Fink's Murder Trial Fourth for Delaware in 40 Years (1940)
Trial of James Fink, stolid 21-year-old farmhand, on a charge of first degree murder, will be Delaware county's fourth murder trial since the beginning of the century. The "pinochle murder case" will open in Supreme Court at Delhi [Delaware Co., NY], March 11 when Fink, self confessed triple slayer fo the Teed family, begins his fight to escape the electric chair.
Although there have been other murders, only three cases have gone to trial in the historic red-brick Courthouse at Delhi since 1900.
In 1902, Harvey Montgomery of Hobart was tried for the murder of his wife Amela. Found guilty, he was sentenced to die but was granted a new trial by the Court of Appeals and later sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in Auburn prison.
Three years later William Henry Fritts was tried for first degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of Jotham Gay of North Franklin. Fritts claimed Gay had broken up his home and the jury returned a verdict of first degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In one of the speediest murder trials in the county's history, Mrs. Hattie Rathbone Morette of Sidney was acquitted by a Supreme Court grand jury of a charge of murdering her husband, Peter Morette in August, 1909. Mrs. Morette was accused of giving her husband arsenic, the trial lasted five days and after two hours deliberation the jury returned an acquittal at midnight Feb. 26, 1910. William F. White assisted by John G. More of Walton, handled the prosecution and Charles C. Flanesch of Unadilla was attorney for the defendant. Mrs. Morette later ended her life in an Oneonta hotel.
Fred Stronigan, prosperouss town of Kortright farmer, was found lying in his barn with a bullet in his right shoulder and a broken neck on Christmas eve, 1910. No arrest was made.
In 1933, Lester B. Werley, town of Middletown mail carrier, was charged with the slaying of Howard Taylor, who lived on a farm near Northfield.
Allowed to plead guilty to second degree murder, he was sentenced to 20 years in Attica prison by Justice Ely W. Personius of Elmira.
Most recent murder case, previous to the Fink case, was in June 1938, when Frank Radeker killed Mrs. Virgil Beaty of Downsville and then committed suicide, according to Sheriff Alford L. Austin of Delhi.
District Attorney Gleason B. Speenburgh of Fleischmanns and Frederick W. Youmans of Delhi, defense attorney, are expected to appoint alienists this week to examine the Sidney Center, R.D.1, youth. Fink has confessed to state police Jan. 14 the slaying of Frank Teed, his wife and their daughter.
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Murder Victims Rites to be Held on Saturday
Happy Home Circle But a Memory
Closing Chapter of a Crime that Shocked All
Last rites for Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Teed and their daughter, Miss Ruth, gun victims of James Fink, 22-year-old Trout Creek farmhand now serving 70 years in Attica prison, will be held from the Carr-Hare Funeral Chapel in Sidney, Saturday afternoon, 9th inst., at 2:30 o'clock. Reverend Alfred J. Miller, rector of Saint James Episcopal church, Oneonta, will officiate. Interment in the family plot at Masonville cemetery [Delaware Co., NY] in the spring.
Ashes of the victims in three separate urns, were released only Monday by state police laboratories at Schenectady where they had been the subject of study since removed from the ruins of the Teed farm home January 15th. Mr. and Mrs. Teed and their daughter were shot and killed by Fink in their farm home the afternoon of January 14th. That night, after attending a moving picture show, Fink, who had been joined by Aubrey Scrum, also of Trout Creek, returned to the scene and set fire to the house to destroy the evidence of his ghastly deed. After fleeing to Reading, Penna., where they surrendered, Fink pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, second degree, and one of arson at a special term of Supreme court in Delaware county last week.
The Teed family slaying, Fink's confession said, came after he struck down his employer, Mr. Teed, with a hammer in a fit of anger at being taunted about losing a Sunday afternoon pinochle game. Fear stricken, he shot the other members of the family then fired a blast at Mr. Teed, who recovering consciousness from the hammer blow, returned to the house to protect his family.
State police had been studying the pitiful, charred remnants of the three bodies preparatory to presenting evidence in case Fink went to trial for first degree murder. However, alienists' examinations reveled that he had the mentality of a 10-year-old child, was moronic and of defective personality and his plea of guilty to the lesser charge saved him from probable death in the electric chair.
Scrum was sentenced to a year in Elmira reformatory.
Among relatives of Mr. Teed are, Elizabeth Mahoney of Port Crane, and Mrs. Ruth Hitchcock of Binghamton. Among relatives of Mrs. Teed are Adeline Field Stewart of Unadilla-Franklin road, Mrs. George Wohlleben, Mrs. Ina P. Thorne and Miss Maude Fiedl, all of Oneonta; Fenner Fiedl of Masonville. [LMD notation: March 9, 1940]
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