Giuseppe Zangara facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Giuseppe Zangara
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Mug shots of Giuseppe Zangara following his arrest
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| Born | September 7, 1900 Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy
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| Died | March 20, 1933 (aged 32) Florida State Prison, Raiford, Florida, U.S.
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| Cause of death | Execution by electrocution |
| Conviction(s) | First degree murder Attempted murder (4 counts) |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
Giuseppe Zangara (September 7, 1900 – March 20, 1933) was an Italian immigrant and naturalized United States citizen who attempted to assassinate the President-elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on February 15, 1933, 17 days before Roosevelt's inauguration. During a night speech by Roosevelt in Miami, Florida, Zangara fired five shots with a handgun he had purchased a couple of days before. He missed his target and instead killed Anton Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago, and injured five bystanders.
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Early life
Zangara was born on September 7, 1900, in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy. After serving with the Royal Italian Army in the Tyrolean Alps during World War I, he did a variety of menial jobs in his home village before emigrating with his uncle to the United States in 1923. He settled in Paterson, New Jersey, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1929.
Health issues
Zangara had little education and worked as a bricklayer. He suffered severe pain in his abdomen, which doctors told him was chronic and incurable. In 1926 he underwent an appendectomy, but it was no help; if anything, it may have made his pain worse. The doctors who performed his autopsy attributed his abdominal pain to adhesions they found on his gallbladder. In his prison memoir, Zangara himself attributed his pain to being forced to do grueling physical labor on his father's farm from an early age. He wrote that his pain began when he was six years old.
Observers at the time and following his execution have discussed his mental state. Arguments have been made that Zangara was mentally ill, incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and ought to have had an insanity defense presented on his behalf while others have contended that he was sane.
Assassination attempt
On February 15, 1933, Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech at night from the back of an open car in the Bayfront Park area of Miami, Florida, where Zangara was working the occasional odd job and living off his savings. Zangara, armed with a .32-caliber US Revolver Company revolver he had bought for $8 (equivalent to $180 in 2022) at a local pawn shop, joined the crowd of spectators, but as he was only 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, he was unable to see over other people and had to stand on a wobbly metal folding chair.
After Zangara fired the first shot, Cross and others grabbed his arm, and he fired four more shots wildly. Five people were hit: Mrs. Joseph H. Gill; Miss Margaret Kruis of Newark, New Jersey; New York detective/bodyguard William Sinnott; Russell Caldwell of Miami; and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was standing on the running board of the car next to Roosevelt. The intended target, Roosevelt, was unharmed.
Aftermath
Zangara pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. As he was led out of the courtroom, Zangara told the judge: "Four times 20 is 80. Oh, judge, don't be stingy. Give me a hundred years."
Cermak died of peritonitis 19 days later, on March 6, 1933, two days after Roosevelt's inauguration. Zangara was promptly indicted for first-degree murder in Cermak's death. Because Zangara had intended to commit murder, the fact that his intended target may not have been the man he ultimately killed was not relevant as he would still be guilty of first-degree murder under the doctrine of transferred intent.
Zangara pleaded guilty to the additional murder charge and was sentenced to death by Circuit Court Judge Uly Thompson. Under Florida law, a convicted murderer could not share cell space with another prisoner before his execution, but another convicted murderer was already awaiting execution at Raiford. Zangara's sentence required prison officials to expand their waiting area for prisoners sentenced to death and the "death cell" became "Death Row".
Execution
After spending only 10 days on death row, Zangara, who refused to appeal his sentence, was executed on March 20, 1933, in Old Sparky, at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
Conspiracy theory
While accounts focus on Cermak and the other victims being random casualties of an attempt to assassinate Roosevelt, a conspiracy theory emerged sometime before 1999, originating in Chicago, asserting that Zangara was a hired killer working for Frank Nitti, who was the head of the Chicago Outfit crime syndicate. John William Tuohy, author of numerous books on organized crime in Chicago, after reviewing Secret Service records, described in detail in a 2002 article his interpretation of how and why Cermak was the real target and the relationship of the shooting to the rampant gang violence in Chicago. The theory is enhanced by numerous researchers, citing their analysis of court testimony, asserting that Cermak had directed an assassination attempt on Nitti less than three months earlier.
The conspiracy theorists suggest that Zangara had been an expert marksman in the Italian Army 16 years earlier, who would presumably hit his target, though sidestepping any issues about Zangara's progressive age and health issues since his time in the war, his short stature requiring him to stand on a jostled chair, his experience being with a rifle rather than with a pistol from a great distance, and his own statements regarding his target.
Raymond Moley, who interviewed Zangara, believed he was not part of any larger conspiracy, and that he had intended to kill Roosevelt.
See also
- List of assassinations
- List of people who were executed
- List of people executed in Florida (pre-1972)
