Frederick Charles Wood was convicted of murder twice. In 1942 he received a sentence of 20 years to life for the murder of a man named John Loman. Paroled in 1960, he was tried in Queens County, New York, for the deaths of two older men in Astoria, convicted of murder in the first degree on two counts, and sentenced to death. His only defense was that he was insane. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in December 1962, over dissents, and Wood was executed at Sing Sing on March 21, 1963. At his death, aged 51, he was described as a confessed killer of five people.
In 1942 Wood was convicted of murder in the second degree for the killing of John Loman and sentenced to a term of 20 years to life. Where the killing happened, how old Loman was and the court that sentenced Wood are not on record.
He was paroled in 1960, less than a month before the killings that led to his second prosecution.
In July 1960 Wood spoke at length to a prosecutor and later to psychiatrists about his past. He told them of three earlier deaths: the death in 1925 of Cynthia Longo, when he was about 15; the death of a woman when he was about 21; and the killing of John Loman in 1942, for which he was convicted. Only the Loman case ended in a conviction. The other two are admissions, not convictions, and no charge or verdict for either is on record.
At his death he was described as a confessed killer of five.
On June 30, 1960, John Rescigno, 62, and Frederick Sess, about 77, died in Astoria, in Queens County. Wood was then 50. He had been out of prison for less than a month. On July 5, 1960, Wood gave a detailed statement to an Assistant District Attorney. That statement was admitted at his trial without objection.
Wood was tried in Queens County on charges of murder in the first degree, two counts, one for each man. The date of the verdict is not on record; the appeal was argued in November 1962, so the trial came before then. His only defense was insanity. Court-appointed psychiatrists took part in the trial, and the prosecutor's treatment of them became an issue on appeal. The jury convicted him, and the sentence was death.
People v. Wood was argued before the New York Court of Appeals on November 1, 1962, and decided on December 6, 1962. Judge Froessel wrote the opinion, and Judges Dye, Burke and Foster concurred. The judgment of conviction was affirmed.
Chief Judge Desmond and Judge Van Voorhis dissented. They would have reversed the conviction and dismissed the indictment, arguing that the weight of the evidence showed Wood to have been legally insane under the Penal Law, and they criticized the prosecutor's ridicule of the court-appointed psychiatrists. Judge Fuld dissented in a separate opinion. The point the court settled was that legal insanity is not established by showing that a defendant operates under his own standard of morality.
After the Court of Appeals ruled, a federal habeas corpus petition was filed on Wood's behalf. Norman Redlich, a professor at New York University School of Law and counsel to the New York Committee to Abolish Capital Punishment, brought it by order to show cause dated January 21, 1963. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Bonsal presiding, heard it as United States ex rel. Wood v. Denno, with the Queens County District Attorney's office and the state Attorney General's office opposing, and issued its decision on January 24, 1963. The result of the petition is not on record.
Wood himself did not want the litigation. In a letter to Redlich dated January 25, 1963, he demanded that Redlich stop all court actions that would delay his execution. On March 9, 1963, he wrote a ballad on death row titled "The Ballad of Poor Old Fred." He rejected efforts to win him a stay of execution.
On February 21, 1963, the Court of Appeals granted the People's motion and fixed the week commencing March 18, 1963 for the execution of the death sentence. Wood was executed at Sing Sing on March 21, 1963.
The deaths of Cynthia Longo in 1925 and of a woman when he was about 21 are admissions made to a prosecutor and psychiatrists. They did not lead to charges, and no court has found that Wood caused either death. The total of five is a count of confessions, not convictions.
1925: Wood, about 15, later tells a prosecutor of the death of Cynthia Longo.
1942: Convicted of murder in the second degree for the killing of John Loman; sentenced to 20 years to life.
1960: Paroled less than a month before June 30.
June 30, 1960: John Rescigno and Frederick Sess die in Astoria, Queens.
July 5, 1960: Wood gives a statement to an Assistant District Attorney.
1961 or 1962: Convicted in Queens County of murder in the first degree, two counts; sentenced to death. The exact date is not on record.
November 1, 1962: Appeal argued before the New York Court of Appeals.
December 6, 1962: Court of Appeals affirms the conviction; dissents are filed.
January 21 to 24, 1963: Federal habeas corpus petition filed and decided.
February 21, 1963: Court of Appeals fixes the week commencing March 18, 1963 for the execution.
March 21, 1963: Executed at Sing Sing.