Curtis Eugene Chillingworth, a respected 58-year-old circuit judge, and his wife, Marjorie, 57, disappeared from their Manalapan, Florida, home on June 15, 1955. The couple was last seen at a dinner in West Palm Beach on the evening of June 14, 1955, and left around 10 p.m. to return to their beachfront cottage. The following morning, a carpenter who was scheduled to build a playground for their grandchildren arrived at 8 a.m. to find the house open and deserted.
Judge Chillingworth's failure to appear at a 10 a.m. hearing raised further alarms. Upon investigating the home, police discovered a shattered porch light, bloodstains on the walkway to the beach, and two spent spools of adhesive tape. Robbery was ruled out as a motive, as cash and valuables were left untouched. Despite an extensive air and sea search, no trace of the couple was found, and they were declared legally dead in 1957.
The case remained cold for five years until a man named Floyd "Lucky" Holzapfel began to talk about his involvement in 1959. His confession revealed a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Joseph A. Peel Jr., a corrupt municipal judge. Judge Chillingworth had discovered Peel's illegal activities, which included taking payoffs and protecting moonshiners and numbers runners, and was threatening to have him disbarred. To prevent this, Peel hired Holzapfel and another man, Bobby Lincoln, to kill the Chillingworths. On the night of the disappearance, Holzapfel and Lincoln went to the Chillingworths' home by boat. They knocked on the door, and when the judge answered, they forced him and his wife out of the house at gunpoint.
Holzapfel and Lincoln then took the couple out on the ocean in a boat, where they were bound with tape, weighed down, and thrown overboard while still alive. In 1960, Holzapfel confessed to the murders. In exchange for his testimony against Peel, Lincoln was granted immunity. Holzapfel pleaded guilty and was initially sentenced to death, though this was later commuted to a life sentence; he died in prison in 1996. Peel was convicted of being an accessory to murder and received two life sentences. He was paroled in 1982 due to terminal cancer and died just nine days after his release, having confessed to his role in the murders shortly before his death. The bodies of Curtis and Marjorie Chillingworth were never recovered.Last Seen: Jun 14, 1955
