Commonwealth v. Peronace

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Schaefer,

Appellant stands convicted of two homicides, the killing of his wife and his father-in-law, Vito Mariello. The two indictments were tried together. The jury decided that the murders were of the first degree and that the penalty should be death; appellant was accordingly sentenced.

Differences had arisen between the condemned and his father-in-law and his wife. She was living apart from her husband in her father’s house. On the day of the tragedy, about noon, the father-in-law, the wife and her small brother, aged eleven, left the house in which they resided and…