WV WV - Rosina Fazio, 56, Charleston, 25 October 1949

Kanawha City Frank

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Hello, Websleuths of WV!

I am writing an article for Goldenseal Magazine, the WV State Folklore quarterly. It is called "Capital Crimes." The two VERY cold cases I'm featuring are the October 1949 murder of West Side restaurant owner Rosina Fazio, and the August 1953 murder of Juliet Staunton Clark, the owner and Publisher of the Charleston Daily Mail newspaper. Both are unsolved.

In the Fazio murder, Robert Ballard Bailey was convicted and sentenced to be the first person executed in the Moundsville electric chair. The sentencing judge, Judge Savage, was in tears as he pronounced the death sentence. He did not believe Bailey was guilty but his hands were tied. The warden of the MSP also believed Bailey was innocent and contacted the famous Earl Stanley Gardner, creator of the Perry Mason novels, who gave Bailey a polygraph (that he passed) only 48 hours prior to his date with the chair. Governor Pattison (sic) was contacted by Gardner who convinced him Bailey was innocent and he commuted the death sentence to life in prison. Governor Underwood gave Bailey a "conditional" pardon which Governor Smith then made "unconditional." The son of Rosina, Joe Fazio, put out a contract on Bailey, and he wisely left the state. The crime is unsolved, but in a Friday conversation with the COD at CPD, the finger was put on Joe Fazio (reputed to be mobbed up) as the killer of his mother.

The second case, Juliet Staunton Clark's murder, is even more bizarre, but also features money (lots of it), status, famous Charleston figures, mystery, innuendo, gossip and no arrest. Mrs. Clark, widow of the Governor of Alaska, was last seen alive around 9 p.m., August 21, 1953, by her son in law, Archibald Alexander II. The next morning, her body was discovered by her maid. She's been beaten about the head so hard it looked as though she'd been shot. Only a wallet was missing. Her sons (by her first husband) were the Clay brothers who started the Clay Center in Charleston. At the time of her murder, Lyle B. Clay was actually City Solicitor of Charleston. The chief suspect, never arrested, was the son in law.

I'm a historian, not a crime writer. I need your input on these two cases!
 
Hello, Websleuths of WV!

I am writing an article for Goldenseal Magazine, the WV State Folklore quarterly. It is called "Capital Crimes." The two VERY cold cases I'm featuring are the October 1949 murder of West Side restaurant owner Rosina Fazio, and the August 1953 murder of Juliet Staunton Clark, the owner and Publisher of the Charleston Daily Mail newspaper. Both are unsolved.

In the Fazio murder, Robert Ballard Bailey was convicted and sentenced to be the first person executed in the Moundsville electric chair. The sentencing judge, Judge Savage, was in tears as he pronounced the death sentence. He did not believe Bailey was guilty but his hands were tied. The warden of the MSP also believed Bailey was innocent and contacted the famous Earl Stanley Gardner, creator of the Perry Mason novels, who gave Bailey a polygraph (that he passed) only 48 hours prior to his date with the chair. Governor Pattison (sic) was contacted by Gardner who convinced him Bailey was innocent and he commuted the death sentence to life in prison. Governor Underwood gave Bailey a "conditional" pardon which Governor Smith then made "unconditional." The son of Rosina, Joe Fazio, put out a contract on Bailey, and he wisely left the state. The crime is unsolved, but in a Friday conversation with the COD at CPD, the finger was put on Joe Fazio (reputed to be mobbed up) as the killer of his mother.

The second case, Juliet Staunton Clark's murder, is even more bizarre, but also features money (lots of it), status, famous Charleston figures, mystery, innuendo, gossip and no arrest. Mrs. Clark, widow of the Governor of Alaska, was last seen alive around 9 p.m., August 21, 1953, by her son in law, Archibald Alexander II. The next morning, her body was discovered by her maid. She's been beaten about the head so hard it looked as though she'd been shot. Only a wallet was missing. Her sons (by her first husband) were the Clay brothers who started the Clay Center in Charleston. At the time of her murder, Lyle B. Clay was actually City Solicitor of Charleston. The chief suspect, never arrested, was the son in law.

I'm a historian, not a crime writer. I need your input on these two cases!


:Welcome1:

I'm not a West Virginian, Kanawha City Frank -- but welcome to Websleuths!
 
Kanawha City Frank, why dont you set up separate threads for these two cases so that the information doesnt get confusing for you as people start to sleuth. What do you think?
 
believe,

That's the kind of critical thinking I need help with! A great suggestion and I'll get on it right now.
 
http://bonpasseexonerationservices.com/documents/0RobertBallardBaileycombo.pdf

On October 22, 1949, 56-year-old Rosina Fazio was robbed of cash and diamond jewelry, badly beaten, and left for dead in high weeds beside a street in Charleston. She was found unconscious and taken to a local hospital, where she died on October 25. Before she died, according to her son, Joseph Fazio, she identified her assailant as “Bob, the glass cutter.” Based on that allegation a warrant was issued for Robert Ballard Bailey, a 35-year-old Charleston glazier, who had hurriedly left town the day of the murder. Ballard was arrested on October 28 in Palatka, Florida, and charged with the crime...

On March 9, 1950, Bailey was convicted of first-degree murder, mandating an automatic death sentence under the West Virginia law then in force. The trial judge, Jackson Savage, not convinced of Bailey’s guilt, was in tears as he pronounced the mandatory death sentence...

Upon review, the West Virginia Department of Probation and Parole concluded that Bailey indeed was innocent and recommended that he be pardoned. In 1951, Patterson commuted the sentence to life in prison. In 1960, Governor Cecil H. Underwood granted Bailey a conditional pardon, and six years later Governor Hulett C. Smith dropped the conditions.
 
Was Bailey officially declared innocent or the conviction reversed? As I understand it, in most, if not all, places, a pardon is only a forgiveness and not the same as a "not guilty"; thus a pardon technically leaves the conviction in place. Some jurisdictions don't want to declare a convicted person innocent because they fear it might open them up to a lawsuit.
 
Rosina Pallone Fazio


Rosina “Rosie” Pallone Fazio
BIRTH
4 Jul 1893
Crotone, Provincia di Crotone, Calabria, Italy
DEATH 25 Oct 1949 (aged 56)
Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA
BURIAL
Mount Olivet Cemetery
Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA

Rosina came to America in 1913 from Savelli, Crotone, Calabria, Italy.

On June 23, 1914 she married Domenico Fazio (1883–1967) in Ft. Wayne, Allen Co., IN

Domenico and Rosina lived in Chicago, IL for awhile then move to Charleston, WV in 1918

Rosina was brutally murdered on October 25, 1949 in Charleston, WV

Children:
Eva Fazio Wells 1915–1989
Iva Fazio
Irene Fazio Sutton 1917–2004
James Fazio 1917–1980
Arthur Fazio 1918–1937
Otto Fazio 1918–1937
Joseph J. "Joe" Fazio 1922–2016
Margaret Fazio
Frank Fazio 1926–2020
Stella Fazio

LINK:

Rosina “Rosie” Pallone Fazio (1893-1949) - Find A...
 
ROBERT BALLARD BAILEY
On the afternoon of October 22, 1949, 56-year-old Rosina Fazio, a tavern keeper in Charleston, West Virginia, was picked up by a motorist in a car.

According to a witness who knew Fazio, this occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m. The same woman would later identify the driver of the car, whom she saw only briefly, as Robert Bailey. A motorist who was driving behind the car carrying Fazio reported having seen a woman’s legs hanging out of the car’s passenger-side window. Shortly after this sighting, Fazio was either pushed or fell out of the car. This motorist stopped to render assistance to Fazio. As he was doing so, another driver stopped and agreed to take Fazio to a hospital. When this car pulled away with Fazio inside, the motorist realized that it was the same car from which Fazio had originally fallen, and he would later identify the driver as Robert Bailey.

Fazio was never driven to the hospital by the person who picked her up. Instead, she was found hours later, lying by the side of a street in Charleston with a broken neck.

When she finally made it to a hospital, Fazio, who had been robbed of cash and diamond jewelry, lived long enough to tell family members that the man who had caused her injuries was “Bob the glass cutter.” Robert Bailey did, in fact, work as a glass cutter.

According to Charleston Police, at the exact time that Fazio was originally picked up, Bailey was being chased by police vehicles for driving drunk. Both the police and witnesses who knew Bailey well corroborated the time of the car chase. His identity was further confirmed by the bullets that had been fired by the police and had perforated the back of his car. Despite his condition, Bailey managed to evade the police and drive home. He awoke with a hazy recollection of the police chase, which he remembered when he saw the bullet holes in the back of his car.

Bailey, who had previously been convicted of auto theft and armed robbery, was concerned that he would be shown little leniency at trial. Therefore, he collected his wife and child and left for Florida, hoping that the incident with the police would be resolved. However, unbeknownst to him, he was implicated in Fazio’s murder, tracked down in Florida, and arrested.

On June 16, 1950, Bailey was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder. On July 8, he was sentenced to be the first prisoner executed by electrocution in West Virginia, at the West Virginia Penitentiary at Moundsville. Soon after, presiding Judge Jackson Savage, having reservations about the jury’s decision, wrote to Governor Okey L. Patteson, expressing his concerns and recommending executive clemency for Bailey. “I do not believe the State of West Virginia should take the life of any man when there is a question, however slight, of his guilt or innocence,” Savage wrote. Patteson did not act and the West Virginia Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court denied Bailey’s appeals.

On death row Bailey was more fortunate than he had been in the courts. Warden Orel J. Skeen took an interest in the case and concluded that Bailey was innocent. He subsequently contacted Tom Smith, an acquaintance who had previously worked as a warden at the Washington State Penitentiary and who currently worked with the Court of Last Resort, a group dedicated to exposing cases of wrongful conviction. The group, best known for including the famous author Erle Stanley Gardner, arranged a polygraph test, which Bailey passed. Gardner interviewed the trial judge and learned of his misgivings about the case, reviewed the case files, and met with Governor Patteson, who issued a reprieve and asked for further investigations.

Upon review, the West Virginia Department of Probation and Parole concluded that Bailey was indeed innocent and recommended that he be pardoned. In 1951, Governor Patteson commuted the sentence to life in prison. In 1960, Governor Cecil H. Underwood granted Bailey a conditional pardon, and six years later, Governor Hulett C. Smith dropped the conditions.

LINK:

Robert Ballard Bailey - National Registry of Exonerations Pre 1989
 

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