VINCENT “SOCKS” PARELLI WAS admitted to Emergency at Mother of Mercy Hospital, Seventy-ninth Street and East End Avenue, at 5:23 A.M., 1 September, 1968. He was first declared DOA (Dead On Arrival) but a subsequent examination by Dr. Samuel Nathan revealed a faint pulse and heartbeat. Stimulants and plasma were immediately administered, and Parelli was taken to the Maximum Security Ward on the second floor. After further examination, Dr. Nathan declared the prognosis was negative. Parelli had been shot twice, one bullet apparently entering the lungs and the other rupturing the spleen.
By 5:45 A.M., the bed occupied by Parelli was surrounded by screens. In this enclosure, in addition to Dr. Nathan, were Dr. Everett Brisling (intern) and Nurse Sarah Pagent, both of the Mother of Mercy staff; Assistant District Attorney Ralph Gimble of the New York District Attorney’s Office; Detective, First Grade, Robert C. Lefferts of Homicide East; Detective, Second Grade, Stanley Brown of the 251st Precinct; Officer Ephraim Sanders (no relation to the author) of the 251st Precinct; and Security Guard Barton McCleary, also of the Mother of Mercy staff.
The following recording, made by the New York District Attorney’s Office, is coded NYDA-VP-DeBeST. It is dated 6:00 A.M., 1 September, 1968.
GIMBLE: What’s happening?
NATHAN: He’s dying. By all rights he should be dead now.
LEFFERTS: Can you do anything?
NATHAN: No. We’ve already done all we can.
GIMBLE: Will he regain consciousness?
NATHAN: Brisling?
BRISLING: Maybe. I doubt it.
GIMBLE: We’ve got to question him.
NATHAN: What do you want from me? I’m not God.
BRISLING: Let the man die in peace.
BROWN: No, goddamn it. An officer was killed. Get him up. Get him awake. We’ve got to find out what all this was about, why he was shot. This is important.
BRISLING: Doctor?
[Lapse of seven seconds.]
NATHAN: All right. Nurse?
PAGENT: Yes, Doctor?
NATHAN: Fifty cc’s. You’ve got it?
PAGENT: Yes, Doctor.
NATHAN: Administer it.
[Lapse of twenty-three seconds.]
NATHAN: Pulse?
BRISLING: Maybe a little stronger. Heart is still fluttering.
GIMBLE: His eyelids moved. I saw them move.
LEFFERTS: Parelli? Parelli?
NATHAN: Don’t shove him.
BROWN: He’s dying, isn’t he?
NATHAN: Just don’t touch him. He’s a patient in this hospital under my care.
PARELLI: Guh … guh. …
GIMBLE: He said something. I heard him say something.
LEFFERTS: It didn’t make sense. Sanders, move the mike closer to his mouth.
PARELLI: Ah … ah. …
BROWN: His eyes are open.
GIMBLE: Parelli. Parelli, who shot you? Who was it, Parelli? Why did they shoot you?
PARELLI: Guh … guh. …
BRISLING: This is obscene.
LEFFERTS: Who planned it, Parelli? Who put up the money? Who was behind it, Parelli? Can you hear me?
PARELLI: Climb planging. No man can ever the building. I said to bicycle of no lad can be to mother.
GIMBLE: What? What?
PARELLI: Or sake to make a lake. We see today not by gun if she does.
LEFFERTS: Can you give him another shot, Doc?
NATHAN: No.
PARELLI: Guh … guh. …
BRISLING: Fibrillations.
PAGENT: Pulse weakening and intermittent.
NATHAN: He’s going.
BROWN: Parelli, listen to me. Parelli, can you hear me? Who shot you, Parelli? Who put up the money? Who brought you here from Detroit? Parelli?
PARELLI: I never thought to. And then I was on the street where. Louise? We saw the car sky and what. Momma. In the sky. It was in. Never a clutch could. Some day she. Fucking bastard. I think that I should.
GIMBLE: Who, Parelli? Who did it?
PARELLI: A bird at song if even wing, the girl herself shall never sing.
NATHAN: Nurse?
PAGENT: No pulse.
NATHAN: Brisling?
BRISLING: No heartbeat.
[Lapse of nine seconds.]
NATHAN: He’s gone.
LEFFERTS: Shit.