Mary Ann Vecchio

Mary Ann Vecchio
Mary Ann Vecchio speaking at Kent State University in May 2009
Born	(1955-12-04) December 4, 1955 (age 61) Palermo, Sicily

Mary Ann Vecchio (born December 4, 1955) is one of the two subjects in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, by photojournalism student John Filo during the immediate aftermath of the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970.

The photograph shows the 14-year-old Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot by the Ohio National Guard moments earlier. Vecchio had joined the protest while visiting the campus, where she had befriended two of the other students who were hit by gunfire that day: Sandra Scheuer, who was killed, and Alan Canfora, who was wounded.

Other photographers also captured the scene from other angles. A modification of the photograph was painted by Victor Kalin as cover art for a 12-inch vinyl phonograph record, Murder at Kent State. (Flying Dutchman Records, 1970) The painting makes a cultural statement by adding a National Guard unit in the background. Written commentary by Nat Hentoff puts the Kent State incident in the context of national malaise.

Vecchio was an Italian-immigrant and a runaway from Opa-locka, Florida where she attended Westview Junior High School. After the shootings, she bartered her story to a local reporter in exchange for a bus ticket to California. She was found by police before she boarded the bus, and sent back to her family, who reportedly later sued T-shirt companies for 40% of the profits of sales featuring Filo's photograph. Following Filo's publication of the photograph through the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review satellite paper Valley Daily News and its subsequent pickup internationally, Florida governor Claude Kirk labelled Vecchio a dissident communist. After Vecchio married Joe Gillum in 1979, the couple moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where Vecchio became a clerk at a coffee shop. She later studied massage therapy and is employed as a respiratory therapist.