At 6 o’clock she was awakened, she
said, by the baby crying, and it was
then that she saw, to her horror, that
Rosa had been severely beaten. She ran
screaming onto the landing where she
met Angelo and Patsio.
It was the last time Jane Reynolds and
Angelo di Lucia agreed any version of
events. Over the coming weeks, each
spun different stories at different times
and blamed one another for the killing.
The Sligo Independent newspaper
reported that the whole affair caused “a
painful sensation throughout the town,
and large crowds gathered outside the
court where the inquest was heard.”
Angelo, who was the first witness,
told the court: “On Monday night I
went into my wife’s room and stayed
about five minutes, smoking a fag. Then
I went to my brother’s room and slept
there. I’d left my wife in bed with the
baby, and the servant girl was sitting
away on her left hand side. My wife was
right-handed. She gave another snore
and then died.”
Angelo described how he had washed
his wife and got Jane to mop the room
because “I couldn’t look on the blood.”
He continued: “I didn’t ask the
servant what happened to my wife
because I think she has done it
to herself. My wife thought I was
dissatisfied because she’d had three
daughters and no son and she said some
time she would leave me.
“Jane Reynolds made no statement
to me that my wife had killed herself.
She and my wife had been on friendly
terms, and the night before she died
she promised to buy the servant
something.”
Patsio was next on the stand, and he
told the jury that he’d heard nothing
until Jane called out to Angelo to come
and see his wife as she was lying on the
floor dying. This was apparently not
enough to fully rouse Patsio and he fell
asleep again.
“When I awoke the second time it
was to hear my brother crying. At about
7 o’clock, the servant wakened me with
one of the children in her arms, crying.
She said my sister-in-law was dead.
I went into the bedroom and saw the
woman in bed with a bandage round
her head. My brother was there, cryingand roaring, but I didn’t speak to him.
I didn’t think it strange that my sister-
in-law should be dead.”
Dr. P. J. Flanagan told the court that
Rosa, a healthy young woman, had died
as a result of concussion caused by
head injuries. Death, however, was not
instantaneous. She had probably been
unconscious for several hours, he said.
“The wounds could not have
been self-inflicted, and each one
corresponded with the size and curve
of the hammer. There was no trace of
lemonade in her stomach.”
According to Jane Reynolds, Rosa’s
behaviour that night was strange. She
put one of the babies on the floor and
laughed, and when the newborn baby
started to cry, she shook her in hercradle.
“At last I fell asleep. The baby woke
me at 6 o’clock with its crying, and I
cleaned her bottle in the dark and put
it in her mouth. Then the other baby
wailed and I picked her up out of her
cradle. It was then that I saw Mrs. di
Lucia with her head on the pillow and
her feet on the floor. It never occurred
to me what caused the injuries to her.
“I don’t suppose anybody came into
the room during the night because
she had locked the door, and when I
wakened in the morning it was still tight
closed.”
The coroner stared at Jane Reynolds
for a long time before saying: “Isn’t
it extraordinary that none of you –
Angelo, Jane or Patsio – were in the least
curious to know what had happened to
her?”Hopes were high that
Jane Reynolds would be
reprieved. After all, no
17-year-old had been
hanged in Britain or
Ireland since 1889...there looking at a paper. I told her to
remain with my wife.
“I undressed before going to bed. I
only wear my shirt in bed. About five to
seven next morning I hear the servant
girl shouting: ‘Boss! Boss!’ I get up and
put on my pants and meet her on the
stairs and she says to me: ‘Your wife is
on the floor!’
“I go into the bedroom and find my
wife on the floor with her head near
the stove and her feet by the bed. She
wasn’t dead, as she snored when I lifted
her head. The gas was still burning a
bit and I had enough light to see her
face. I saw her head was broken and
there was a hammer a couple of feet
Ballymote, 14 miles from Sligo,
where Jane’s family lived. Right, the
notice announcing Angelo’s reprieve