On a Saturday afternoon in New York City, seven-year-old Joseph Storelli, the son of a poor immigrant family, was playing on First Avenue when a man approached him. It was November 17, 1928, and the man, an itinerant laborer named Peter Kudzinowski, made a promise that must have seemed magical to the young boy: a box of candy and a trip to a motion picture show. Joseph, tragically, believed him. Kudzinowski had already tried to entice two other children in the area, but they had run away. Joseph, however, went with the stranger, leaving the familiar streets of his neighborhood for the last time.
Kudzinowski, who also used the aliases Ray Rogers and Roy Lambert, led Joseph on a journey out of the city. They boarded a Port Authority Trans-Hudson train to Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey. From there, the man walked the small boy into the desolate, marshy expanse of the New Jersey Meadowlands, near Secaucus.
At some point, the reality of the situation must have dawned on Joseph, and he tried to get away. Kudzinowski, fearing the boy's cries would be heard by passing cars, knocked him to the ground, hit him several times, and then slashed his throat. He covered the child's body with his own overcoat and left him in the cold swamps.
The crime was the last in a series of brutal killings committed by Kudzinowski. Born in Pennsylvania to Polish immigrant parents, he had a history of instability, possibly stemming from a childhood head injury. His other proven victims included 20-year-old Harry Quinn, bludgeoned to death near Scranton, Pennsylvania, in March 1924, and five-year-old Julia Mlodzianowski, who was lured from a school picnic at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, and strangled in August 1928. Kudzinowski was a heavy drinker, and he later claimed to have been in a "half drunk" state when he murdered Joseph.
The weight of his final crime seemed to haunt Kudzinowski. A few weeks later, on December 3, 1928, he was in Detroit, Michigan, when he drunkenly staggered up to a police traffic booth and announced that he was wanted. When an officer asked if he meant for murder, he replied, "You'll find out." He confessed to his jailer, who initially laughed at him, but Detroit detectives soon obtained the details of his confession. Kudzinowski was driven by a need to unburden his conscience, stating, "I'm willing to pay the penalty, and the sooner it's over, the better. I had to confess. It was troubling me." He provided precise details that led New Jersey detectives to discover Joseph's body under his overcoat near a railroad embankment.
Extradited to Jersey City, Kudzinowski was indicted for first-degree murder in the death of Joseph Storelli on December 11, 1928. During intense police questioning, he also confessed to the murders of Harry Quinn and Julia Mlodzianowski. His trial was swift. The defense put forward an insanity defense, citing his childhood head injury, but a medical expert for the state characterized him as having a psychopathic personality. On January 17, 1929, after deliberating for just over an hour, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.
When asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Kudzinowski remained silent. He was sentenced to death by electrocution. He expressed that he was ready to die and believed he would likely kill again if he were ever freed. After a failed appeal and a denial of clemency from the governor, Peter Kudzinowski was executed at Trenton State Prison on December 21, 1929. He was 26 years old. His string of violent acts, which cut short the lives of three people, including a little boy charmed by the promise of a movie, had come to an end.
