Joseph Peel

Case record: Joseph Peel

Status / legal outcome

Joseph Alexander Peel was sentenced to two life terms in prison on March 30, 1961. He was paroled in 1982 while in seriously ill health and died just nine days later.

Background

Joseph Alexander Peel was born in West Palm Beach. He was married with two children. He became a lawyer in 1949 and in three years was named the city’s only municipal judge. Peel continued practicing law as well as being a judge.

Peel was described as a crooked official. He granted warrants to investigating officers so they could raid a gambling den, but after the police had left he called the crooks and tipped them off. Each operator gave Peel $500 in protection money.

In 1953, when Peel represented both the husband and the wife in a divorce, his superior, Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth, publicly reprimanded him and warned that any further misconduct would result in disbarment.

In 1955, Peel told a client that her divorce was finalised when in fact it wasn’t. When the woman remarried and had a baby, she learned she was a bigamist because Peel had never finished her case.

After this misconduct and amid consequences for his conduct, Peel quit as a judge soon after and resigned from the Bar in 1959.

The offence

Murder-for-hire conspiracy involving Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth

On June 14, 1955, Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie had dinner with friends and returned to their Manalapan beach cottage at roughly 10pm. Around 1am, Floyd “Lucky” Holzapfel and George “Bobby” Lincoln arrived in a skiff and landed on the beach behind the house.

Lincoln crouched in the bushes as Holzapfel woke the Judge saying he was a stranded boater. The two men overpowered the Judge and his wife and marched them out of the cottage at gunpoint. They fastened nooses around their necks, bound their arms behind them, and gagged them with adhesive tape.

The couple were forced aboard the boat, taken out to sea, and weighted with chains. Holzapfel said “Ladies first” and threw Marjorie into the sea. When the two men went for Chillingworth, he jumped overboard. Despite bound wrists, weights, and an anchor tied around his neck, the Judge managed to stay afloat until Lincoln hit him over the head with a shotgun so hard the barrel broke.

After the assault, the bodies were never recovered, and the bodies were never found.

Victims

• Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth
• Marjorie Chillingworth

Investigation

When the usually punctual Judge failed to turn up for work the next day, the alarm was raised by noon. The house seemed in order, but the porch light had been smashed. Officers found two rolls of adhesive tape, and bloodstains on and around the wooden stairs leading to the beach.

Boats and a helicopter scanned the water and divers combed the ocean floor, but the Chillingworths’ bodies were never recovered.

The police heard that Holzapfel had been bragging that he knew who killed the Chillingworths. For three days in a Titusville motel room, two undercover policemen got Holzapfel so drunk that he confessed to the murders. The confession was recorded, and on 1st October 1960 Holzapfel was arrested.

The case had gone cold after initial investigation found no further clues. Later, in 1957, Curtis and Marjorie Chillingworth were declared legally dead.

Arrest / custody events

Floyd “Lucky” Holzapfel was arrested on 1st October 1960 after being tricked and recorded by undercover policemen while he was drinking.

Peel was suspended for 90 days over the non-divorce case. Peel quit as a judge soon after and resigned from the Bar in 1959. After Holzapfel’s “confession,” Peel went into hiding, but a friend set him up and he was arrested in Chattanooga a month after Holzapfel’s arrest.

Trial

Evidence and witness arrangements

State Attorney Phil O’Connell Sr. had no bodies, so he needed an eyewitness. He offered Lincoln immunity if he would agree to testify against Holzapfel and Peel. Lincoln agreed to testify.

Lincoln was already serving time on a 1958 moonshine-related conviction. Because of this, Holzapfel agreed to plead guilty to the murders, and Peel realized he would soon be caught twice plotted to have another inmate kill him.

Peel’s conviction

On 30th March 1961, jurors took five hours and 24 minutes to find Peel guilty of accessory to murder.

Sentencing

The prosecutor wanted the death penalty, but the jury recommended mercy. Peel was sentenced to two life terms.

Peel spent 18 years at Florida State Prison in Raiford.

Appeals / related criminal cases

No appeal is recorded in the provided material.

Other case outcomes included:

• Floyd “Lucky” Holzapfel was sent to Death Row, and his sentence was eventually commuted to life. He died behind bars in 1996.
• George “Bobby” Lincoln served out the rest of his federal sentence and in 1962 moved to Chicago. He converted to Islam and changed his name to David Karrim. In May 2004, he died aged 80.

Timeline

• 1949 — Joseph Alexander Peel became a lawyer.
• 1953 — Peel was publicly reprimanded by Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth.
• 1955 — Peel misinformed a client that her divorce was finalized.
• June 14, 1955 — Murder of Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie.
• 1959 — Peel quit as a judge and resigned from the Bar.
• October 1, 1960 — Holzapfel arrested after secret recording.
• March 30, 1961 — Peel found guilty of accessory to murder.
• 1979 — Peel paroled.
• 1982 — Peel died just nine days after being paroled while in seriously ill health.
• 1996 — Holzapfel died in prison.
• May 2004 — Lincoln died at 80.

Aftermath

Peel was paroled in 1982 while in seriously ill health and died nine days later.

The material also described that despite the lack of bodies, the case was treated as solved after years of detective work, and it stated that the Chillingworths and young Harvey were all killed by the same hired assassin.

Other details

Background on Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth

Curtis Eugene Chillingworth was a Florida attorney and state judge who disappeared from his Manalapan, Florida home and was later murdered along with his wife, Marjorie Chillingworth.

Chillingworth graduated from the University of Florida in 1917, admitted to the Florida Bar that same year, and served at a naval base in Key West, Florida. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, received a commission to serve on the cruiser Annapolis, served as an ensign for the U.S.S. Minneapolis during World War I, and returned to West Palm Beach to practice law with his father after the war.

He married Marjorie M. McKinley, a Cornell University student and daughter of old friends of the Chillingworth family. He remained in the U.S. Naval Reserves and was recalled to active duty in 1942. During World War II, he was stationed in London and Plymouth, England, where he participated in planning the occupation and recovery of Germany. He was released from active duty in 1945 as a full Commander.

In 1921, at the age of 24, Chillingworth began his career as county judge. In 1923, he became the newly elected circuit judge, a position he held for 32 years until his death in 1955. He was widely regarded as an outstanding legal mind and as the conscience of the Palm Beach courts and legal community.

A 4.1-acre (17,000 m2) park was opened to honor Judge Chillingworth. Chillingworth Park was described as located at Ware Drive & Erie Place between Okeechobee Boulevard & Palm Beach Lakes Blvd, and it included street side parking, a playground, basketball court, tennis court, gazebo, walkways and benches.

Disappearance and early investigation

Chillingworth and his wife were last seen at a dinner in West Palm Beach, Florida, on the evening of June 14, 1955. They left the dinner about 10 p.m. for their Manalapan home and went to bed expecting a carpenter to arrive in the morning of June 15 to build a playground for their grandchildren. The carpenter arrived at 8 a.m., found the door left open, and saw the home appeared to be empty.

Later that day, Judge Chillingworth failed to appear at a previously scheduled 10 a.m. hearing at the courthouse in West Palm Beach.

Police found a shattered porch light, drops of blood on the walkway to the beach, and two used spools of adhesive tape (one in the sand and one in the living room). An accidental drowning during a morning swim was quickly ruled out. $40 found to be in Marjorie’s pocketbook ruled out robbery. The keys were still in the ignition of Chillingworth’s Plymouth. No further clues were obtained and the case went cold.

The family installed an empty double grave with a twin headstone in West Palm Beach’s Oak Lawn Cemetery. The Chillingworth family eventually sold their parents’ home at 211 Dyer Road near Belvedere and Dixie and maintained its $25,000 reward offer. In 1959, the legislature voted to keep the $100,000 reward approved on the books “for eternity” or until the case was solved.

Quotations

• Lucky Holzapfel said: “Ladies first”
• Judge Chillingworth told his wife: “Honey, remember, I love you”
• Marjorie Chillingworth responded: “I love you too.”
• The quoted exchange included: “The motor is fixed.”
• Peel was quoted as shocked and surprised, and Sheriff John Kirk was quoted saying: “The case has now been broken.”
• Peel was quoted saying: “I was shocked and surprised.”
• Sheriff Kirk was quoted saying: “The case has now been broken.”
• Peel was quoted as saying from Tennessee: “I'm innocent,” and “I want to go back to Florida as quickly as possibly so I can have a speedy trial and clear myself.”
• A prosecutor quoted in summation said: “Judge Chillingworth would be on a bench like this tonight if it weren't for Joseph Peel,” and “But the judge is here tonight. And Joe Peel knows it,”
• The quoted description included Lucky telling the prosecutor: “It didn't stop there. The fact is, just a short time after judge Chillingworth was murdered, Joe Peel drove me to another house in West Palm: your house. He wanted you killed.”
• A speaker was quoted saying: “Ladies first,” said Holzapfel politely, as he pushed her overboard.
• The quoted exchange included: “Boy, if you take care of us, you will never have to work again.”
• A further quotation included: “People like us,” and “should be stamped out like cockroaches because they aren't fit to live with decent people.”
• The quoted characterisation included: “It was not just a man's life that was taken,” and “It was Judge Chillingworth.”
• The quoted description of Peel from a prosecutor included: “I see no reason to show any mercy toward Mr. Peel, for he has never shown any in any act of his adult life.”

Joseph Peel-related legal history mentioned in the material

The material described that Peel had represented both sides in a divorce case in 1953 and had been publicly reprimanded. It also described that in 1955 he told a client that her divorce was finalised when it wasn’t, leading to her remarriage and later learning she was a bigamist because Peel had never finished her case.