Church Janitor Gets Life in Prison for Fatally Stabbing Chatham Priest
By Alexi Friedman
The Rev. Edward Hinds was a spiritual leader and counselor, a compassionate and forgiving man, and in the end a martyr, friends, relatives and the Morris County prosecutor said yesterday at the sentencing of the former church custodian who killed him. After more than an hour of dramatic words from those who knew and loved the longtime Chatham church pastor, a judge in Morristown ordered that Jose Feliciano, 66, spend the rest of his life in prison with the possibility of parole. Judith Ann Conk, who with her husband, Richard, knew Hinds for 40 years, found no solace in the life sentence. There is only solitude and grief over the pastor’s death, she said. "Who will pick out the perfect book for me, as Ed did?" Conk said, addressing the court. "Who will discuss how far the church has strayed from the teachings of Jesus yet helped us stay on the path? Who will look at all the children at the beach and say ‘thank god for celibacy?’ Who will share our sorrows, triumphs and tragedies? This terrible loss will not go away." Feliciano, wearing glasses and dressed in a yellow jail uniform, appeared slightly dazed and turned away as Conk spoke. The former janitor was a mainstay at St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Chatham, having worked there for 20 years. Speakers struggled to understand how Feliciano, of Easton, Pa., could have turned on the man who gave him a job, and on the congregation that had embraced him and his children, as parishioner Michelle Ballotta Lowe put it. BRUTAL CRIME Feliciano admitted to stabbing Hinds 44 times inside the St. Patrick rectory on Oct. 22, 2009, shortly after the priest fired him. Prosecutors said the 61-year-old pastor had discovered Feliciano had an arrest warrant in Philadelphia from the 1980s for sexually touching a child and had used aliases and fake identification over the years to hide his past. But when he took the stand in his own defense, Feliciano claimed the killing was provoked and said he was nearing retirement when Hinds fired him. In the most shocking revelation, Feliciano also alleged Hinds had been blackmailing him for four years by forcing him to perform sex acts in exchange for keeping the criminal charges quiet. In December, after a six-week trial and just five hours of deliberation, a jury rejected that defense, convicting Feliciano of murder, felony murder, robbery, hindering and weapons charges. Yesterday, Feliciano kept his gaze to the ground and told Superior Court Judge Thomas Manahan he had nothing to say before sentence was imposed inside the crowded courtroom in Morristown. The judge, who kept his remarks brief, told Feliciano he was required to impose life without parole because of the jury’s verdict, but that it gave him no pause. "It has nothing to do with the fact Father Hinds was a Catholic priest," the judge said. "This crime was heinous. His conduct deceitful. The court would most certainly have sentenced him the same." By contrast, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi, who handled the trial himself, spoke in highly personal and unusually emotional language as he praised Hinds for his service to the church, then denounced Feliciano for his attempt to stain the pastor’s good name. "Mr. Feliciano is a professional liar and fabricator with no respect for his family, his relatives and the defenseless, helpless people just like Father Ed," Bianchi said as he glared at Feliciano, who was visibly shaking. "Father Ed dies a martyr for protecting God’s children and the world’s a better place because of it." Feliciano, the prosecutor continued, "murdered a man, sought to destroy his reputation. He murdered a community. He murdered a parish, or tried to." To honor Hinds, the prosecutor’s office will hold its National Crime Victims’ Rights Week ceremony at St. Patrick’s Church at 6 p.m. Monday. COMMUNITY ANGER Speakers also tried to come to terms with Hinds’ death and to express their anger and hurt over the allegations of sexual wrongdoing, which Bianchi said were completely unfounded. Ballotta Lowe, a longtime parishioner and church leader, described Hinds as her "spiritual guide" and an "ever present force." Reading quickly from a prepared statement as if to outrun her tears, Lowe talked about the pain Feliciano inflicted, first by killing her beloved pastor, then by insulting his memory. "The lies our community was forced to hear throughout the trial were truly unthinkable," she said. "The world can be a cruel place, I know people learn that in life. But I do deeply resent the manner in which this lesson was imposed on us." When it was his turn to talk, Daniel Silas Miller, a cousin whose mother is Hinds’ closest living relative, seethed with anger. "The disrespect I had to hear in this courtroom was untenable. Ed Hinds was a good and decent man," Miller said. "To listen to him spoken about in that way was appalling." Outside the courtroom afterward and with microphones thrust in his face, Miller was asked how he felt about Feliciano’s refusal to apologize or make any statement. Miller thought for a moment before answering: "Don’t you think he said enough? I think he said enough. I think he showed exactly who he was and quiet frankly I don’t want to hear another word out of his mouth ever again."
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