The police already know the names and addresses of persons murdered for their insurance, Usually they were fed poison, bit by bit, in their food by their wives, For ten years, the ring fooled dèçtors and coroners.
Police have evidence that the ring planned the slow deaths of the widows of the. murdered men, so there would be no witnesses to testify against them. Some of the most important witnesses are sick. A physician supplied the poison and the names of prospects.
The body of Gaenao Peno, 35, sought in the death of his wife at Salem, New Jersey, was removed from Philadelphia General Hospital here to an undertakers establishment for chemical analysis of his vital organs. Police believe Peno was slain by the ring when they thought he would talk, and by the same poison they charged him with administering to his wife.
Under arrest and held without bail are:
Dry Horace D, Penman, 50, for 28 years a practicing physician specializ~ ing in obstetrics, charged with being an accessory before and after' the fact, whom the District Attorney says furnished poison' and obtained Cesare Valenti, $5, six feet two inches tall, weighing 230 pounds, Rafaele Polselli, 42, small, wizened, who confessed aiding the ring in three murders.
Mrs, Anna Arena, 45, who conspired with others and had her husband, Joseph, pushed off a fishing boat at sea and collected insurance.
Gaetana Ciccinotti, 45, an insurance agent, who confesses he pushed Joseph Arena into the sea.
Mrs. Christina Cerrone, landlady of one of Herman Petrillo's victims.
Mrs. Dora Sherman, 62, proprietress of a chicken market, who lis charged with conspiracy to murder her husband, Abraham, He died in July, 1936.
Samuel Sortino, 33, a machinist, who said he pushed crippled Rafael Caruso, 53, into the Schuylkill River for $100 paid by Herman Petrillo, who watched the murder.
Joseph Swartz, who confessed he poisoned his mother-in-law, Mrs. Lena Winkleman, "Kiss of Death"
Mrs, Rose Davis, who confessed that she poisoned her first husband, Louis La Vecchio, for $1,000 insurance, Rose Carina, "The Kiss of Death," to stand trial for at least five murders, The body of one of her husbands was- dug up and found to contain conium, famous in literature as hemlock—the poison Socrates drank.
The Bolber-Paul Petrillo branch, with South Philadelphia as its territory, murdered bachelors, widowers, and men separated from their wives. Their. lure, police say, was Rose Ruggiero, alias Rose Hsi, alias Rose Carina, alias "The Kiss of Death." She gave her favour to many men and married several; all but the first and last of her husbands died.
Her first husband, John Carbonne, whom she married in Hammonton, New Jersey, and to whom she had three children, refused to be insured, and lives. Dominie Carina, her second husband, died leaving insurance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.