He Bit My Head Off, I Cut Off His
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Angelina watched as her husband marched up the stairs. After having yet another row with him about work and money, he finally went to bed. She would follow along shortly. A minute later she quietly crept up the stairs to their room. Seeing her husband’s sleeping form curled up in bed. She walked up to his side and, with one swift motion, she severed his head with an axe. Angelina returns the axe to the woodshed, and for the next hour cuddles with her youngest. In the little Sault Ste. Marie row house, Angelina called her neighbour, she said to them “I just a killed a pig.”
It was the year 1911, a time when the average household wife was not a stranger to domestic abuse. Angelina Napolitano was no exception.
At the age of 16 Angelina married her husband Pietro Napolitano in Naples, Italy. After he packed them up and moved to America. They settled in New York for the next seven years before travelling north with four children to Sault Ste. Marie. They landed a year later in their final home in the Soo’s west end, Little Italy.
Angelina’s husband made a living working at the Algoma Steel plant, but even with securing this full-time job wasn’t enough for Pietro to support his family. This was hard on Pietro, so he began to drink. And when he drank, he got nasty. This is when Angelina became his target. Pietro wanted his wife to sell herself on the streets for more money. As time went on Pietro’s beatings got worse every time Angelina refused to comply.
In November of 1910 Pietro disappeared. Angelina thought her husband was gone for good, and so she took in a boarder, a man whom she started an affair with right away. This didn’t last for long as a couple weeks later Pietro showed up and chased the boarder away. Furious, Angelina told Pietro she didn’t want to have him for a husband anymore. Pietro didn’t take his well, he then proceeded to stab her with his pocketknife nine times in her chest, arms, shoulders, and her face. For the next three weeks Angelina stayed in a hospital when her husband was arrested for attempt to ‘maim.’ He pleaded guilty. The judge who took the case sympathized with him. The judge believed that Mr. Napolitano’s actions were triggered by his wife’s aliased affair. So, in the interest of the family, he let Mr. Napolitano off easy with a short sentence, deeming it best that he be out of jail to support his family.
In his last remaining months Pietro tormented his wife and demanded she sell her body; sending clients over to his house while he was at work, but Angelina refused to let them in.
It was Easter morning, after Pietro’s night shift, and right away they got into it; Pietro demanded his wife prostitute herself or he would throw her out of the house, then kill her for abandoning their family. She wasn’t ready to meet the end by her husband’s hands, so she decided she would have to end him first. After she sliced her husband’s head off, Angelina placed the axe back in the woodshed without feeling an ounce of regret, only relief.
In May of 1911, at seven months pregnant, Angelina stood before an all-male jury and pleaded guilty. The judge assigned to her case, Judge Bryon Britton, wanted nothing more than to watch her swing. He silenced Angelina’s lawyer and convinced the jury that she was in no imminent danger with her husband fast asleep in his bed. The final nail in her coffin was when the Judge promised that they wouldn’t hang Angelina until after she gave birth. “The legal principle of “immediate threat” would be a key issue in the 1990 court case, R. v. Lavallee, that ultimately established battered wife syndrome as a defense in Canada: It meant women who fought back and killed their abusers could be acquitted of the crime.” (Fifteen Canadian stories, pg. 25) Even though the jury recommended lenience, the Judge was adamant that Angelina be hanged by the neck until she was dead.
Sources:
Duffy, A. (2019, April 10). Fifteen Canadian stories: A murder trial like no other. Retrieved September 30, 2019, from https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/fifteen-canadian-stories-a-murder-trial-like-no-other.
Kitty Snapp
As a person who loves the arts, Kitty Snapp especially loves the art of writing horror. Being able to make people jump with just the written word, is a truly great writer. That's what she aspire to be.
