THREE women related by blood and marriage exploded with emotion when the jury foreman in Court Number Three spoke the words "not guilty" shortly after 4.35 p.m. yesterday. "Yes, yes," Anna Maria Sacco shouted, jumping off the bench throwing her hands up in triumph. She had been acquitted of her husband, Franco Sacco's murder. "Thank God," her father said, and she turned to bury herself sobbing in his embrace.
At the same time Franco Sacco's mother, Anna, and sister, Marie Antoinette, wailed loud and long, stood and ran stumbling out of the packed courtroom. Mrs Sacco's screams echoed in the empty Round Hall outside as the other Mrs Sacco and her family shouted their relief and joy inside.
Franco's mother and sister kept running, out of the court and down the quays bent almost double in an effort to contain their grief and rage. Franco's father, a small greyhaired man, ran behind shouting at photographers.
One of the last things the jury would have seen as it left the Central Criminal Court at 3.15 p.m. to deliberate the verdict was Anna Maria leaning her forehead on her left hand.
At that distance it would have been difficult to spot the bitten fingernails but her engagement and wedding rings glinted gold across the courtroom. As the judge summed up the case she sat impassively opposite the jury with her parents behind her. Occasionally she would stare at a small card she unfolded from her pocket. It appeared to be a prayer card.
After the verdict her Italian father, Luigi, and Donegal-born mother, Lorna, held their daughter tightly. Lorna Sacco cried freely. "Just breathe and breathe again," Luigi told his daughter as she emerged into the Round Hall. "You're free at last."
He took a mobile phone from his pocket and spoke in rapid Italian. "Anna Maria don't be crying. Be happy now," he said.
Outside they were met by a wall of cameras and a hail of questions. Asked whether the family would ever be reconciled, Luigi Sacco said of Franco's father: "He's my dad's brother. Life has to go on. If she didn't do it, she didn't do it."
His daughter "has a baby to look after", he said. What did she think of the girl who had killed Franco? "It's a very hard question," Anna Maria said. "All I can say is if she went through pain I feel it too." But she would "never again" speak to the girl. "It's me and Francesca now, whatever comes out of that."
Later Luigi spoke of his late son-in-law, who was only a "toddler" when he left Italy. "I loved him as well," he said.
"I feel sorry. We were a great family before all this began," Anna Maria said.
