the cumbersome language of a formal indictment. When he was done, he went back and repeated the charges, this time describing in detail the circumstances of each crime. The language was dense and repetitive and did not shy away from the awful particulars of the crimes. “You will hear evidence,” Kelley told the fourteen men of the jury, “that this defendant Roy Smith, in his attack upon Bessie Goldberg, threw her on the floor, pushed up her girdle and underclothing, tore off and tore apart her underpants, and forcibly and against her will had intercourse with her. Penetrated the body of Bessie Goldberg and completed the act of intercourse upon her by force and against her will.”
    Richard Kelley was a tall man with a full head of curly black hair and bright, piercing eyes. He spoke carefully and thoughtfully with the flat vowels and dropped r’s of a slight Boston accent, and after fourteen years as a trial lawyer was fully at ease before the jury. “And then you will hear that this same Roy Smith, sitting here in the courtroom today, did attack her further,” he continued. “He tore from the garter belt the top of her stocking, took off the stocking from her leg and with that stocking wound around her neck, twisted it tightly, and for a period of time, until massive hemorrhages appeared on the face of Bessie Goldberg and caused her death, and you will hear from the medical testimony that her death was the result of that strangulation by Roy Smith, which will be described as a ligature. And that this Roy Smith, who sits before you today, was the one who for a period of time caused the life to gradually eke out of Bessie Goldberg and cause her death.”Kelley went on to explain to the jury that they would be hearing from many witnesses, all of whom had “their own capacity to observe and recall and their own manner of speech.” The accounts of these people, he explained, would effectively become a mosaic that depicted the events of March 11, 1963. At times Kelley’s account had the timeless quality of a fairy tale. “There was living at Belmont Mr. and Mrs. Israel Goldberg,” he said. “They lived for some ten years at 14 Scott Road; that Mrs. Goldberg was a loving and devoted wife and a mother of a daughter who was quite grown up. That Mr. Goldberg got up at 7 o’clock that morning, had some conversation with his wife, left fifteen dollars by the night table and went downstairs, had his breakfast and did various things, leaving the house approximately at 9 o’clock.”
    Kelley’s speech slowly gathered the force of true conviction. “You will hear that Roy Smith lied to police as to when he went to Belmont!” he promised. “When he left Belmont! What he was paid at Belmont! About what he did at Belmont! You will hear evidence of the weather that day. You will hear from the engineer who made the plans and you will hear other facts, Mr. Foreman and members of the jury, that I have not expressed to you at this particular time that will prove beyond a reasonable doubt each element in the three indictments against Roy Smith for the charges of rape, murder and robbery.”
    And so began the trial of Roy Smith, Negro, age thirty-five or thirty-six, charged with rape, robbery, and murder in the first degree.
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    THE MOST SERIOUS charge against Smith was, of course, the murder, which in Massachusetts carried with it an automatic deathpenalty if accompanied by a rape conviction. Murder is a category of homicide, which is a legally neutral term that simply means the killing of a human being. Suicide is technically a homicide, as are state executions and