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BY WM. F. CRARY II

ong before the trials of O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony and Dr. Conrad Murray looped

through 24-hour television news cycles, the sensational murder trial of Judge Joe Peel captured newspaper headlines throughout the country. It played out in a sultry courtroom in the old St. Lucie County Courthouse.

It was a tale of two judges — both born in West Palm Beach. The older circuit judge for Palm Beach County was a stellar jurist, wed to the proper application of law for more than thirty years. Higher courts rarely reversed his decisions. He was sober-minded, cool and lofty — humorless, but fair. In his court, justice was as sacred as a marble temple and just as solid. His name was Curtis Chillingworth. West

Palm Beach’s young municipal judge was highly ambitious, charming and friendly, but he wore a looming aura of dis-grace. There were rumors of seamy indiscretions and friends in low places. His lifestyle was too lavish for his income. In his court, justice was a pliable commodity; he sold it like a broker. The young judge’s name was Peel. In the early 1950s, Judge Joseph A. Peel teamed up with a lawman gone wrong. Floyd “Lucky” Holzapfel had once been a fingerprint expert for the Oklahoma City police, but now he was a jack-of-all-trades at the two-bit level of the un-derworld. Holzapfel sold Get-out-of-jail-free cards for Judge Peel. Their “business” brought in lots of profits, because all the search warrants in the county were channeled through the young judge. It was easy money getting gambling opera-tors and moonshine distributors to make monthly payments for protection from the police. Whenever the judge signed

T RIAL OF THE CENTURY

Judge Joe Peel’s trial on charges of murdering a fellow judge and his wife

was St. Lucie’s most sensational

>>

LFLORIDA PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION

Palm Beach Municipal Judge Joe Peel, left, was tried in St. Lucie County court in 1961 on charges of murdering fellow Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth, right. The case attracted national headlines and was St. Lucie County’s most sensational trial of the 20th century.

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a warrant issued against one of his customers, the customer got a tip-off before the raid.

SOMETHING AMISS Chillingworth sensed something unsavory about his young colleague. In those days a municipal judge could practice law on the side, and in 1953 Chillingworth formally reprimanded Peel for representing both sides in a divorce case. In 1955, Peel was caught committing malpractice again, and his case was expected to come before Chillingworth. Peel was con-vinced that the result would be the end of his legal career. The judge planned on some-day being governor of Florida, and a by-the-book ruling from Chillingworth stood in his way. “It would ruin my career and our business,” the young judge told Holzapfel. Treachery was unloosed. Chillingworth and his wife, Mar-jorie, vanished after midnight on June 15, 1955. A massive manhunt ensued, but except for drops of Marjorie’s blood on the wooden steps outside the Chillingworths’ beach house in Manalapan, and except for footprints in the sand, no trace

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Journalist Jim Bishop, a columnist for Hearst’s King Features Syndicate covered the Joe Peel trial for the New York Daily News and later wrote the book, “The Murder Trial of Judge Peel.”

FLORIDA PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION

Judge Chillingworth, center, and wife, Marjorie, on board the Skipper with U.S. Sen. and former Florida Gov. Spessard Holland aboard, far right.

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of the two was ever found. The killers left no fingerprints. For five long years a shocked community was left with the insecurity of an unsolved mystery. And then one night Holzapfel got drunk enough to talk, and his drinking buddy called the police. Holzapfel pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He was the state’s star witness in the trial against Peel in March of 1961. He didn’t even bother to bargain for a deal. “People like us ain’t fit to live,” Holzapfel sobbed at his pre-liminary hearing. “We should be stamped out like cockroaches.”

ST. LUCIE SPOTLIGHT For seventeen days (not includ-ing weekends) the trial took place in the old courthouse in Fort Pierce, as the window-unit air conditioners droned. Most of those March days were hot. The New York Times referred to our locale as part of the Deep South then. Most Floridians still sported a Southern drawl. Jim Bishop, a newspaper columnist with Hearst’s King Features Syndicate, attended the trial and described the courtroom in the old whitewashed courthouse in his book The Murder Trial of Judge Peel published by Simon & Shuster in 1962:

FLORIDA MEMORY PROJECT

Judge Curtis Chillingworth looks over a document at the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee in 1946. Chillingworth had a reputation as an astute and ethical jurist.

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Marjorie Chillingworth and her husband were last seen at a dinner in West Palm Beach on June 14, 1955. Though their bodies were never found, it was later revealed that they were drowned in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Judge Joe Peel.

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“On the second floor is the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court, a place with a high ceiling, wall stains, a condemned balcony where Negroes used to sit and watch white men adjudicate justice, a jury box, a lighted wall clock sponsored by a jeweler, an oil burner for chilly mornings, some council tables marked ‘St. Lucie county Property 201,’ and five rows of benches.” Judge D.C. Smith invited the press and dignitaries to take des-ignated seats in his courtroom, and members of the public vied to make up the rest of the audi-ence. The defendant, Joseph A. Peel, no longer a lawyer or a judge, flashed the full measure of his charm, and the affections of his pretty wife were daily on display. Who could have guessed that if the confident defendant beat his murder rap, he would face 160 charges of fraud in business dealings?

MASTERMIND’S PLAN On the stand, two witnesses described the shocking end of the Chillingworths’ lives. In addition to Holzapfel, Bobby Lincoln described the scene. He was a black pool hall owner and regular accomplice in Peel’s judicial “business.” Holzap-fel said his buddy Peel had pointed out Chillingworth and had showed him the victim’s beach house. Peel even knew

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results.

>>

FLORIDA MEMORY PROJECT

The Peel trial was moved from Palm Beach County to St. Lucie County under a change of venue motion because of the publicity the case received in Palm Beach County. The 1961 trial was held in the old St. Lucie County Courthouse, which was demolished in the late 1960s. Journalist Jim Bishop, who brought national attention to Fort Pierce through his columns and later a book about the case, described Fort Pierce as “authentic old Florida — an old town with a whitewashed courthouse and, adjoining, an old three-story jail with two broken rockers on the front porch.” Peel’s trial was conducted on the second floor of the courtroom, which Bishop described as “a place with a high ceiling... a jury box, a lighted wall clock sponsored by a jew-eler, an oil burner for chilly mornings... and five rows of benches.”

Jim Bishop, best known for the books “The Day Lincoln Was Shot” and “The Day Christ Died,” wrote columns about the Peel trial for Hearst’s King Syndicate and later authored the book “The Murder Trial of Judge Peel.”

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what it looked like inside. He told Holzapfel what he and Lincoln had to do. According to trial testimony, Holzapfel and Lincoln followed the mastermind’s plan, while Peel stayed home for an alibi. The murderers arrived by boat and knocked on the door. Judge Chillingworth stood there in faded pink pajamas; his wife slipped into a robe. The hoodlums held them at gunpoint and bound their hands. On the way down the steps, Marjorie Chillingworth suddenly screamed. Holzapfel slammed a gun against her head and knocked her down. Judge Chillingworth unsuccessfully offered Lincoln money to spare their lives, and the victims were forced onto the boat. Then they chugged for two miles out to sea. The en-gine overheated and had to cool, over and over, drawing out the agony as the judge and his wife anticipated their fate. When the boat stopped, Holzapfel wrapped a diving vest around the diminutive Mrs. Chillingworth and attached weights to it. He lifted her to drop her overboard. “Honey, remember I love you,” Judge Chillingworth cried. “I love you, too,” she said. As she sank into the darkness, Judge Chillingworth jumped overboard. He was swim-

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Joe Peel’s death was chronicled on the front page of The Miami Herald. Peel was convicted in 1961 of being an ac-cessory in the murders of Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie. Peel received two life sentences. Seri-ously ill, he was paroled just nine days before his death in 1982.

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This was Judge Curtis Chillingworth’s signature from a letter dated May 8, 1939.

WM. F. CRARY II COLLECTION

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ming with his hands behind his back. Was he searching for Marjorie? Was he trying to get away? The flashlight found him, and the killers struck at his head with a shotgun. Still the judge swam, so Holzapfel steered the boat near enough for Lincoln to grab him and hold on. Holzapfel cut the an-chor rope and tied it around the judge’s neck. And then he dropped the anchor. “Bobby let him go and he went down.” “Describe what you saw,” State Attorney Phillip D. O’Connell said to Holzapfel. “I saw the pink pajamas in the reflection from the light as he went down.” Judge Chillingworth was 58 when he was drowned. His wife was 56. On the night of the crime, Peel was only 31.

TAKING THE STAND Joe Peel seemed unfazed when he took the stand in his own defense. He flatly denied any involvement in the murders. He denied carrying on any type of bolita gambling operations or any other business with Holzapfel or Lincoln. He insinu-ated that the whole thing was a frame-up because Holzapfel thought he was sleeping with his wife. On cross-examination, the defendant repeatedly denied asking the State Attorney for immunity in exchange for giving testimony in the Chill-ingworth case. The State Attorney was so frustrated by Peel’s denial of the details of their previous conversation that he abruptly gave up asking questions. Peel told a reporter afterward that he was confident he would win acquittal, or that the case would end with a hung jury. What he got was a conviction, but to the state’s disappointment, it came with a recommendation of mercy. The sentence was life imprisonment. Peel had escaped the electric chair. Holzapfel spent the rest of his life behind bars. He died in 1996. Lincoln was given immunity for his testimony and never served time. He died in 2004. During the 18 years he spent in prison, Peel continued to deny involvement in the crime, until he made a deathbed confession to the Miami Herald in 1982. He was paroled nine days before he died of cancer. Just like the honorable Judge C.E. Chillingworth, Peel was only 58.

FLORIDA MEMORY PROJECT

State Attorney Philip D. O’Connell, far right, discusses case with witnesses who took part in the Peel trial, two of whom had claims to reward money for solving the case.