People v. Wood

• Decision Date: 06 December 1962
• Citation: 236 N.Y.S.2d 44,12 N.Y.2d 69,187 N.E.2d 116
• Parties: , 187 N.E.2d 116 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Frederick Charles WOOD, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 44

236 N.Y.S.2d 44

12 N.Y.2d 69, 187 N.E.2d 116

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Frederick Charles WOOD, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 6, 1962.

Nancy Carley, Jackson Heights, Edward H. Potter, Ridgewood, Abraham Schwartz, Long Island City, and Estelle Herman, Kew Gardens, for appellant.

Frank D. O'Connor, Dist. Atty. (Benj. J. Jacobson, Long Island City, of counsel), for respondent.

FROESSEL, Judge.

On July 4, 1960 the bodies of John Rescigno and Frederick Sess, aged 62 and about 77 respectively, were discovered in the 'little house' they shared in Astoria, Queens County. In addition to other wounds, Sess had sustained multiple skull fractures. On Rescigno's body were about 16 wounds; his jugular vein had been severed. Defendant, Frederick Charles Wood, aged 50, was convicted of murder first degree (two counts) and sentenced to death.

Wood was taken into custody on July 5th. During the automobile trip to the station house, he told a detective that he had received the cut on his right thumb during abarroom altercation, but when asked the same question later at the police station, he replied that he had been cut by glass fragments while striking Rescigno with a bottle. He thereupon admitted having killed Sess and Rescigno on June 30, 1960, and gave a particularized account of how and why he did so. This statement, recored in shorthand, transcribed, and signed by defendant, was admitted in evidence at trial without objection.

Defendant made no attempt to controvert the evidence which overwhelmingly established that he killed Rescigno and Sess. His sole defense was insanity. Ordinarily, under these circumstances, we would say little more about the evidence relating to the commission of the crimes. Here, however, since it is indicative of Wood's state of mind on June 30th, we set forth in some detail his statement made to an Assistant District Attorney on July 5th.

Almost at the outset of the interrogation, Wood was asked if he had done something 'wrong' in Astoria on the night of June 30th. He replied that he had, that he 'knocked off those two guys', 'did them in', 'killed two men'. Defendant then related that at about 3:00 P.M. on June 30th, while he was panhandling on Broadway, New York City, he saw John Rescigno, whom he had never met before, leaving a tavern. Wood had panhandled two dollars, but 'was looking for more'. He 'figured' Rescigno was a 'lush' and 'might be good for a score'. Rescigno purchased a bottle of wine. Defendant obtained an invitation from Rescigno to stay at the latter's house that night. He 'figured' he 'could make a score' because Rescigno 'had been drinking like hell', and defendant 'knew what the score was and he didn't'.

During the subway ride to Astoria, Rescigno said he was a 'pensioner', showed Wood his social security card, and 'intimate(d) he has quite a bit of money', at which point defendant 'developed an idea I would try to take (rob) him during the evening sometime'. When they arrived at the house between 7:00 and 8:00 P.M., the 'apartment' was dark, and Rescigno did not turn on the lights. At the time, defendant saw Sess in bed in a bedroom.

They drank some beer; Rescigno took a drink of muscatel 'and he gets silly drunk', 'mumbles unintelligibly', but Wood finally understood that he suggested they 'go to bed together'. Continuing: '* * * I don't like degenerates. I always had a distaste for them. * * * I knew right then he sealed his fate. I know I'm going to knock him off that night. Not only for his money but for the satisfaction of knocking off a degenerate.' But he could not 'knock him off right away because (he had) to figure out the angles'. Therefore Wood went 'along with the gag', gave Rescigno 'a mushy kiss', suggested they take it easy, have some more drinks, and told him he was going to stay all night.

Defendant went to the kitchen to find a weapon. Because it was dark and he did not want to turn on the lights, the only weapon he could find was an empty beer bottle. He took the bottle and a package of cigarettes to Rescigno's bedroom, offered Rescigno a cigarette because 'just as soon as he reached for the cigarette I had the intention of knocking his brains out, which I did'. After rendering the victim unconscious, Wood severed his jugular vein with a piece of jagged glass from the borken bottle. Blood was spurting out, but Wood stood to one side in order to keep from soiling his clothes.

After taking two or three dollars from Rescigno's clothes, Wood remembered a man sleeping in the other room, whom he 'figured' he 'might as well finish * * * off just on the grounds he might be a degenerate also'. Defendant returned to the kitchen 'figuring out the best weapon to use on this guy'. He found a heavy coal shovel, lifted it 'to see if it had the right amount of heft', beat Sess on the head with the shovel, then 'flailed him unmercifully' with a chair. Wood, in his own language, 'was satisfied in my mind he couldn't recover'.

Thereupon defendant went to the kitchen, where he washed, and combed his hair 'I could pass for a Sunday school teacher any place on the face of the earth'. He then returned to the bedroom, searched Sess' pockets looking for money but 'unfortunately' found none. Defendant did not wish to remain long because he felt that Sess' 'loud (dying) noise' and the barking of a dog 'would tip off the neighbors that something was wrong' (emphasis supplied).

Before departing, however, Wood wrote two notes which were found under a cigarette holder on a table in the kitchen. One reads: 'And God bless the Parole Board. They're real intelligent people'; the other states: 'Now, aren't these two murders a dirty shame. I'm so-osorry.' Wood engaged in this 'little caper' to 'dress the two knock offs up a bit', and because he has 'a flair for the dramatics at times'.

The first witness for the defense was the Assistant District Attorney, who had testified for the People regarding Wood's statement. He now related what Wood told him during the time the statement was being transcribed. Defendant spoke, among other things, about three murders he had committed in the past. He subsequently described them orally and in writing to the psychiatrists who examined him at Bellevue Hospital prior to trial, and who testified with reference thereto. In 1925 when he was about 15 years old, and because 'he couldn't have her', Wood injected arsenic into some cream puffs which he sent to a girl, Cynthia Longo, who died as a result thereof. Thereafter, when he was about 21 years old, he bludgeoned 140 times and stabbed to death a woman he encountered one night. Having contracted syphilis and gonorrhea from another woman, thus becoming angry at women generally, he picked this stranger to kill.

In 1942 defendant murdered John Loman because the latter made a disparaging remark about Wood's girl friend. Wood caused Loman to become very drunk, attempted to asphyxiate him with gas, and when this failed to achieve the desired result, he bashed in Loman's head. With the help of his girl friend, Wood hid the body, planning to dismember it later and dispose of the parts. When arrested, he denied his guilt, and the authorities had a "hell of a time" attempting to prove premeditation. Though convicted of murder second degree, defendant said he was "actually guilty of Murder in the First Degree". He was sentenced to from 20 years to life, only to be paroled less than a month before the present homicides.

Defendant further told the Assistant District Attorney that after the jury's verdict in the Loman case, but prior to sentence, he slashed his wrists in a suicide 'attempt', because he did not want to spend a lot of time in prison, and felt he could obtain better treatment in a hospital. He was sent to Dannemora State Hospital, where he enjoyed himself and was allowed to play cards, but when certain privileges were withdrawn, he became dissatisfied and felt it was time to tell the psychiatrist he was not insane. Defendant boasted that 'Anytime I wanted to, I knew I could get out of there because I wasn't insane'; he 'could fool anybody', he was 'fooling the psychiatrist all along' and 'could do it anytime'. He succeeded.

After the hospital released him, Wood was transferred to prison, where he determined to and did become a model prisoner as he sorely wanted to gain freedom. Paroled and assigned to Albany district, Wood obtained employment in a laundry. He was not happy there, however, knew that eventually he would begin drinking again, in which event he would lose his job and be returned to prison, and, therefore, decided to lose himself in New York City.

Although the four defense psychiatrists testified in answer to hypothetical questions that on June 30th defendant was laboring under such defect of reason as to know neither the nature nor the quality of his acts nor that they were wrong, their conclusions were largely weakened by lengthy and vigorous cross-examinations. By contrast, the People's two psychiatric experts, who testified that Wood was legally sane, were together asked but six questions on cross-examination, to two of which objections were sustained.

When the defense psychiatrists had testified, defendant, against the advice of his attorneys, took the stand, after having been duly cautioned, and stated that, although he was 'very sick' while at Bellevue for examination, 'at the time I committed the crime, the two murders, I knew the nature and I knew the quality of my act. I was sane then, perfectly sane, and I am perfectly sane now'. He made this statement, he testified, because he had 'been living on borrowed time' since 1926, and furthermore he did not 'relish the prospect of going back to prison for the rest of my life or to any insane asylum'. He was not cross-examined.

Defendant now merely urges that the People failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew the acts were wrong. We now...