Sixty-year-old Elirio "Eli" Mantoni adored his family-- especially his grandchildren, who lived in Northampton County city of Easton with their mother, Lillian Mantoni Gabert. But when the county threatened to remove four-year-old Elaine, three-year-old Raymond, and 21-month-old Paul from their home and place them in foster care, Grandpa Eli took matters into his own hands.

Those of us with our sanity intact simply don't know what it's like to have that last frayed thread holding our lives in the balance cut, sending us plummeting into an inescapable abyss. Few of us really know the depths of such despair; we can only imagine. But Elirio Mantoni lived that nightmare, though no one can really say if he knew, when he stumbled out of bed that morning, that it would be his last day on earth. In fact, no one can say for certain just what happened on the morning of November 23, 1959, since no one involved lived to tell about it.