Milford chronicle., 1906-05-25
GIRL TELLS OF
HER SAD LIFE
Mrs. TerranOva Describes Days Of
Drudgery and DishOnOr.
BHE KILLED UNCLE AND AUNT

New York May 2S.-Josephine Ter
Tanova, the girl wife. who killed her
uncle and aunt, was called to the wit
ness stand in her trial before Justice
Scott and a jury in the supreme court.
The girl was calm when she began
the telling of her life's history in re-
sponse to the gentle leading question
of her counsel, former Judge Palmieri.
She said she was 8 years old when
she came to America and her uncle
and aunt took her to their home. She
then told how they abused and beat
her and said: II always worked,
worked. In the winter time I was
made to get up at o'clock l did
everything in the house. I scrubbed
ironed washed, cooked and made the
beds. Sometimes he had Is bOarders.
Up till the night before I was mar
ried I worked On Friday night / was
scrubbing the floor, and the next day
was married"
Then she told OF her dishonor and
shame. 1t wa5 a heart-rending ac-
count so much so that one woman /
threw up her hands and fell over in /.
a dead faint. For a moment the wheels /
Of justice paused while Dr. o O'Hanlon, /
the coroner's physician who was /
present. rushed forward to attend her. /
The woman was carried out and the /
testimony continued.
The witness said that her husband .
was led to suspect what her relations .
with her uncle had been because Of a /
remark which the latter made. She de-
clared that her uncle's mistreatment
covered a period of about six years,
and that it continued up to and in
cluding the night after her civil mar
riage to Terranova.
She told of the circumstances which
led her to kill the uncle Gaetano, and
her aunt, Concetta. She said that her
husband. after listening to her con
fession, told her that she was no
longer his wife, and thereupon left
her She remained alone during the
following 10 days, subject, she said, to
the influence of hallucinations, in
which her uncle appeared. Whenever
he appeared a voice said: "Kill him.
Each night the witness continued,
she would dream or imagine that she
was in the presence of God, and there
again she would hear the words: kill
your uncle"
At the end Of 10 days, the girl said
she went to her mothers house and
was turned away. Then the mysterious
voices became more insistent and
their directions more pointed telling
her to buy knife and a revolver and
kill When armed and on her way to
their house for this purpose, she said
she crossed herself three times and
prayed TO know whether she was do
ing right. She confronted her uncle,
calling him traitor" and he replied:
''YOu are an outcast." :
SA remembered little of her attack,
but asserted that she began to stab
when her aunt came between her and
She did not remember which c
one she struck first.
Under cross-examination by Assist
ant District Attorney Ely, the witness
said that she had been unable to run
away from her uncle's treatment, as !,
she desired to. Her aunt, she said, had .
told her that there was no harm in !
her relations with GaetanO. Justice
Scott, who IS trying the case, ques- =
TONED the girl about the voices she =
claimed to have heard, and she told :
him that they came ike a ringing in I
the ears.