LIVING HISTORY
26
LEGAL COMMUNITY
SPOTLIGHT
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 engine
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-
Joe Peel’s death was chronicled on the
front page of The Miami Herald. Peel
was convicted in 1961 of being an accessory
in the murders of Judge Curtis
Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie.
Peel received two life sentences. Seriously
ill, he was paroled just nine days
before his death in 1982.
>>
WM. F. CRARY II COLLECTION
This was Judge Curtis Chillingworth’s signature from a letter dated May 8, 1939.
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