1929: Sentenced to the electric chair, freed to kill again

On May 10, 1929, 24-year-old Elizabeth Palumbo submitted to an abortion, evidently performed by Dr. Amante (or Amenti) Rongetti. She was taken to West End Hospital afterward, and she died there on May 23.

I was amazed to see Rongetti tied up in this case, because only the previous year he had been sentenced to die in the electric chair for the abortion death of Loretta Enders. Rongetti's attorney evidently had been successful in his bid for a new trial. Elizabeth Palumbo and her family no doubt would have been better off had this bid failed.

Elizabeth's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.



Update: Photos of Rongetti are published at Getty Images, but I can't afford the licensing fee and they won't enter the public domain until 2017. So if you want to see Rongetti in court, on trial for the death of Loretta Engers, click on the Getty Images link. (So much for us rich prolifers who get paid handsomely to do this work.)