In June of 1982 that I knew the first thing about the Chillingworth murders. I was a new lawyer and was new to Miami when, passing the time sitting in my apartment building lobby waiting for a friend to carpool, I picked up the Miami Herald. I was from Pennsylvania. The Chillingworth murders occurred the year I was born. The convictions when I was five and six years of age. Obviously I had never heard of the case. There on the front page of the Herald, accompanied by this photo,
was the story. "Judge..."murder of other judge". What?! I became instantly engrossed, so much so that I was startled, and a bit annoyed, by my friend's cheery appearance in the lobby.
I (obviously) never forgot the case and googled it many times over the years. What brought it up again, I am sure I have posted about it previously, I don't know. I think I was looking at Edmund Fitzgerald videos (I'm a retired man) or some old thing and it popped into my head again. Obviously there was nothing new, but the case has stayed with me all of these years...Why exactly? The case is not mysterious. It is cut-and-dried and long, long over, everybody dead now, oh there are little questions that I have that you get with all human behavior but it's DONE. And I live in FLORIDA for godssake, the fucking turd coming out of the asshole of America--home to "Florida Man," to Ted Bundy, Danny Rolling. Andrew Cunanan, on and on and on.
I don't have any one reason why this case stays with me, but there are several, they don't add up to the "crime of the century," but they are the reasons I think about the case when I think about it. For one, judge-orders-murder-of-other-judge. Pretty unusual. Can't say I've ever heard that one before, sure it has happened, but I had never heard of a similar case and to this day am unaware of such a case. New lawyer; of course I am going to have some added interest. Palm Beach was small then, that was another reason. The city's population was under 6,000. West Palm Beach was under 56,000. For comparison the city of Miami's population at the same time was more than 250,000. A judge killing a judge through hired hit men, you think maybe New York, Chicago--Miami--you don't think Palm Beach. The motive. Disbarment. More on that below. The manner of death, drowning. The terror. That's another. Marjorie. Her murder definitely set this one apart--so unnecessary, she had nothing to do with Peel's problems with Judge Chillingworth. The gratuitous murder of Marjorie, accompanied by the pistol-whipping, the "Ladies first", the billowing nightgown as she went under, some "bubbles"--Holy hell that is cold, just brutal. No wonder Holzapfel got the chair. Imogene Peel, she was another reason--fucking GORGEOUS!
In a previous research I spent a lot of time learning about Judge Chillingworth. He was, and is to this day is, the youngest person ever elected judge in the state of Florida. 24 years old. Actually, there was something new on that score that I saw this time around. He was "progressive" for his time. Really? Elle's and Gee's, Eff's and Eee's,
🎵There he is, Mr. Progressive🎵
Nah-ah, that's Whitey Bulger, right?
From the first I saw pictures of him I thought he was an exceedingly austere, severe looking person. He looked like somebody who had been a judge his entire life, which he almost was. The Palm Beach Historical Society has a bunch of pictures of him from every stage of life going back to boyhood. In ONE the man is smiling, he's shaking hands with a naval officer. In every other fucking photo he looks like an anthropoid--hunting turkeys: cold; on a boat with his family and the governor of Florida and his family: cold; as a boy: cold. Serious. As a boy! Stiff. Formal. Uncaring, unfeeling, cold. In the photo on the boat Chillingworth looks as if he is about to scold one of his girls. The governor is smiling like the moon. Chillingworth: "Now, now!" Chillingworth, just once, would you lighten the fuck up, you fucking automaton. That guy, "progressive"? In 1933 he ordered a new trial for some Black men who were convicted based on coerced confessions. Okay! That's a good deed. Any others? That was twenty-two years before he was offed.
Near synonyms for progressive would be tolerant, empathetic, right? How about this Chillingworth character trait: he "was known for his punctuality." Now, I have a phobia about being late. I get anxiety, a knot in my stomach. That's the "fear" meaning of phobia. There is also "hate" phobia, intolerance. Chillingworth had a phobia about punctuality: If his court started at 9:30 he would be outside his courtroom door at 9:29 waiting till the clock struck 9:30. What do you think Chillingworth with this thing for punctuality would do if a defendant was one minute late to court? You know what he would do. Throw his ass in jail. "But Judge, my car broke down?" "Don't want to hear it!" "But Judge, I went into labor?" "Don't want to hear it!" I will bet you $100 that the number of people Judge Chillingworth threw in jail for being a few minutes late to his courtroom is a non-zero number.
Another thing. Now, we only have Holzapfel's drunken word for this but Holzapfel's drunken word is also all we have: You and your wife are ordered out of your beach-side house at gunpoint at 1 a.m. and marched down to the sea. Your wife screams and Holzapfel whacks her over the head with his pistol (the blood drops on the path were Marjorie's). What do you do? What does instinct compel you to do? What did Judge Chillingworth do? Nothing that we're aware of. "Marjorie, I don't want to hear it!"
You're in the fucking boat being driven out into the Gulf Stream. The motor conks out on the boat. What do you do? I don't know what I would have done at that development but, and I am no fucking hero, at some point, realizing what was happening, seeing my wife dripping blood the size of quarters I would have tried to overpower Holzapfel and Lincoln--tip the fucking boat over, whatever, what do you have to lose! What did Curtis E. Chillingworth do when the motor conked out? Gave the boys helpful tips on how to get it restarted. Now maybe he was trying to be ingratiating I don't know, but they did get the boat restarted and at no time during the resumed trip to 20,000 leagues under the sea did this former naval commander mutiny. How about when the boat stops? Holzapfel says "Ladies first". What do you do at that moment? What did Curtis E. Chillingworth do? "Honey, remember I love you!", according to Holzapfel. Are you fucking kidding me? "Guess you won't be making dinner tonight, huh Marje?" So if the best you can do playing the "progressive" card is one case in 1933? Sorry, that is not game, set, match for "progressive."
I know Joseph Peel was corrupt; I know Peel was the mastermind of cold-blooded murder (but who was too squeamish to do it himself). This crime was planned in detail. By Peel. He knew where the Chillingworth’s had their beach home, surveilled it with Holzapfel, pointed Judge Chillingworth out to Holzapfel so he would know who he was to murder for him; suggested the drowning at sea. Peel knew the Chillingworth's habits, knew, for example, that on the night of June 15, 1955, the judge should be alone in the beach house because it was Marjorie’s night to spend with one of their three daughters. However, if the judge was not alone, then any witness must be “destroyed," he told Holzapfel. Oh such a lovely man! God, what if the girls had decided to spend the night at the Manalapan house? That would be such a pain but; oh well!, you’ll just have to “destroy” however many extras there are! Prepare, Lucky! Evil thy name is Peel.
Of course there are lots of photos of Peel also. A picture can be a lying thing!, I know, but multiple pictures, at least as many as of Curtis E. Chillingworth, and by contrast, Peel always looked like the happiest man alive, always smiling in the photos I've seen. Here's another one from the Herald in 1982:
This is what cemented "cold" in my mind for Chillingworth: In 1953 Peel had appeared in front of Chillingworth on a very serious bar complaint. Peel had represented both sides in a divorce case. Fucking dickwad. But he was not the first fucking dickwad attorney to do such a thing! I don't remember now how Chillingworth sanctioned him, if he did, but I remember the personal, cold, violent, really, words that Chillingworth spoke. If you come back before me again I will "break you." "Break you". Not disbar or professionally ruin, "break you" personally. It was intensely personal, impliedly physical, as if Chillingworth intended to put Peel on the rack. So much for the presumption of innocence in the future, hoo doggie! That is literally prejudging a case and a person, that's prejudice. Not "progressive".
Then Peel fucked up another divorce case. Ah jeez. Forgot to file the paperwork of dissolution, making his client, a woman who remarried, a bigamist. Peel was going to be before Judge Chillingworth again and he was shitting (I think that is actually the word Holzapfel used.). Scared to death. Peel's judgeship was on the line, his ability to practice law at risk. The judgeship enabled Peel to protect his side numbers racket which enabled his high-living (divorce cases evidently not quite doing the trick). Chillingworth would "break" him. So yeah. Makes sense as a motive, right? Here's the thing. Fucking Peel gave up his judgeship and moved out of town after the murders. He voluntarily unrobed ("unrobed"?; sounds better than "disrobed"), voluntarily disbarred. Sanctioned himself the way he feared being sanctioned by Chillingworth. Peel, wtf?
Anyway, I came to despise Judge Chillingworth too. Yes, I did, not proud to say it but I did, despised him; no, not even in my mind do the reasons add up to despising someone, especially not the completely innocent victim of a shocking, cold-blooded hit, but there it is, I can't help it. By everyone else however Curtis E. Chillingworth seems to have been deeply respected as man and judge, obviously he was loved by at least his family, and he led a professional life dedicated to public service for far less money than crooked Joe Peel got. Peel, Holzapfel and Lincoln, that skating scum, were guilty as sin. "It wasn't just a man's life that was taken. It was Judge Chillingworth". And a woman's life, Marjorie's. God keep them.
