The verdict

(Post 4 of 4)

Wildly different stories about the killing of John Hasson appear in newspaper articles.

In one, Hasson claims that he was stabbed while breaking up a fight:

In another, he is stabbed for no reason whatsoever; his companions do not even realize the stabbing has occurred until the suspects have passed:

Although another witness mentions seeing one of the suspects rise up off the ground:

In the end — even though Anton Herrold had at one point reportedly claimed not have carried a knife at all:

–and even though he had previously been reported to be “wicked” —

— in the trial, he was found not guilty due to self-defense. The jury took only thirteen minutes to arrive at the verdict. The article mentions that at the trial he was shown to be of good character; reading between the lines, I have to wonder if the implication is that Hasson, for his part, was not considered to be of good character.

Despite the not guilty verdict, Herrold soon returned to Europe, where his family has remained since.