36 DECEMBER 7, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Woodhaven murderers’ date with ‘Old Sparky’
PRESENTED BY THE WOODHAVEN
CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
Last month, we brought you the
story of the murder of Professor
Wilfred Phineas Kotkov of
Woodhaven. It was a frigid night in
February 1921 and the professor was
attacked and brutally beaten with an
iron bedpost in an empty lot on Liberty
Avenue. Kotkov succumbed to his
injuries, leaving a young wife and two
children behind.
Peter Nunziata and Joseph Alfano of
Brooklyn were immediately arrested
and, once at the precinct, they confessed
and implicated Frank Cassesso,
also from Brooklyn, and Alphonso
“The Turk” Verona, of Water Street,
Woodhaven, in the attack.
There were immediate calls for swift
justice; newspaper editorials called for the
ultimate retribution – the electric chair.
Within a week, indictments were
handed down and the trial of Peter
Nunziata began just 5 weeks aft er the
attack. The jury deliberated for less
than two hours and found Nunziata
guilty and the judge set the date of execution
as June 5th. Peter Nunziata was
the youngest person ever sentenced to
death in the State of New York.
The second young man to go on trial
was Joseph Alfano of Brooklyn. Alfano
claimed that he had been beaten so
badly by police that one of his eyes was
swollen shut for several days. The trial
lasted 2 days and Alfano was found
guilty and sentenced to death.
The remaining two men awaiting
trial – Frank Cassesso, from Brooklyn,
and Alphonso “The Turk” Verona,
Woodhaven – no doubt swayed by the
results of the fi rst two trials, rushed
to plead guilty.
Cassesso was allowed to plead guilty
to manslaughter in the fi rst degree
and was sentenced to eight to 16 years.
Alphonse “The Turk” Verona was sent
to Sing Sing for twenty years to life.
Nunziata and Alfano’s lawyer immediately
appealed their death sentences,
fi rst on the basis of their sanity. Upon
being declared sane, their lawyer fi led
appeal aft er appeal, delaying their
executions. Their cause was helped by
several activist groups who protested
executions in general and executions
of young men in particular.
However, the appeal process wound
down and fi nally, on June 6, 1922, Nunziata’s
19th birthday, he was told that
he was out of appeals and would die
in just over a month.
The night of his execution, Nunziata
was visited in the death house by his
parents and other members of the
family, who came from their home in
Williamsburg. None of his family was
permitted to embrace him or touch him
in any way, a heavy mesh screen keeping
them a foot away from his cell door.
His family had brought a bounty of
food, but Nunziata was not allowed to
have any. Instead, he requested that
it be divided among the 29 other condemned
men occupying nearby cells.
When it came time to take the fi nal,
fateful walk to Old Sparky, Nunziata’s
family members were consumed with
grief as they said goodbye. Nunziata
had remained calm throughout the
visit, but seeing his parents in tears
shattered his resolve.
But he gathered his composure and
comforted members of his family by
telling them that he was glad his troubles
would soon be over.
"I am ready," he said, and turned his
back on his family, and walked past the
cell doors of other men who were also
soon scheduled to die. Ten minutes
later, Peter Nunziata, 19 years old, was
pronounced dead.
It would be a year later that Alfano
would take a similar trek to the electric
chair, paying the ultimate price for his
part in the murder of Professor Wilfred
Phineas Kotkov of Woodhaven.
Of the remaining two men arrested
for the crime, little is known. Cassesso
served his time and, upon release, disappeared.
And Alphonso “The Turk” Verona
of Woodhaven, believed to be the
devious mind behind the brutal crime,
was eventually released from prison
when in his 50s and took up residence
in Richmond Hill, where he lived ten
quiet years until passing away at age 62.
Of Kotkov’s wife and two children,
even less is known. Aft er the trial,
they vanished from the public eye and
began life anew, without the husband
and father who had been brutally taken
away from them on a frigid night
that ruined many lives forever.