By Peggy Wright
Daily Record
October 24, 2011
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20111024/NJNEWS/310240025/Accused-killer-s-wife-tried-calling-him-3x-during-time-prosecutor-alleges-Chatham-priest-was-murdered
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| Jose Feliciano is accused of stabbing the Rev. Edward Hinds 32 times on Oct. 22, 2009, because the cleric had learned of his past. Daily Record 2010 MORRISTOWN, September 8, 2010--Accused killer Jose Feliciano, 65, is led into Morris County Court. Defense lawyer Neill (cq) Hamilton said in court the alleged confession made by Feliciano is suspect because the janitor was in a psychiatric ward and possibly medicated at the time. Feliciano was charged with murdering Chatham Rev. Edward Hinds last year._Photo/Bob Karp_090810 feliciano / staff photo |
While Jose Feliciano was in the rectory of St. Patrick Church in Chatham killing the Rev. Edward Hinds, authorities say, his wife tried three times by telephone to reach her spouse as she waited outside the church to drive him home from work.
A Morris County jury on Monday heard testimony in Feliciano’s murder trial from county Prosecutor’s Office Detective Jan Monrad, who retrieved multiple cellphone records of various people from Oct. 22 and 23, 2009.
The 61-year-old pastor was stabbed 32 times in the rectory on Oct. 22, 2009.
The church custodian, Feliciano, now 66, is charged with the crime.
Monrad identified cellphone records that show Marisol Feliciano, who is expected to be called as a state witness, telephoned her husband three times between 5:10 p.m. and 5:50 p.m. on Oct. 22.
Monrad also obtained records from Verizon Wireless that show a 911 emergency call at 5:26 p.m. on Oct. 22 from the priest’s cellphone, Monrad also obtained records from Verizon Wireless that show a 911 emergency call at 5:26 p.m. on Oct. 22 from the priest’s cellphone, along with multiple other calls from Hinds’ phone that hit off cell towers in Pennsylvania. Feliciano lived in Easton, Pa.
In his opening trial statement last Thursday, county Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi alleged that Feliciano, after the killing, broke the priest’s cellphone and brought it home.
The phone malfunctioned and called numbers on Hinds’ contact list, alerting police that it had been removed from the rectory and brought to Pennsylvania.
County Sheriff’s Officer Kelley Zienowicz, a crime scene unit officer, was called by Assistant Prosecutor David Bruno to identify photographs of the crime scene that include Hinds’ body sprawled on the rectory kitchen floor and blood swipes found on walls and a table.
Bianchi has said that the priest struggled and tussled with his attacker as he was being stabbed to death.
Feliciano, who was the church janitor for 18 years, was among the church workers who “discovered” Hinds’ body around 8 a.m. Oct. 23, 2009, when the victim failed to appear to celebrate morning mass.
Joseph McCabe, a Chatham emergency medical technician who responded to the rectory, testified that no medical aid was rendered because it was clear the priest was dead.
Within moments of leaving the church, the emergency squad was called back to render aid to Feliciano, who had an increased pulse and respiratory rate.
He had performed brief CPR on Hinds after the priest was found, but then dramatically stopped and lamented, “What could have happened to Father Ed?” according to a witness, Chatham Officer Daryle Kelly.
McCabe said that Feliciano commented, as he was being attended to: “I tried to save Father Ed. I should have done more for Father Ed.”
Prosecutors allege that Feliciano murdered the priest after he discovered the custodian was hiding a criminal past and planned to fire him.
The defense, using a passion and provocation manslaughter theory, claims that the cleric forced Feliciano to do certain acts and that Feliciano killed the priest in a homicidal rage.
The trial is to continue today.
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