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In our last installment, we covered the 1942 murder of John Albert Lowman and the trial of his killer, Frederick Wood. Wood was sentenced to 20 years to life, with a recommendation to serve the maximum sentence. After 13 months in Attica, he was transferred to Dannemora. He eventually found his way to Clinton Prison. He remained incarcerated until Jun 7, 1960.

The 160 pound, 5’9″, grey-haired blue-eyed man was released on parole after serving 17 years for the murder of itinerant carpenter and WWI veteran John Albert Lowman in a rooming house in Elmira in October of 1942. Local law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and court officials protested his release, but the parole board had made up its mind. Due to Wood’s improved disposition in recent years, the Parole Board was confident he could get along in society. However, due to the Elmira law enforcement’s objections, they released him to the Albany area instead of allowing him to return home to Elmira. Additionally, he was not to return home to visit except with special permission from the Parole Board and then only in the custody of a parole officer. Parole officials promised that Wood would not be able to drink alcohol and would be monitored very strictly. Frederick Wood quickly found work in an Albany laundry, but lost that job after only three weeks. His employer stated that “he could not compete successfully with other employees”.*

On Friday, July 1, 1960, a few days after he lost his job, the newspaper reported a widespread search for Wood. His whereabouts were unknown.

July 1, 1960.

He remained at large on until Sunday, July 3 when, acting on information supplied by Elmira police, authorities captured him in the New York City borough of Queens. A round-the-clock check of transient houses in the Bowery ultimately produced the fugitive. He had been drinking, but was unarmed and offered no resistance to the arresting officers. The Parole Board would review his case and determine if he would remained paroled or would have to return to prison.

On July 4, 1960, the bodies of two elderly men were found in an apartment in Queens. They had been dead about 3 days. 78 year-old Frederick Sess was found on his bed, his face smashed in by a whiskey bottle. In another room, 62 year-old John Rescigno was found, his face and throat slashed by the jagged edge of a broken beer bottle. Two notes were found at the scene. One read “How do you like these two murders? O-o-o I’m sorry”. The other read, “The people in the parole board are intelligent”.

Newsday, Nassau Edition.

Once in police custody, Frederick Wood told police he had killed the two men in Queens after a night of drinking. He had first attacked Rescigno, and then went after the sleeping Mr. Sess who was stirring in the next room after the murder, in order to silence him.

But Wood wasn’t finished with his confessions. He told investigators how in 1926, he had studied a book of poison in order to kill a girlfriend. He fed her and two other girls cream puffs spiked with arsenic. Wood had just confessed to the unsolved cold case of the 1926 poisoning of Cynthia Longo and her two sisters in Hornell, NY.

He also told authorities that seven years after he killed Miss Longo, he beat to death a woman he didn’t know on Elmira’s Southside. He had just confessed to the 1933 murder of Mrs. Pearl Robinson, for which Gabriel Domoto had been arrested and institutionalized.

Counting his conviction for the 1942 murder of John Albert Lowman in Elmira, this brought the number of killings to 5. He nearly killed a sixth, George Lucy, who he shot after a hold-up, but thankfully Mr. Lucy survived.

He had also used three aliases; John Walker, George Elwood, and George Christian. An initial search under those names didn’t yield any results n the local newspapers.

Frederick Wood was a serial killer who had been active since 1926 and who was released from prison to kill again. Some things in common with the murders: he had used a paring knife on Pearl Robinson, John Albert Lowman, and threatened Regina Galek with one. He had killed the two men in Queens and John Lowman with bottles. He threatened to poison his father Charles, just as he had the Longo sisters in 1926. He regularly harassed and threatened women. He had an extremely long rap sheet of other offenses, intermixed with multiple paroles. Below is a timeline according to the July 6, 1960 Elmira Star Gazette:

  • December 31, 1926: Cynthia Longo passes away from eating a poisoned cream puff given to her by a male acquaintance who is never named in the newspaper. Cynthia’s brother asks that Frederick Wood be questioned in regards to the poisoning. The case goes cold and is never solved.

    January 8, 1927: Charles Wood, Frederick’s father, files a petition in Chemung County court to have Frederick adjudged insane and committed to the Binghamton State Hospital. Frederick has two prior youthful convictions.

    January 28 – March 28, 1927: Wood remains at Binghamton State Hospital. Doctors disagreed on whether he’s either insane or “extremely intelligent”.

    November 1927: Frederick Wood arrested for public intoxication.

    December 2, 1927: Stole the car of Mr. Gordon Sheely.

    January 13, 1928: Indicted on 2 counts of grand larceny. Given a suspended sentence. Wood is sent to Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, a school supervised by the State Social Welfare Department.

    July 1929: Frederick Wood returns to Elmira.

    November 6, 1929: Shot Mr. George Lucy for $0.25. Wood was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    December 1929: Chemung County grand jury indicts hm for first degree robbery.

    April 3, 1931: Granted parole.

    March 10, 1932: Returned to Reformatory for violating parole, disorderly conduct, and public intoxication for harassing a woman.

    March 11, 1932 – October 17, 1932: Committed to Dannemora State Hospital for examination and returned to Elmira Reformatory.

    November 30, 1932: Granted Parole.

    July 6, 1933: Pearl Robinson murdered. Another man, Gabriel Domoto, arrested and institutionalized for the crime.

    July 8, 1933: Arrested for disorderly conduct for harassing a woman in a Broadway pharmacy.

    August 19, 1933: Returned to Elmira Reformatory.

News of the two murders in Queens created an uproar among the public and law enforcement. Why was he ever released? The Parole Board faced intense scrutiny on their decision to release Wood and that they then allowed him to slip away. The Governor of New York State, Nelson Rockefeller asked for a report. The State Parole Board chairman, Russell G. Oswald, called Wood’s release “an honest error in judgement”. The Parole Board was asked to reveal all the documentation surrounding their decision.

On July 7, 1960, the Elmira Star Gazette reports that “before releasing Wood the board had received a psychiatric recommendation that was not a favorable one”. The Albany laundry owner was interviewed and said that he didn’t understand why Wood was granted parole either. “He’d been in so long he was having trouble making an adjustment. He didn’t seem dangerous but he has a glaze in his eye and was over-polite.” Wood also shared with the laundry owner that he had never killed anyone, that he had been framed.

His defense lawyer in the 1943 murder trial, Judson R. Hoover said that Wood was a “liar, extrovert, braggart” and that he had back then boasted about the Robinson murder and the creampuff poisoning. Authorities investigated but could not find any evidence, and Wood later recanted his statements. Wood had also told his girlfriend at the time, Regina, about the two previous killings. Attorney Hoover said Wood thought he was smarter than anyone else, insisted on taking the stand in his 1943 trial and convicted himself in what he said and how he talked to the jury. Hoover expressed doubts that Wood had committed the 1926 and 1933 killings, saying he was probably saying that to get attention. Wood was known for telling lies.

Even knowing his true nature, Wood’s parents remained a support to him. Though Frederick was reported to have beaten up his father Charles and threatened his life at knifepoint if he didn’t help dispose of Mr. Lowman’s body in 1942, even though Charles had his son committed in 1927, and reported him to police after the 1942 slaying, he still sat at the counsel table with his son at the murder trial, holding his hand. A quieter steadfast presence was Frederick’s mother Mary, who attended the trial as well, though she sat behind the counsel tables.

Mary Wood was interviewed in 1960, calling her son Frederick “as kind and gentle as any mother could have wanted”. When asked about the confessions to the earlier murders, she responded, “There are many facts I could refute. But I don’t feel that I care to say anymore. What good would it do? But he absolutely did not commit that Robinson killing, nor the one in Hornell…I presume if they asked him if he killed Abraham Lincoln, he would admit to that too…” She stated that she was too upset to think about the future. “People — at least those with any character — must make the best of whatever comes. I have been trying to do that”.

Mrs. Wood was born Mary Jane Combs on February 5, 1887 in South Creek, Bradford County, Pennsylvania to Joseph and Abigail Combs. She had three brothers and one sister. Her father Joseph was a farmer, born in Maryland in 1846, and his parents were British immigrants. Her brothers lived at home and helped on the farm. She married Charles Andrew Wood on October 30, 1906 in Elmira Heights, NY. Their only child, Frederick Charles, was born to them on October 29, 1911. Frederick’s father Charles was born in 1882 in Waverly, NY. He worked as a door-to-door salesman, and when Frederick was old enough he joined his father in sales. Frederick always had a job with his father when he was in Elmira. Charles Wood passed away just three years after his son’s murder conviction, leaving Mrs. Wood of 585 Thompson St. alone.

The Parole Board defended its initial decision to release Wood on Parole, citing his 17-year exemplary behavior as a prisoner and that their action was based upon “the honest, carefully considered judgement of the entire five-man parole board.” However, they also put a temporary ban on parole for prisoners convicted of homicide or serious sex crimes until parole procedures were revised.

Frederick Wood was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two men in Queens. Wood himself said he wished for death, and his mother supported his wish. The United States Supreme Court denied a petition by Attorney Norman Dorson for a stay of execution. Wood was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing on Thursday, March 21, 1963.

Mrs. Mary J. Wood declined attempts for an interview, and put the family home at 585 Thompson St. up for sale. I don’t believe the house sold, as that is listed as her address until 1974. She passed away in August of 1975 at the age of 88. She was buried in Waverly, NY, next to her husband and son.

The home on Thompson St. was two blocks away from my grandmother’s house. I am sure the families crossed paths, especially with Charles being a door-to-door salesman. I think often of the tough choices Frederick’s parents had to make. I don’t think anyone will ever be sure exactly how many victims Frederick had, but whatever the number one comes up with, it would be safe to add two more.

Elmira Star Gazette. March 22, 1963.

*Elmira Star Gazette. July 7, 1960, page 1. “Rock asks for facts in Parole of Wood”.