Crime: Defiance & Remorse

• Share

Juries on opposite shores of the nation last week closed the books on two of the tabloids' favorite murder cases:

¶ In Fort Pierce, Fla., an all-male jury found former West Palm Beach Judge Joseph A. Peel Jr., 37, guilty of masterminding the murder of Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth who, with his wife, was bludgeoned and drowned in the Atlantic in 1955 (TIME, Nov. 14). Prosecutor Phillip O'Connell, an old friend of the murdered man, charged that the debonair Peel had feared that the protection he was selling to moonshiners and numbers men was about to be exposed by the respected Chillingworth, and so hired thugs to kill him. Facing life imprisonment after the jury recommended mercy, Peel defiantly told newsmen: "I wasn't a bit satisfied."

¶ In Los Angeles, after two previous juries had deadlocked on the case, ruddy-faced Dr. Raymond Bernard Finch, 43. and Carole Tregoff, 24, his secretary and paramour, were finally found guilty of murdering his wife one summer night in 1959 (TIME, Feb. 15, 1960). The third jury brushed aside Finch's claim that the shooting had been accidental, found him guilty of first-degree murder, her guilty of second-degree murder, and both guilty of conspiracy to murder. When the jury meets again this week to fix punishment, Finch could get death on his first-degree murder count, Carole life on her second-degree charge. But on the conspiracy count alone, the jury could sentence them both to the gas chamber at San Quentin. As the two old lovers left the courtroom last week, Finch suddenly took the stunned Carole in his arms, nuzzled her dyed red hair, and whispered: "I love you, Carole. I'm sorry." She turned away.