Fifty years after Montresor buried Fortunato in the catacombs inside the family palace, his gruesome crime was becoming closer to revelation by every passing time. Although by now only dry bones remained from the victim’s body, Montresor was yet to forget his crime. The memories of the incident were now haunting him, and he was not at peace with himself. Therefore, on one Friday morning after having a troublesome night full of nightmares relative to his crime, a very disturbed Montresor sent for a priest to the palace for a confession session. On arrival, the priest wore his stole that marked that he was ready to receive Holy Orders. Montresor confessed to the priest about the crime he committed half a century ago. Surprisingly, a servant who was standing outside the bedroom door while Montresor was confessing overhead the whole confession and immediately went to the authorities. The police went into the catacombs, found the wall that Montresor had made and took it down to discover a chained skeleton. Montresor would immediately be arraigned for trial for murder.
In the closing arguments, the prosecution argued that although there were no witnesses to the crime, the servant who overheard Montresor’s confession was able to immediately take the police to where the body was based on the defendant’s confession. The prosecution further stated that the victim disappeared immediately after the festival and that during the reported confession, Montresor had mentioned that the body was never found. Also, the prosecution argued that the skeleton remains found in the catacombs was measured and discovered to be the same height as Fortunato. Furthermore, the skeleton had a rotting jingling cap on its skull which was similar to the one that Fortunato put on the same day he went missing (Poe 2017). The final argument presented by the prosecution side to close they argued that an abandoned wine bottle was found at the crime scene (Poe 2017). This was very consistent with Montresor’s confession further proving that indeed the body was Fortunato’s and Montresor was the killer.
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On the other hand, the defense brought fourth their argument strongly by claiming that Montresor’s confession was a sign of his insanity. Montresor was suffering from dementia due to old age. Thus the defense enforced that the confession was as a result of the confusing tales that the suspect had heard of a dead body that was chained in catacombs more than a century ago and thought that he was the one who did it. The defense added that no one knew any wrong that the victim had done to the suspect to warrant him to carry out such dreadful revenge.
To give a verdict, the jury carefully evaluated the evidence presented to them by the defense and the prosecution. From the prosecution side, the jury was convinced by the testimony of the servant who overheard the confession because the confession was consistent with the findings at the catacombs. Besides, the height of the skeleton and the wine bottle found on the crime scene strengthen their argument further. On the other hand, the defense side mainly argued that Montresor had suffered from dementia due to his old age. However, the jury scrapped of this argument because Montresor had never reported any case of dementia before whether through any of his relatives or doctors. Therefore, the jury eventually sentenced Montresor to death by hanging. This was the most popular punishment for murderers during this era.
References
Poe, E (2017). The Cask of Amontillado. In R.S. Levine, M.A. Elliott, S.M. Gustafson, A. Hungerford, & M. Loeffelholz (Eds.), The Norton Anthology of American literature (shorter 9th ed., Vol.1 pp. 785). New York, NY: Norton (original work published 1846).
