LIVING HISTORY
22
LEGAL COMMUNITY
SPOTLIGHT
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
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 disgrace.
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 underworld.
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 operators
and moonshine distributors to make monthly payments
for protection from the police. Whenever the judge signed
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FLORIDA 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.