Mother Throws Daughter to Death Under Auto: Marie Marino - 1920

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): Mrs. Marie Marino, 25 years old, hurled her five-year-old daughter, Evangelina, in the path of an automobile at Eastern Parkway and Rockaway Avenue, Brooklyn, yesterday, and attempted to throw herself under the wheels of the car. Her husband, James, a barber, dragged her to safety, but the child’s skull was fractured so that she died.

The impulse to kill herself and her daughter, the woman told Detectives Donelson and Reif and Assistant District Attorney John Hurley, attacked her when her husband refused to return to her. She was locked up in the Brownsville Station charged with homicide.

The couple, who had separated several times recently and took their grievance to the Domestic Relations Court. They were in court yesterday and after they left Marino told his wife he would sue her for divorce. “There’s your child,” cried the woman throwing the girl  in front of the automobile when she heard Marino’s declaration.

Marino was held as a material witness pending the police investigation of the case.

[“Hurls Child in Auto’s Path – Mother Then Attempts Suicide – Says Marital Troubles Caused Act.” The New York Times (N.Y.), Jun. 5, 1920, p. 32]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): Brooklyn, N. J. June 19. — Mothers of the human species are noted for excessive love of offspring. For their little ones they sacrifice to the point of suffering, toil without end, and face any danger to protect them. Exceptions to the rule are few. The mother who will harm her child is rare. It is usually believed she is crazy, suddenly gone mad.

Mrs. Mary Marino, of Brooklyn, wife of James Marino, threw her five-year-old daughter, Angelina, under an automobile, while in an argument with her husband. The couple were standing on Eastern Parkway quarreling. They had been separated for some time.

Mrs. Marino says she believed Marino had been attentive to other women and was unwilling to provide for her; that he cared for his children, but not for her, and that he would not buy her a new dress because his interest in her was dead.

Mrs. Marino was arraigned in the New Jersey Avenue Police Court. Creamy of skin, rounded features, tired eyes and smoothly drawn back, pale brown hair, the young mother stood calmly before the Magistrate. Her glance seemed to dwell on something far off as she listened calmly to the arraignment.

More restless was James Marino, her husband, as he sat upon the witness stand. Thin faced, dark and wiry, he made a striking contrast to his wife, who never looked at him.

He was smartly dressed in a dark suit, good shoes—a touch of bright color in his green socks. He held a new Bangkok hat in his lap. Mrs. Marino, because she is rather  stout, looks older than she is to the casual observer. Perhaps that is why her garb appears more careless than that of her dapper mate. She has a simple, kind face.

Why, then, did Mrs. Marino kill her child?

After the arraignment she sat in a chair near the front of the courtroom. During our talk she remained calm enough till someone blunderingly spoke of her three children, forgetting that there are but two now, and that the death of one of them was the whole cause of the proceedings.

“My children,” she sobbed, “there are only two now. If I could start again and live just for them—my children.”

“Why did you do this?”

“I don’t know,” she said wearily.

“I don’t remember everything. I will tell you about my married life.

“My husband is Italian. I am of Polish descent. A difference in nationalities is bad in marriage. It make lots of trouble.”

“Then there was his mother. We lived in her house. I went there when I was a bride. I was used to one sort of thing to eat. She didn’t like what I liked. I couldn’t eat what they had and was not allowed to cook what I wanted. When I would leave the food on my plate his mother would say was not hungry and there was something the matter with me.”

“Nothing I did was right. People from different countries don’t understand each other.”

“No couple should live with the mother of one of them. We moved away before Angelina was born—not so far — we lived next door. That was too near.”

“We separated then. I thought he got tired of me. He liked the children,  I guess, but he didn’t want to do anything for me.”

“If you are not set free, will you live again with your husband?” she was asked. “Do you still love him?”

“I don’t hate him.” she admitted. “I can’t hate him. If he acted right I would get along fine with him.”

“After — after — I can’t remember — the other day when it happened — a woman came up to me and said she saw it and it was an accident, but some detective drove her away. She could tell you it was an accident, and I wish I could find that woman. I wish she would come and tell what she saw. She was a young Jewish woman. I remember that much.”

“Nobody comes to see me but my mother. My husband hasn’t been near me in the jail. Only my mother. She is the only one who stands by me. He never even sent me a note or anything.”

During the arraignment the Magistrate ordered. Marino to give his wife some money, saying she might like something in the way of food besides jail fare. Marino drew a bill out and handed it to the prisoner, who took it listlessly, not looking up at him. Perhaps – if Mrs. Marino is to be believed – this husband would have done better to have handed out more bills at an earlier date.

It is expected that Mrs. Marino will give temporary aphasia or some such plea for her mad act.

Meanwhile the mother who through madness or other cause caused her child’s death is protected and cheered by her own mother, who follows the immemorial habit of her kind. The instinct to guide and protect is maternity’s most admirable phase when it is not overdone, as in the case of a woman who tries to guide her offspring in matrimonial affairs, thereby obstructing desired domestic peace and quiet.

[“Mother Throws Child to Death Under Auto,” syndicated, The Kokomo Daily Tribune (In.), Jun. 19, 1920, p. 6]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3) Mrs. Marie Marino, charged with killing her five-year-old daughter, Evangelina, by throwing her in front of an automobile at Rockaway Avenue and Eastern Parkway, on June 4, was acquitted yesterday afternoon in the County Court, in Brooklyn. The jury took but half an hour in arriving at a verdict. The woman said she was discussing marital troubles with her husband when the child was struck.

[“Mother Acquitted of Killing Child.” The New York Times (N.Y.), Jul. 24, 1920, p. 4]

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SEE:  Maternal Filicide: Spousal Revenge Motive

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