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FRANK J. RINALDI MURDER TRIALSHeadline text
METTA FOR FRANK AND LUCILLE By Nora Gaskin Esthimer

Frank J. Rinaldi, born March 15, 1929, died Nov. 14, 2009 Lucille Begg Rinaldi, born October 9, 1929, died Dec. 24, 1963

May they be safe; may they be happy; may they be at peace; may they have ease of well-being.

December 24, 1963, 8:45 a.m.: Stanley Forte* pulled up in front of his friend Frank Rinaldi’s house. Frank came out and got in Stan’s car. “Together again, baby,” Frank said and they set off, driving twelve miles or so from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to Durham, North Carolina, to go Christmas shopping.

They bought gifts for their wives, toys for Stan’s two sons, and Frank bought a teddy bear for the baby his wife, Lucille, was carrying.

When they returned to Frank’s duplex apartment, 105 North Street, Chapel Hill, at about 1:30 p.m., they found that Lucille had been struck on the head, strangled, and smothered with a pillow. She and her baby were both dead. By the end of the day, Frank was in jail, charged with murder.



Thus began an ordeal that lasted for two years, and a lifetime. Frank would be tried twice for the crime of murder. He was convicted in the first trial and spent a year in prison, held in seclusion on Death Row although he had not been sentenced to death. It was for his safekeeping.

Frank was supported by a number of friends, including my father, James Gaskin. Dad was a Professor in the English Department at the University of North Carolina and he held a post in the Graduate School that made him an advisor to graduate students. In both of those positions, he would have had a chance to know Frank, as he would any other student. I have no reason to believe he was friendlier to or closer to Frank than to others, until Lucille died and Frank was arrested. My father always believed in Frank’s innocence, and so did my mother, my sister, my brother and I. I was twelve, almost thirteen, in December 1963, and for the next two years, my family life was led against the backdrop of the Rinaldi Case.

I look back on it and I believe that the case was both a mirror for and a reflection of my hometown and the way the larger world invaded it during those years. My mother kept clippings from the newspapers that covered the case. I have read them several times. I have asked my sister for her remembrances and I have talked with Frank’s good friend of the time, Kevin Kerrane. Here is the story as I can best put it together from these sources.

Frank Rinaldi and Lucille Begg Rinaldi both grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut, their families living near each other. He took her to her first High School prom in 1947. Frank went to prep school at the Taft School, then got his BA in English at Georgetown in 1951. He worked for the CIA for two years, including a stent in Paris, then joined the Army and served for three years. In 1956, he came to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and went to graduate school for a year. Then he took a teaching job at the University of Missouri, followed by a stay in Texas, a trip to Mexico, and a year or so in New York working for an advertizing agency. In 1960, he returned to Chapel Hill and enrolled in the PhD program in English.

From information available to me, Lucille seems to have stayed closer to home. She attended Albertus Magnus College in New Haven. In 1961, she received her Masters Degree in guidance at Fairfield University in Connecticut and afterwards studied Law for a year. She then began to work as a school teacher.

If Frank and Lucille maintained a friendship or romance through their twenties, it was long-distance, though Frank’s family remained in Waterbury and they would have had opportunities to reconnect when he went home for visits. Whether it was long slow courtship, or a rediscovery of each other, they eventually made plans to marry. They became engaged in the summer of 1962 and married on July 31, 1963.

They honeymooned at the Begg family’s summer home on the coast of Connecticut, with Lucille’s brother and his wife joining them for a weekend.

On September 2, 1963, the newly-weds drove to Chapel Hill. On September 9, 1963, Lucille returned to Waterbury and resumed her job there.

She had planned to work in a junior high school in Chapel Hill, but found that the salary was substantially less than she had been earning and she was not pleased with the circumstances. She wrote to the principal that she was returning home due to a family emergency; when Frank was asked about it later, he said he believed she put it that way so as not to hurt feelings, but that she was actually not happy with the new job.

When a bride returns home abruptly after a month of marriage, it could be a sign that the relationship is a troubled one, and that is the easy explanation. However, there is a wider context to consider that puts her departure in a different light.

Frank had been in Chapel Hill long enough to make good friends among his fellow graduate students, as well as with people like Stan. They had met when Frank went to the Fortes’ home with a woman friend of Mrs. Forte’s.

Frank lived in a graduate student dorm for the 1962-63 academic year. Then, because he planned to marry Lucille at the end of July, he moved into the apartment on North Street. His Connor Dorm roommate and fellow English graduate student, Kevin Kerrane, shared the North Street apartment during the early part of the summer. Then Kevin went home to West Virginia; he expected to find a different place to live when he returned, because he expected Lucille to be in residence on North Street. When she wasn’t, he and another man named Jerry moved into the apartment to share expenses.

Frank and Kevin were good friends and Kevin was in a position to know a lot about Frank’s personal life because they shared accommodations for over a year. Kevin saw no signs of trouble in the marriage. He remembers that Frank went to Connecticut or New York City to see Lucille regularly throughout the fall of 1963. The couple wrote letters and talked by telephone, and Frank spent Thanksgiving with Lucille in Waterbury. The only bit of unhappiness Kevin recalls is that Frank said Lucille’s Aunt Lucy, with whom she lived that fall, was jealous of him and was unpleasant to him when he was in her home.

At age 34, the Rinaldis were not children. They had known each other a long time. They had been apart before and had maintained their relationship. Frank would not have expected to stay in Chapel Hill permanently; in fact, he could write his dissertation while living somewhere else. He would not have made much money teaching one Freshman English course as a graduate instructor.

Lucille lived as a single woman longer than many of her generation. When she did marry, she left a job at which she was apparently very good, where she was appreciated, and which paid her well. It is possible that Frank and Lucille agreed that it made sense for her to go back to Waterbury, to take up the job that was still open, for them to live as they had during their courtship. It would not be forever.

Lucille found herself to be pregnant—something that Kevin says Frank was very excited about. When Frank learned that the baby who would not be born was a boy, he broke down. He told Kevin they had thought of naming a boy Christian. Frank’s mother’s maiden name was Christiano.

No doubt, Lucille and Frank were making plans for their future, plans that they would not necessarily have shared with other people. After all, she seems to have kept the seriousness of her courtship with Frank to herself. Or perhaps people who knew of the plans had reason to suppress that knowledge in the aftermath of her death.

Lucille came to Chapel Hill on December 20, 1963 for the Christmas holidays. Kevin had borrowed Frank’s car to drive home to West Virginia, and the third occupant of 105 North Street was also away. Frank and Lucille went to the Catholic Church for Sunday services and Frank exchanged greetings with a man he knew only slightly, a young attorney named Barry Winston.

On December 23, Stan Forte and his wife had dinner at the Rinaldis’ apartment and it could be that the men made their plans for the next day then, or it could be that the shopping trip had been planned further in advance. In the early and mid-60’s, Chapel Hill’s business district was made up of two or three blocks on Franklin Street. Most of the businesses catered to students, although there were two or three small family department stores and two nicer women’s clothing stores. Eastgate Shopping Center was at the edge of town, with a mix of small shops and a grocery store. All in all, shopping opportunities in Chapel Hill were limited and many families with children—my own included—routinely went to the larger town of Durham. Northgate Shopping Center had more stores than downtown Chapel Hill and Eastgate combined, and downtown Durham was a vital shopping area with much more to offer. For the men to head toward Durham for Christmas shopping is not at all unusual or surprising.

Frank drove an attention-drawing car, a Lincoln that Lucille had found for him at an auction. It was an older model with the spare tire mounted on the back, and flashy enough for Frank to believe it appealed to women. He urged Kevin to drive it on dates in order to impress the girl. But that car was not available to Frank and Stan on December 24. Kevin had borrowed it for the holidays and had been gone for several days.

Anyone familiar with Frank, or the car, or both, would have noticed that it had been gone for several days and may well have assumed that Frank himself was away and that the apartment was empty.

The two men headed for Durham in Stan’s own distinctive car, a red and white Volkswagen Microbus. They went both to Northgate and downtown, seeing people who remembered them or the Microbus. Later, they returned to Chapel Hill, stopping at Eastgate before going to Franklin Street, still shopping as they went. Again, they saw people who could identify them. In the aftermath of Lucille’s death, a timeline could be put together:

•	Stan Forte, driving his red and white VW Microbus, picked Frank up at approximately 8:45 a.m.

•	Stan stopped for gas at Jake’s Sunoco on 15-501, the highway to Durham. George Rhoton, who worked at the Sunoco, knew Stan and remembered seeing him at the Sunoco that morning. Mr. Rhoton also remembered the red and white Microbus. Mr. Rhoton said that there was a man with Stan. They were at the Sunoco at 9:00 and came from the direction of Chapel Hill. When the Microbus left the service station, it headed toward Durham.

•	Stan needed to stop by his office at Northgate. Frank said he would go into the mall. Stan discovered the office door was locked and the key was in his car. He started back to the car, saw Frank, and they went to Roses, an area chain five-and-dime store. They spent some minutes in Roses looking for toy sword sets for Stan’s sons, without luck.

•	Then they went to Kerr Rexall Drugstore looking for toys. The store didn’t have the sword sets Stan wanted, and he talked to the manager, Julian Upchurch. Then Stan and Frank went to the lunch counter in Kerr Rexall and ordered coffee. Stan testified that they stayed there about 30 minutes.

•	Dave Hardy, one of Stan’s colleagues, testified that he drank coffee with Stan and a man introduced as Frank Rinaldi on Christmas Eve. Mr. Hardy said that it was about 9:30 when they sat down. He got up and left a few minutes after 10:00 because he had to make a call.

•	As Mr. Hardy left, another colleague, Jack Hopkins, came in and took Mr. Hardy’s seat at the booth. Mr. Hopkins testified that he, Stan and Frank stayed there for about 20 minutes. (So it’s now about 10:30.)

•	Stan had some paper work to do, so Rinaldi went to his office with him and waited for about 10 minutes while Stan did his work.

•	Then they drove the Microbus and went to two stores on Broad Street in Durham looking for the sword sets. Then they drove to downtown Durham. (Broad Street is one of the streets that goes from Northgate to Downtown.)

•	They went to Thalhimers Department Store where Stan bought gifts for his wife. Madge Spain, a clerk at Thalhimers, waited on Frank and assisted him in buying a maternity dress. She testified that he was there between 11:00 and 11:30. She remembered because she was to have gone to lunch at 11:00 but another clerk left first for lunch and Ms. Spain had to stay.

•	George Barrett, a man from Chapel Hill who ran the Storybook Farm day camp, was in Thalhimers that day and testified that he saw Stan Forte—whom he knew because Stan’s son had gone to Storybook Farm—with a man he (Barrett) didn’t know.

•	Stan and Frank then went across the street to Woolworth’s, made some purchases, and then went to another store where they didn’t buy anything.

•	They drove the Microbus to Sears. Henry Semmer was at Sears and testified that he saw Frank—whom he knew—and a man he didn’t know, who had blond hair and a mustache, in Sears. The description of blond hair and a mustache fits Stan Forte.

•	Stan and Frank drove back to Northgate and returned to Kerr Rexall. The manager, Julian Upchurch, was working a register because a clerk had gone to lunch. Frank checked out at Mr. Upchurch’s register; the manager remembered because Frank bought an artificial Christmas tree and Mr. Upchurch had to get a special cover for the tree. Mr. Upchurch remembered Stan Forte when he saw him again because they had had a conversation about the toy sword sets Stan wanted earlier. Mr. Upchurch “‘did not connect’” that the two men were together.

•	Stan and Frank drove in the Microbus back to Chapel Hill and stopped at Eastgate Shopping Center for about fifteen minutes. Stan went into three stores looking for a sewing set for his wife.

•	James Heavner, a Chapel Hill business man, testified that he saw Stan Forte, whom he knew, at Eastgate at about 12:45. They greeted each other and shook hands.

•	Stan and Frank drove the Microbus to the shopping district on Franklin Street. Stan estimated this would have been at approximately 12:30 to 12.45. Stan stopped at the post office to check his mailbox. Frank waited in the car. Then Stan drove around to the Rosemary Street Merchants’ Parking Lot so he could go into Pete the Tailors and pick up a suit he’d left.

•	The two men went to the Roses store and Huggins Hardware looking for the sewing set Stan wanted. Olga Hackett, who was working at Huggins that day, knew Frank and saw him in the store. She didn’t remember the exact time; she thought it was before lunch. She also said she did not take a lunch break that day because the store was so busy. Based on other peoples’ recollections, it seems likely that she had the time wrong a little wrong—an honest mistake.

•	Stan and Frank went out the back door of the store, got in the Microbus and drove to Chapel Hill Tire on West Franklin. Stan estimated it was 1:05 p.m. He was planning a trip and wanted a new tire on the Microbus. The business was closed. Stan knocked on the door and Sion Jennings, the operator of Chapel Hill Tire, opened it. Mr. Jennings testified that he knew it was after 1:00 because he had closed the business at 1:00 so his employees could enjoy Christmas Eve. He knew Stan, and said that a man he didn’t know was with Stan.

•	Stan and Frank drove to the North Street apartment, arriving there at about 1:30, and found Lucille.

The timeline is based on testimony given in the first trial and reported in a newspaper story.

We know much less about how Lucille spent her last hours. Frank said later that they ate breakfast together. Frank and Stan found her still wearing her pajamas and robe. We do know that she wrote at least one letter to a friend and that the letter was found in the apartment: “Frank has kissed and smiled his kisses and smiles and departed for Durham to tell Santa what a good girl I am,” she had written.

Earlier in the year of 1963, the county commissioners of Orange County (the county in which Chapel Hill is located) budgeted for the County to hire a medical examiner to replace the elected coroner. However, as of December 24 that year, the position had not been filled. Thus, it was the elected coroner, who happened to work at a funeral home, who was called to examine Lucille’s body. Frank—probably on the advice of his lawyer—asked for an autopsy to be done by a pathologist at the University’s Medical School. Frank also paid for the autopsy.

The pathologist determined the body temperature showed Lucille had died no earlier than 10:00 a.m. and that smothering was the cause of death. The pathologist testified that she would not have died quickly—something sad to contemplate.

We are all amateur forensic scientists and psychologists these days, thanks to television. For a killer to have first struck a victim over the head, then tied a scarf over her mouth and nose and then smothered her with a pillow suggests to me that the killer was not efficient and perhaps not prepared to do what he or she did. Once Frank was arrested on the evening of December 24, he called the only attorney he knew, Barry Winston, the man he had seen at church two days earlier. Mr. Winston had joined the North Carolina bar in 1961. He practiced in Atlanta before coming back to Chapel Hill. He had been in his newly established practice for only a few weeks as of time of Lucille’s death. In one newspaper report, it was said that Frank was his first client in Chapel Hill.

Winston spent hours at the jail with Frank on the evening of the 24th. As he left, he pressed the police not to interview Frank in his absence. He also asked the police to take Frank to the University infirmary for a sedative. Records show that happened, but it is not clear whether or not Frank took the medication he was given.

I think that even people skeptical of Frank’s innocence (and there are those people) would acknowledge that his arrest was premature. No real investigation had been done. No time had been taken to verify his and Stan’s account of where they had been that day. No scientific information about the death was yet available, but Frank was in jail and stayed there.

A reporter named Roland Giduz was given access to Frank and conducted an hour long interview. Mr. Giduz’ story appeared in The Greensboro Daily News on Friday, December 27, 1963. He described Frank as “dazed” but talking freely, as “soft-spoken and bespectacled…He appeared very weary, and chain smoked cigarettes. He said he hadn’t eaten anything since he and his wife had breakfast together on Christmas Eve.” Mr. Giduz referred to an untouched package of food sent by friends. He asked Frank about a circulating story concerning a bloody shirt; Frank declined to answer on advice of his attorney.

To quote further from Giduz’ article: “[Barry] Winston said he would give Chapel Hill police the autopsy report ‘as soon as we resolve an impasse we seem to have reached in communications. I cannot get any information from the police about this case,’ he added. ‘We want to know what makes them think my client is the man they want.’”

In a probable cause hearing held in early January. Stan Forte was one of the witnesses who testified at the hearing. Kevin Kerrane was not there, but several other English graduate students attended in support of Frank. Stan was asked what Frank said when he got into Stan’s car on Christmas Eve morning. “‘Together again, baby,’” Stan answered. Frank’s graduate student friends were glad to hear those words. For one thing, it was pure Frank—a characteristic thing for him to say. And perhaps, for those who believed in his innocence, they thought this lighthearted greeting made it clear that he could not be a cold killer. Ultimately that greeting was used against Frank.

With corroboration for Frank’s alibi, with the pathologist’s report, perhaps with Lucille’s letter—“Frank departed for Durham”—a judge ruled that there was no probable cause to hold Frank for the murder.

Roland Giduz quoted Police Chief William Blake in the December 27 article: “A lot of loose ends need to be put together in the investigation, such as the motive, time of death and cause of death.” Reading that now, I scratch my head and wonder just what they did have.

By the time of the probable cause hearing, time of death and cause of death were no longer loose ends. However, the Chapel Hill police and the State Bureau of Investigation were convinced that Frank was their man and they continued to investigate him.

Why? To me, that remains a compelling question. In my cozy hometown, a town in which there was one economic and moral force—the University—how could a man devastated by the death of his wife and unborn child be arrested a matter of hours after finding them, with no evidence at all? Why, to use a much more current phrase, the rush to judgment? And why would investigators not at least allow for the possibility that their judgment could be wrong? If it was, a killer would go free.

A month and two days before Lucille and her baby died, the President of the United States was assassinated. Then we all watched on television as his accused killer was murdered in police custody. The earth was surely shifting and quaking under our feet and we were frightened.

The Civil Rights movement had also come to Chapel Hill. Segregationists were disturbed because their principles were being rejected in the larger world, and now up and down Franklin Street itself.

Other white residents of Chapel Hill cherished the Town’s liberal reputation. Now limits on the Town’s—and their own—liberalness were exposed. There were marches, demonstrations, sit-ins, and violence. The Town’s confidence that it was superior to places like Birmingham was shaken.

Against the background of change and uncertainty and fear, it was simply not acceptable for a crime like Lucille Rinaldi’s murder to happen. When it did happen, no time could be lost in nailing a suspect, and her husband would do. Once that stand was taken by the police department and the State Bureau of Investigation, it had to be defended.

The judge’s dismissal of the case due to lack of evidence just meant that evidence had to be patched together.

During the spring of 1964, Frank hired a private investigator. Police officers including Detective Howard Pendergraph and SBI agents including Frank Satterfield and Hayward Starling set about to talk to Frank’s friends and to investigate his life. Kevin Kerrane remembers that a police officer hit on a very attractive woman grad student while interviewing her. She and her friends were appalled by the officer’s behavior.

Since Kevin had lived at 105 North Street, what he had to say was important. Agent Satterfield and a police officer interviewed Kevin. They asked him who else had a key to the apartment. Kevin and Frank had moved into the apartment at the end of the academic year, meaning in May or June 1963. They had hired a man named Eddie Gorman* to clean the apartment first and to help get them moved in.

For several days, Eddie had had a key and Kevin told the investigators so. He remembers that Agent Satterfield wrote it down, asking how to spell Eddie’s name.

Mr. Gorman did odd jobs around town, just as he had for Frank and Kevin. He also worked as a waiter at a restaurant called the Zoom Zoom. He seems to have had no trouble with the law but Kevin thought he was a bit of a shady character. Frank told Kevin that Eddie had offered to sell him a television set at a very low price and Frank turned it down, suspecting that it could be stolen.

At the time Kevin told the officers Eddie’s name, he had a sense that they had not heard it before in connection to the case, but soon Eddie Gorman became very well known in Chapel Hill.

Eddie Gorman told the police that Frank Rinaldi offered him money to kill Lucille, that he—Eddie—saw Frank at Eastgate on Christmas Eve and Frank ran over to him calling, “It’s over Eddie. I did it” or words similar to that.

Eddie’s story was dramatic, but it didn’t give the investigators a motive. They thought they found one when they discovered that Frank had purchased a $20,000 double indemnity life insurance policy on Lucille weeks before they were married. He purchased a $10,000 policy on himself at the same time. With Lucille murdered, he stood to get $40,000. Unless he was convicted of killing her himself.

Money is one of the classic motives for murder. The other is sex, and Eddie also told the police that Frank had made sexual advances toward him. This was secret, dark, hidden and shameful sex. Evidence was not needed. Innuendo of homosexuality would do.

And there was yet another social vibration that could be exploited. Eddie Gorman was black. In a town whose liberal reputation was being tarnished, there was pressure to believe Eddie because of his race. A girl who had been my close friend since first grade called me “racist” because I did not believe what Eddie said about Frank.

Was Frank homosexual? Kevin Kerrane thinks not. Frank was engaged to Lucille when Kevin met him. He knows of one heterosexual encounter Frank had, other than with Lucille. Also, Kevin had a serious girl friend when he and Frank first met and Frank encouraged the relationship until it ended. I’ve already mentioned that Frank offered the loan of his car when Kevin wanted to impress a girl. When Kevin began dating the woman who became his wife, Sheila, Frank was again encouraging. Sheila liked Frank, as did a number of other women who were friends.

We all know that none of the above precludes Frank from being homosexual. However, when it came to the trials, the prosecution offered no evidence other than Eddie’s testimony. Nor were any other men called to testify about similar advances.

My mother did not keep clippings from newspapers after the hearing in January that resulted in dismissal of the charges, until the trial began. It would be interesting to see how the case was covered in that interim.

Over the course of the spring of 1964, the police and SBI investigation did their work and the County Solicitor, Thomas D. Cooper, took what they had gathered to the grand jury. As a result, in August 1964, Frank was indicted and charged with Lucille’s murder.

The first trial began on Monday, November 9, 1964. The Chapel Hill Weekly was published twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. In a piece written for The Independent Weekly in 2003, Perry Deane Young recalled covering the Rinaldi trial as a young reporter. He wrote “I was working for the legendary editor, Jim Shumaker, at the Chapel Hill Weekly and he gave me free rein covering this very sensational trial. We all but ran a full transcript of each day’s proceedings, taking up whole pages of the newspaper.”

I am grateful that Mr. Shumaker allowed the coverage and that a writer with Mr. Young’s talent covered the case. His stories are compelling reading.

In an article for The Chapel Hill Weekly, Wednesday, November 11, 1964, reporter Perry Young set the scene in the courtroom. Frank’s father, brother and uncle had come from Connecticut and sat behind Frank, “stiff and solemn.” “The family and friends of the late Mrs. Lucille Begg Rinaldi are more talkative, more responsive and more stylish than the Rinaldis.” Lucille’s brother and his wife, father and stepmother, and two friends were there. Lucille’s brother was a lawyer and “on the second day, sat inside the bar, just behind the solicitor and conferred with the prosecution on the jurors.”

The Begg family believed that Frank was guilty. Kevin Kerrane says that they learned of Lucille’s death when they got a call from the Chapel Hill Police Department. The police also told them that Frank had been arrested, and, Kevin thinks, kept the Beggs apprised of theories and evidence.

The presiding judge was the Honorable Raymond Mallard. Frank was represented by two attorneys, Barry Winston and Gordon Battle.

A venire of 36 prospective jurors was called. Apparently twenty of them were dismissed quickly, leaving 16 who were sworn in. Then, in what seems to be a hopelessly outdated procedure, a five year old boy was brought in to draw the jurors’ names out of a cigar box. That determined which jurors were to be sworn in a second time and questioned in voir dire.

Mr. Cooper could issue six challenges without cause. The defense could challenge 14. The judge could dismiss an indefinite number for cause.

The solicitor asked each candidate for biographical information, whether or not he or she had followed the case in the newspapers, whether or not he or she knew Frank or Lucille or Stanley Forte. He also asked about connections to the University and whether or not Frank’s employment there would have influence on his or her decisions.

The solicitor allowed four people who said they were opposed to capital punishment to be seated, interpreted by Perry Young to mean that Mr. Cooper did not plan to seek the death penalty.

Three jurors were seated before the midday break at 1:00 p.m. Three more were seated during the afternoon and the original jury pool was exhausted. The judge ordered that another 125 names be called.

On Tuesday morning, five people were seated. After lunch, the twelfth person was seated. The judge ordered that two alternates be selected instead of the usual one.

Of note: 18 people were dismissed for cause they had formed the opinion that Frank was guilty. And Frank had to stand to hear the indictment charging that he murdered his wife read twice on Tuesday afternoon.

The jury was made up of nine men and three women. The alternates were one woman and one man. None worked for the University, although one man had a wife who worked as a secretary in the Psychology Department. One of the jurors, a woman, is identified as “a negro,” as is the man chosen as an alternate.

Chapel Hill is a University town and University people accept transience. My father lived there for almost 50 years before his death and my mother for 45; I live here still and have friends here I’ve known since kindergarten or earlier. However, as stable as we long-timers may be, we are the exceptions and we didn’t necessarily grow up expecting to stay put. Going through public schools, our teachers often left after two or three years as their graduate student spouses got degrees and moved on. I was used to knowing people from all over the United States and the world. But the jurors were not University people. Besides Chapel Hill, they came from Mebane, Hillsborough, Rougemont, and unincorporated parts of Orange County. I have to speculate that in many of their eyes, Frank—a Yankee, a man who had lived in Europe and Missouri and New York, who had been in the CIA—was an outsider, or as we say, “not from here.” Perhaps that played a roll in the way the police pursued him, too. Solicitor Cooper probably counted on it as he set about to portray Frank as a certain “kind of man.”

On Wednesday, the case in chief began. The defense immediately made a motion to suppress all physical evidence taken from Frank’s apartment on December 24, 1963. Young’s article quoted from the motion at length. “‘Now comes the defendant, Frank Joseph Rinaldi, and respectfully moves the Court to suppress evidence obtained by agents of the Chapel Hill Police Department and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation from his person and from his residence at 105 North Street, Chapel Hill, North Carolina on December 24, 1963, and subsequent thereto; for that said evidence was obtained under an illegal search or searches in violation of the defendant’s rights under the laws and constitution of North Carolina, and the Constitution and amendments thereto of the United States. The defendant further moves the Court that all personal property obtained by said illegal search or searches be forthwith returned.”

The jury had been seated in the courtroom and when this motion was made—taking Solicitor Cooper by surprise—they had to be excused so that a hearing could be held.

According to Perry Young’s story, the Solicitor acknowledged that there was no search warrant, but that the search and arrest were justified because the investigators had grounds to believe a murder had been committed. (In regard to what the police did not do, they did not take fingerprints in the apartment.)

Detective Pendergraph testified that he had taken a pocketbook, letters that were in the pocketbook, and pencils from the apartment. Agent Satterfield testified that he also took letters and papers, some of which were taken to the SBI offices so that photo copies could be made. All of the documents were then turned over the Chapel Hill Police Department.

Defense attorneys asked Satterfield about a post card addressed to Frank, and about which he had questioned a man named Charles Gattis. Satterfield said he had seen a copy but had not seen the original.

SBI Agent Starling listed “articles” he had taken from the apartment and which remained in SBI custody.

The judge ruled that items taken from the apartment should be returned to Frank, and they were, in open court. They included a flashlight with two dents in it and a bloody pillow.

In the Sunday, November 15, 1964 edition of the Chapel Hill Weekly, Mr. Young covered the testimony of Lucille’s family members. Lucille’s aunt, Lucy Begg, was on the stand. She said that while the Rinaldis lived just a few doors down from the Beggs in Waterbury, the Rinaldi sons went to public school and the Beggs went to parochial school. (Note: Frank Rinaldi’s obituary states that he went to The Taft School, a private school, for high school.) Frank did take Lucille to her Senior prom in 1947 but then they went to colleges in different states. They did see each other on holidays, and Frank gave Lucille an engagement ring for Christmas 1962. Aunt Lucy Begg said that it was on that Christmas Eve that Frank met Lucille’s family. If that is so, it strikes me that Lucille did not necessarily confide in her family.

Clara Begg, married to Lucille’s brother William, Jr, also testified. The Begg family had a vacation home in Wilford, Connecticut. Following their July 31, 1963 wedding, Frank and Lucille used it for the first 10 days of August. Clara and Bill, Jr, visited them for a weekend and Clara told in court about a conversation she had with Frank while “Cille” and Bill were swimming. Clara said that Frank said to her “‘Look at them out there. She’s probably discussing all my bad faults…and saying she married me because she felt sorry for me…and I’m not good enough…”

Clara Begg told the jury that Frank told her he had put Lucille in an awkward position the night before by asking her about her share of the family property and was he not now part owner as well. He then asked Clara about Lucille’s claim to property. Lucille and Bill were getting near to where Clara and Frank sat and Frank signaled to Clara not to mention the topic of property.

The Beggs’ testimony was meant to be detrimental to Frank; they were prosecution witnesses and they believed that Frank killed Lucille. As I read and reread Mr. Young’s version of the testimony I have to wonder how much Lucy and Clara’s feelings about Frank shaped their recollections. Frank, Clara and Bill hardly knew each other that day at the coast. They certainly could have been awkward with each other. Frank could have had a self-deprecating sense of humor that his new in-laws didn’t know how to take, or after the fact, throwaway statements could have been reinterpreted to be sinister. In any event, none of their testimony rises to the standard of evidence of murder. It does fit into the picture of a man concerned with money that the solicitor wanted to create.

On September 2, 1963, Frank and Lucille headed for Chapel Hill. Frank’s car, the unreliable Lincoln, was not roadworthy so he left it in Waterbury to be repaired. The plan was for Aunt Lucy to call when it was ready.

Young’s article does not say how they traveled, but it seems they were driving a car other than Frank’s. They stopped in Henderson, North Carolina to visit Frank’s friends, the Hicks family. Frank often stopped to see the Hickses when he drove to and from Connecticut. Jasper Hicks testified to the visit and said it lasted about an hour before Frank and Lucille continued to Chapel Hill.

The next witness was the Chapel Hill School Superintendent, Howard Thompson, who said that Lucille had signed a contract for the 1963-64 school year and attended two days of teachers’ meetings but did not appear at work on the first day of class, September 9.

Frank and Lucille drove through the night of September 8 and 9 and arrived at Frank’s parents’ house at 4:00 in the morning. Testimony about the trip and the arrival came from Lucy Begg when she was on the stand. Lucille and Frank slept at the Rinaldis’ for much of the day, then went to see Lucy at her office at 5:00 in the afternoon. Lucille told her aunt that she had driven the whole way from North Carolina while Frank slept. Miss Begg described her niece as being in “very poor condition.” She said that Frank told her, by way of explanation, that Lucille didn’t like his friends in Chapel Hill or “just didn’t get along with his way of living and that maybe she ought to go into a convent.”

We have only Miss Begg’s word as to what was said, and only her interpretation.

Miss Begg said that the couple stayed in Waterbury, alternating between her house and Frank’s parents’ for two weeks, until his car was fixed and he could return to Chapel Hill. Then Lucille stayed at her aunt’s house through the fall.

Miss Begg testified that Frank did not send Lucille a card for her birthday, on October 9. He called but missed her because she had gone to his brother and sister-in-law’s house for birthday cake. Miss Begg said that once Lucille went to New York to meet Frank and that he was four hours late arriving. Miss Begg did acknowledge that the husband and wife wrote to each other and called each other during the fall.

Frank joined Lucille in Waterbury at Thanksgiving and they stayed with his parents. Aunt Lucy invited the couple to dinner but said that Frank would not eat at the table with her and did not speak to her. “‘I was in his presence, but he completely ignored me…I knew something was wrong.’”

We have the testimony for a grief-stricken aunt against the man she believed murdered her niece. I have my conversation with Kevin Kerrane in November 2009. He saw Frank everyday in Chapel Hill during the fall of 1963 and, other than the unconventional arrangement for newly-weds, saw nothing that indicated the marriage was troubled, although he did remember that Frank said Aunt Lucy was jealous of him.

By Thanksgiving, Lucille would have known she was pregnant. In Mr. Young’s account of trial testimony, there is no mention of the pregnancy from either Miss Begg or Clara Begg.

On December 20, 1963, Lucille took a train from New Haven to North Carolina.

On December 22, as I have mentioned, Lucille and Frank went to church. On December 23, a Monday, Stan Forte and one of his two sons stopped by 105 North Street for a brief visit. Later, Stan and his wife and both sons came to supper at the Rinaldis’ apartment and the next day, Stan and Frank went to Durham to shop.

The time line I gave earlier is drawn from Stan’s testimony, as reported by Mr. Young, including Stan’s recollection that he and Frank arrived back at North Street at about 1:35.

Police Captain Coy Durham testified that in a statement taken on the day of murder, Stan said that they got back to the apartment at about 2:00. Captain Durham also said that Stan told him “Mr. Rinaldi reached into his mailbox, then put his key in the door and the minute he opened the door he said: ‘Oh my God, somebody’s killed and robbed my wife.’”

As you would guess, the time that the two men got back to the apartment and the time of the murder would be important, and a half hour or twenty-five minute discrepancy in Stan’s testimony mattered.

Detective Howard Pendergraph was in charge of the investigation of Lucille’s death. He testified that he had checked all of the doors and windows at 105 North Street and found no sign of forced entry. On cross-examination, Barry Winston asked Pendergraph if he had gone into the attic. He said that he opened the pull-down attic steps, went up, and looked around but did not go into it. Mr. Winston pointed out that the attic was accessible from both sides of the duplex; had Detective Pendergraph examined doors and windows of the other apartment? He had not.

The State called two witnesses to speak to Frank Rinaldi’s whereabouts on December 24, 1963. The first was Olga Hackett who worked at Huggins Hardware Store and knew Frank. Please see my timeline, above, for her testimony and my thoughts about it.

The other witness was the star witness, Eddie Gorman. In a hearing held in August, Mr. Gorman said that he saw Frank at Eastgate at approximately 11:30 or noon on the 24th. On the witness stand during the trial, he said it was noon or 1:00 p.m. Foushee testified that when he and Frank saw each other at Eastgate, Frank called out “Eddie, it’s over. I did it,” or similar words. Later, Stan Forte would say that he and Frank were together all of the time that they were at Eastgate and that he, Stan, did not see Eddie.

Of course, Eddie’s most important testimony was that Frank had made homosexual advances toward him once and that Frank on several occasions offered him money to kill Lucille.

Eddie said that he had told two people about Frank’s offer of money to kill his wife. Those two people also testified. One of them, Victor Young, was a student who worked part time at the Zoom Zoom restaurant with Eddie. Victor Young said that Rinaldi “bothered” Eddie by calling frequently and coming by the restaurant. When he, Victor, asked Eddie about it, Eddie told him that Frank wanted to hire him to kill his wife. Victor said that the conversation took place sometime before Thanksgiving.

Kenneth Putnam was the manager of the Zoom Zoom. He testified that somebody came to the restaurant to see Eddie one night but “had his back to him and he couldn’t tell who it was. ‘I figured it was somebody wanting money,’ Mr. Putnam testified and so he asked Eddie about it. Eddie told him ‘He (Rinaldi) asked me to help kill his wife.’ Mr. Putnam said, ‘I said “you’re kidding” and passed it off. Mr. Putnam reported the conversation to police after he had heard about Lucille’s death.

There is no way of assessing Eddie Gorman’s truthfulness, or whether or not the man Mr. Putnam saw talking to him was in fact Frank Rinaldi.

The pathologist who had performed the Christmas Eve autopsy testified that, based on body temperature, he determined that the time of death was between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. The pathologist was not a smooth, practiced expert witness, it seems. Since Lucille’s body had been found at about 1:30—or 2:00—it was nonsensical to say the time of death could have been later than that.

Before it rested, the State also introduced information that Frank borrowed $752.24 from a local bank on November 1, 1963 and had applied for a $2,300 student loan earlier that fall. On the application, Frank said that $750 would be used to pay for life insurance. The University approved a loan of $800 on October 22.

And the prosecution introduced a photostat of a postcard written to Frank from a male friend. The defense protested and the judge suppressed it. However, the copy had been identified before the defense objected.

Of course, the prosecution did not introduce the letter Lucille had written while Frank was shopping.

The prosecution rested at 11:37 a.m. on Friday.

The defense’s goal would have been to show that the prosecution’s case did not erase reasonable doubt that Frank had killed Lucille. Besides the (to me) obvious ways in which that was true, Barry Winston and Gordon Battle must have felt that their client’s actual innocence would be evident. But the fact that he had been charged and was on trial meant that they had to work hard.

Back to Lucille’s letter: it was an important piece of evidence for the defense, perhaps the most important single piece because it showed that Lucille was alive when Frank and Stan left. They were not able to get it into evidence, however. Kevin Kerrane remembers it this way: the police had to verify that the letter—the physical object—was in fact the letter they had taken from the apartment after Lucille’s death. The officer said something to the effect that he couldn’t say it was the same because when he saw it in the apartment, it didn’t have holes punched in it. The defense lawyer asked if it wouldn’t be identical if the holes weren’t in it. The prosecution objected and the judge sustained the objection. Thus, the letter was out.

One of the defense witnesses was the court reporter who had worked at the Christmas Eve preliminary hearing. Detective Pendergraph had testified at that hearing and Barry Winston had the reporter’s transcript read into the trial record. On Christmas Eve, the detective had said that he had checked two out of eight windows for evidence of a break-in, and that the bathroom window had no lock on it.

A man named Curtis Woodlief worked for the funeral home that took Lucille’s body to the hospital. Mr. Woodlief testified about the state of rigor mortis he found when he moved her body. With that testimony on record, Barry Winston recalled Dr. Rodman and asked if, knowing the degree of rigor mortis, he could further refine the time of death. Yes, Dr. Rodman said, he could; Lucille died between 10:00 a.m. and noon.

The defense then called a series of witnesses who could testify to having seen Frank and Stan while they were shopping, from 8:45 a.m. until they found Lucille at about 1:30 p.m.

It is from Mr. Young’s account of their testimony that I developed the time line I gave earlier.

The defense’s most important witness was Stanley Forte. He was on the stand when court adjourned for the day.

The next issue of the Chapel Hill Weekly, Wednesday, November 18, 1964, had a banner headline: JURY FINDS RINALDI GUILTY. A lot had happened in three days. Again, the story was written by Perry Young.

On Monday, Stanley Forte resumed his testimony for the defense.

“‘We pulled up in front of the apartment…Frank got out…I got out, and went behind Frank. We entered the vestibule. He was standing directly in front of the door to his apartment,’ Forte testified. ‘He reached into the mail box to the left of the door. He pulled out his mail…including a Christmas card I had mailed him. “‘He (Rinaldi) opened the door…we both looked into the apartment and saw the scene Lucille was lying on the floor, face down, her head slightly tilted to the right…her pocketbook was on the floor to her left…her feet were toward the door,’ he testified. ‘Her arms were under her, in front of her thighs. Part of the contents of the pocketbook were on the floor. Items from the table were on the floor…a lamp was overturned. “‘I went to Lucille, knelt down beside her. I removed her hand from her right side and felt of the wrist. I reached toward her head. There was a knot in a scarf around her head. I untied that knot and got up and went directly to the phone and called the Chapel Hill Police Department…I know the time was 1:40 because I looked at the clock that was there.’ “Forte said Rinaldi started ‘mumbling incoherently’ when he saw his wife’s body. He further testified that Rinaldi got behind him and ‘nudged’ him into the room. “On cross-examination, Forte was asked what Rinaldi said when he first got into the car that morning. He said Rinaldi said, ‘Together again, baby.’ “Cooper asked if there was any particular significance to the term ‘baby.’ ‘We were good friends,’ Forte replied. Cooper asked another question about the term and Forte said it was ‘a common term.’ Cooper then asked ‘among men?” Forte said ‘yes.’ To this, the solicitor offered an aside: ‘That’s in the crowd that you and Frank run around with.’ “Also in cross-examination, Cooper asked Forte if Rinaldi were ever in the CIA. Forte said yes, but that he did not know Rinaldi was suspended for security reasons.”

The reason why Forte didn’t know about a suspension for security reasons is that it did not happen. Consider that Frank served in the military after his years in the CIA. Does the military take in people who are deemed security risks by the CIA? I am certain that this hit-and-run form of question on the part of Cooper was intended to imply that Frank was homosexual, and that would be why he was a security risk.

I have mentioned that when Frank bought the $20,000 life insurance policy on Lucille, he bought a $10,000 policy on himself. Eventually, Cooper made a point of the fact that Frank had bought a smaller policy for himself than for his wife; Stan Forte testified that Frank already had another $10,000 policy on his own life.

People continue to find Lucille’s insurance policy to be a problem when they look at the case. I understand that, but I don’t find it to be troublesome myself.

•	For one thing, Lucille was to be the breadwinner in the marriage until Frank finished his degree and had a job. I mentioned earlier that a number of my teachers in the Chapel Hill public schools were working to put their spouses through graduate or professional school. The teachers were always the wives. In our schools at the time, this was considered to be normal. But to the jury, this may have been an unusual idea, or perhaps that was Mr. Cooper’s hope.

•	I worked as a financial advisor for more than twenty four years. By the time I began that career in 1981, we had many investment vehicles available, and many more now, but quite a few people still view life insurance policies that build cash value as being investment vehicles. In earlier decades, this was even truer. Certainly insurance companies have marketed them that way for over a century. Frank and Lucille may have felt that the policies they were buying were for their future.

•	They bought the policies through Frank’s good friend, Stanley Forte, and they may have wanted to help him in his career.

•	Frank already had other life insurance and that explains the discrepancy between the $20,000 policy on Lucille compared to a lower amount on him. Lucille signed the application for the contract, so was fully aware of its purchase.

Apparently, Frank’s policy bought at the same time as Lucille’s was canceled because of false statements on the application. Cooper asked Stan Forte, the insurance agent who sold the policies, if he knew that Frank was under psychiatric treatment when he made application. Stan did not know.

From Mr. Young’s article, it does not appear that Cooper offered any other information on Frank’s mental health history. It seems to me to be another hit-and-run, with an impression made but not quite presented as fact and not corroborated by evidence.

Cooper then went on to sideswipe Stan’s own character. He brought out that a postal inspector once questioned Forte about literature that Forte said ‘might be classified’ as obscene or pornographic. Stan denied that he told the inspector he was doing research for a master’s thesis. He also denied that he had possessed a photograph of a woman being strangled. Apparently Stan had declined to take a lie detector test on the subject of the mail; the court did not allow Cooper to ask about that.

Mr. Cooper asked Forte if Frank were homosexual. The defense objected and the objection was sustained, so Mr. Cooper asked if Frank had ever made advances to Stan Forte, or if Stan had ever made advances to Frank. The answer was “‘Absolutely not.’” For what good that would do.

Stan did acknowledge that Frank had applied for the $40,000 life insurance benefit from Lucille’s double indemnity policy. Considering that Frank had two attorneys to pay and had hired a private investigator, and had to live, it is not surprising that he would try to access what money he could.

Quoting from Mr. Young again: “Another surprise question from the State was, ‘Did you put Lucille Rinaldi’s body in that car before you left for Durham?’”

I can’t imagine what he was getting at, except to ask one last inflammatory question without offering anything to substantiate it.

The defense rested at 3:10 p.m. on Monday. Court adjourned until the next day.

The defense gave its closing arguments first, with Barry Winston beginning. He talked for 50 minutes. He told the jury that the State had “presented ‘red herrings, smoke rings and smears.’” He pointed out that the introduction of homosexuality especially was unsupported. “‘Did the State have evidence? I suggest to you the State brought this up because it had nothing else.’”

Winston mocked Eddie Gorman’s believability and pointed out discrepancies between statements he had made at different time. How likely was it that Frank Rinaldi actually asked Eddie 12 times or more to kill Lucille? How likely was it that Frank ran up to Eddie in a crowded shopping center, calling “It’s over. I did it?”

The defense attorney took care not to say that law enforcement officers lied, but he called into question Captain Durham’s memory of the crime scene, which had been faulty, and reminded the jurors that Detective Pendergraph had not done a thorough job of checking the apartment for break-ins, and had testified differently about it. Perry Young doesn’t mention it, but I trust Mr. Winston reminded the jury that no fingerprints were taken.

“‘One thing is certain,” Winston concluded to the jury. ‘When you’ve cut away the red herrings, the smoke screens and the smear attempts, the State has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Frank Rinaldi killed his wife…they have not even shown he could have done it.’”

Gordon Battle began by defining “verdict” for the jury, coming from Latin, meaning “to tell the truth.” He told the jury that only they could decide the truth, and that if they made a mistake, it could not be corrected.

He went on to attack the credibility of Eddie Gorman and said that Eddie could have killed Lucille.

I have thought this myself: Mr. Gorman knew the apartment, had once had a key he could have copied, but whether or not he did copy it, he probably knew that the bathroom window had no lock. And he would have known Frank’s car. He could well have observed that the car was gone and assumed that meant the apartment was empty. If he went in to rob it, Lucille would have surprised him and he attacked her in a disorganized, unplanned way that added to the brutality. I am not ready to say I think Eddie Gorman was a murderer. In fact, I am neutral on that. As rare as random crime actually is, it does occur. In June 1965, a woman student was killed in the Arboretum on campus in the middle of the day and no one was ever charged. My main point would be: Eddie Gorman’s presence raises reasonable doubt.

Mr. Battle took his argument in a different direction, though. He challenged the jury: did his suggestion that Eddie did it make the jurors angry? “‘I think it should,’ he said. ‘By the same token, it makes me mad that the State of North Carolina contends Frank Rinaldi did it…they have no proof of that.’” He attacked Eddie: he could not keep a job; he didn’t live with his wife; he bought a car and it was repossessed a month later; he could not remember where the alleged sexual advances Frank made took place—because, Battle said, they didn’t happen. “‘When you’re telling the truth, it’s not nearly so hard to keep things straight…because you’ve got to remember what you lied. Mr. Gorman hasn’t done a very good job of it.’”

He offered an explanation of what Frank could have meant if he spoke to Eddie at Eastgate: that he, Frank, had cleaned the apartment. He reinforced that the State had offered no evidence of homosexuality on Frank’s part.

Gordon Battle ended: “‘there isn’t anything you or anybody else can do to bring back Frank Rinaldi’s wife or give birth to that unborn child…there are scars on him, from the spotlight of publicity; that will be with him for life. ‘Let your verdict ring out that in North Carolina we do not kill a man or send him to prison on the type of evidence here.’”

Solicitor Cooper gave his chronology of Frank’s life. He focused on the life insurance, Frank’s relationship with Lucille, and his “attachment” to men. He found fault with Frank’s failure to push Stan out of the way and run to Lucille’s side. He characterized Stan Forte as a pornographer who did not cooperate with the police. He pointed out that Eddie Gorman had no criminal record. He sneered at the use of the term, “baby.” In fact, in Perry Deane’ Young’s 2003 Independent Weekly article, he recalls that the solicitor used the word “baby” 15 times in his closing argument.

Mr. Cooper offered the jury a choice of four times when Frank had an opportunity to kill Lucille. It could have been done before going to Durham. By way of explaining that when the pathologist had pegged the earliest time at 10:00 a.m., Cooper asked “‘If he (the pathologist) could be wrong three hours one way, why couldn’t he be wrong three hours the other way?’” This argument misstated and willfully misinterpreted Dr. Rodman’s evidence.

Furthermore, Cooper said, Frank could have returned to Chapel Hill on two occasions on December 24. Mr. Young’s account doesn’t say when those two times were. Finally, Mr. Cooper says that no one sees Frank after 12:10 p.m. that day. This, too, seems to be a misstatement of the evidence.

If you are not familiar with Chapel Hill and Durham, you should know that it would have taken at least twenty minutes to drive between the two towns. Were there really two times when Frank could have driven Stan’s car back to Chapel Hill and then to Durham again? It’s somewhere between doubtful and impossible.

Frank’s apartment was only two blocks from Huggins Hardware, and the store had a back door. If Olga Hackett could be clearer about the time she saw Frank, Mr. Cooper may not have been able to offer this possibility to the jury. But refer back to the timeline. She was probably just too busy to be aware of the time. What she was sure of is, she saw Frank in the store that day.

Mr. Cooper ended by showing the jury a color photograph of Lucille’s bloody and beaten face. “‘It would take someone with those objectives’ (Perry Young’s parenthetical addition: “insurance, homosexuality”) ‘in mind to destroy a face that way.’” Mr. Cooper wanted the jury to see Frank Rinaldi as someone not like them, as a man who did not live as they did.

Judge Mallard instructed the jury on the law and their duty. He reviewed the evidence, including a detailed recital of the timeline. He read from the State statutes to explain circumstantial evidence.

Then he told the jury to ask itself these questions: “‘Did Lucille Rinaldi die as a direct result of Frank Rinaldi’s holding a pillow over her nose?

Did she die as a result of Frank Rinaldi’s tying a scarf around her head?

Was the slaying done intentionally and with a fixed purpose and intent? Was it done willfully, deliberately and premeditated malice and aforethought?

‘If you find the answer “yes” to all of these questions, then he is guilty. But if you have a reasonable doubt as to either of them, then it is your duty to acquit him.’”

Both defense and prosecution spoke with passion, with strong language, and Biblical quotations. Together, their closing statements took three hours. The judge’s charge to the jury took two hours. It must have been a mentally and emotionally exhausting day for everyone.

The jury began to deliberate at 4:09 p.m. on Tuesday, November 17, 1964. They took a dinner break and then worked until 10:00 p.m. They resumed the next morning at 9:30 a.m. and came back with the verdict at 12:32 p.m. that afternoon.

Perry Young described the scene as people waiting during those nine hours of deliberation. He estimated that 120 people stayed in and around the courtroom as long as the jury deliberated that Tuesday night. They included reporters, law officers, court officials, attorneys, friends and relatives of both Frank and Lucille. Young mentions that the mood was not somber, and that the Begg family passed time by discussing North Carolina’s alcohol beverage laws. No doubt, all the spectators and participants had a sense of relief that the matter was now in the jury’s hands. There were no more fights to fight, at least for a while.

As you know, when the jury came to its decision, it found Frank guilty. And you know that I did not and, to some degree, do not understand how and why they failed to find reasonable doubt.

I’ve expressed my amateur sociological observations about why charges were filed and pursued against Frank when cooler heads should have prevailed. But a jury is different. It is made up of twelve individuals who cannot consider anything but the evidence they have heard and then must reach a unanimous decision. A jury will have its own sociology, its own dynamic and tension.

In an article in The News of Orange County, Thursday, November 19, 1964, the reporter said “The jury verdict was a surprise to most persons who’d followed the case.” There was a juror, Mr. Allison, who was apparently eager to talk to anyone who listened. Mr. Allison was a retired salesman from Hillsborough.

Mr. Allison said that when the jury went home at 10:00 Tuesday night, the vote was ten to two for acquittal. By noon Wednesday, there was a unanimous vote to convict.

There were people who believed Frank was guilty in 1963 when the murder occurred and there are people who believe today that he was guilty. Given the evidence, I believe those people have to first decide he committed murder and then figure out how to shape the evidence to support that decision.

The first obstacle to a guilty verdict has to be all of the witnesses who place Frank and Stan in Durham or Eastgate or Franklin Street during the time Lucille died—between ten in the morning and noon. The way to clear that obstacle is to disregard the pathologist’s testimony. Mr. Cooper, in his closing argument, provided the way to do that. “If he (the pathologist) could be wrong three hours one way, why couldn’t he be wrong three hours the other way?”

By accepting the idea that the pathologist could be wrong, the jury was spared the burden of believing the other witnesses lied or were mistaken.

Verdict Turned on Time of Death. This was the headline for Perry Young’s article In The Chapel Hill Weekly, Sunday November 22, 1964. Young had a lengthy interview with a juror he did not identify at the time. The juror said that, indeed, one of the two jurors who initially voted to convict made the point with emphasis that Dr. Rodman was only human and could be wrong. It also seems that jury to some degree disregarded noon as the latest time Lucille could have died. They picked up on two o’clock, a time never mentioned in testimony but which Mr. Cooper used in his closing argument. Closing arguments are not evidentiary, but jurors—individually or collectively--may have a hard time remembering that, especially if it suits a purpose.

Young quoted Dr. Rodman as saying, “‘I would have thought that would have been clear from my testimony. The 10 a.m. time limit was based on body temperature, and so was the 5 p.m. limit. Whereas the 12 noon limit was based on rigor mortis. All I was doing was showing the two extremes on the basis of body temperatures. It seems pretty obvious that the 5 p.m. extreme was absurd.”

It was absurd, and that opened the rest of Dr. Rodman’s presentation for question. Perhaps he overestimated the jury’s ability to make the distinctions he made. When Mr. Cooper turned time of death into a sliding scale that could move either way, there was no opportunity for anyone to contradict him or clarify the jury’s understanding.

When the jury began its work, retired Colonel John Rogers was elected foreman. A first vote was taken, with the ten to two in favor of acquittal. There was then a general discussion, with people in favor of acquittal saying that the State had not proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Then, after a supper break, the jury began to review the case from the beginning.

They could not recall who had first seen Frank and Stan that Christmas Eve. They could not recall details about the stop the men made at the Sunoco station, including the time of that stop. They returned to the courtroom and asked the judge to have testimony read back to them, but the judge refused the request.

Then came discussion of Dr. Rodman’s testimony and the time of death, and the sliding scale. The two for conviction argued that the time of death could have been an hour or more earlier.

The jurors took another vote, this time eight for acquittal, four for conviction. The original two for conviction stood strong that they would not change their minds. There was some discussion of telling the judge they were deadlocked, but the judge had already told them they could come back the next day, so they quit for the night.

On the first vote the next morning, there were seven for conviction and five for acquittal. Perry Young’s juror said that the people in favor of conviction were the most persuasive. As a group, the jury continued to discuss details of the case, including the police work and its flaws including failure to check doors and windows and failure to immediately find over $200 that was hidden in Lucille’s purse; ultimately, they decided that the case didn’t rest on the police work. They also decided they could believe Stan Forte’s account of the day, but not his account of Frank’s incoherence upon finding Lucille. Instead, they accepted Captain Coy Durham’s account of how calm Frank was as he sat at the dining room table in the apartment and answered Durham’s questions; if he could be that calm, then he could be calm enough to kill his wife and then go buy Christmas presents for her.

From the juror’s comments on Eddie Gorman, it seems that the jury set his testimony about what Frank said to him at Eastgate aside.

Some jurors were not comfortable with circumstantial evidence, so, Perry Young wrote, they discussed the chain of events. “The chain of circumstances included ‘the kind of person’ (another phrase from Mr. Cooper’s closing) Rinaldi was, his preoccupation with insurance, his relationship with his wife, and that he had tried to hire somebody to kill her.”

In the 2003 Independent Weekly article, Mr. Young identified the juror he talked with as someone he had once worked with, someone he considered to be “good and decent.” The juror confirmed that “the kind of man” Frank was something the jury discussed and took seriously. Mr. Cooper apparently knew his jury.

Another vote was taken and now only three voted for acquittal. Young’s juror-source said that people both focused on the three and tried not to pressure them. Two more came over to the conviction side. Mr. Allison, the juror who was quoted in The News of Orange County, was the twelfth and last. Someone said to him, “‘And now, Mr. Allison, the monkey is on your back.’” No pressure?

It seems that Mr. Allison had two problems. He did not want to convict an innocent man to death, and he did not yet understand the judge’s charge about circumstantial evidence. The latter point was discussed further, and he was reminded that guilty with the recommendation of a life sentence was one of the choices the jury had.

Mr. Allison changed his vote, and they had a verdict. After it was read, Frank was allowed a few minutes with his father, brother, and uncle. Then he was taken to Central Prison in Raleigh.

The second trial, ordered by the State Supreme Court, began on October 11, 1965. Between the first verdict and the second trial, my father and Kevin Kerrane continued to support Frank and to believe in his innocence. They visited him whenever they could, wrote to him, sent books, and did what they could. Kevin worked hard to raise money for a defense fund, writing to everyone who had ever known Frank, including classmates from Taft and Georgetown. My father—perhaps with others; I don’t know—went to talk to an older and more experienced defense attorney, Victor Bryant, who agreed to join Barry Winston and Gordon Battle.

Frank’s appeal contained several points having to do with decisions Judge Mallard had made. The Supreme Court ruled that one of them was sufficient for retrial: Judge Mallard should not have allowed prejudicial and incompetent testimony. That meant, he should not have allowed homosexuality to become an issue. Since ruling on that one issue was enough, the Court did not comment on any of the others in the appeal.

Jury selection for the second trial was not easy. On the first day, five people were seated and 15 or more were challenged for cause; they had “unchangeable prejudiced opinions on the case.” (Quotation from an article by Roland Giduz in the Greensboro Daily News, Tuesday, October 12, 1965.) Twenty-five of the original 96 people called to jury duty were left at the end of that Monday.

It took 49 rejections before a sixth juror was seated on Tuesday, but by the end of the next day, a jury was put together. There were eight men and four women. Nine were white and three were black. There were two alternates chosen, both women.

There was a different judge, Judge George F. Fountain, a third defense attorney, and Mr. Cooper had an assistant, but otherwise the principles were the same.

Testimony began on Thursday. Captain Coy Durham testified first, followed by William Begg, Jr. When Bill referred to Lucille’s ‘“rather unexpected’” return home on September 9, 1964, the defense objected to the characterization and the judge sustained the objection. This must have put everyone on notice that this trial would be run differently.

The prosecution introduced evidence of a troubled marriage; the defense objected and the judge allowed some but not all of the testimony.

As in the first trial, there was testimony about Frank seeking loans in the fall of 1963 and about the issuance of the insurance policy on Lucille, a month before she and Frank were married. Lucille had signed the application.

On October 14, 1965, The News of Orange County ran an article with no byline, titled “Rinaldi’s chances in new trial?” The writer suggested that, since the prosecution’s case had been fully shown in the first trial, the defense’s job should be easier this time. He (or she) also said that testimony would be different because of the Supreme Court’s ruling. On the other hand, the difficulty in seating a jury showed how strong and negative public opinion was toward Frank. Only one potential juror said he knew nothing about the case.

Eddie Gorman testified again, and gave the same testimony he had before, though with an embellishment. Roland Giduz reported that he said “He wanted me to kill his wife, strangle her, coke her, make it look like rape—anything.”

Gordon Battle went at Mr. Gorman on cross-examination, asking him if he was the killer; had he gone to rob the apartment, found her there, and killed her? He denied that of course, but it is the defense’s job to plant doubts and this was probably a more effective approach than was used in the first trial. Mr. Gorman did acknowledge that he did not go to the police—even though according to him Frank had asked him a dozen times or more to kill Lucille—until after he read about the murder in the newspaper.

What he did not repeat was what the Supreme Court had disallowed: he did not say that Frank made sexual advances.

The prosecution had lost its ability to use that particular innuendo but it also had new testimony to bring in. In the Saturday, October 16, 1965 Greensboro Daily News, Roland Giduz reported on it. Chapel Hill police Sergeant Farrell testified that he sat with Frank during the night of December 24-25, 1963, after the arrest. Frank said to the sergeant, “How can you stand to sit in the same room with me after what I’ve done?” or so the sergeant now recalled.

The defense tried hard to keep the jury from hearing this. Barry Winston took the stand himself to tell how he had asked the police not to question Frank in his absence.

As he tried to make his decision, Judge Fountain had the law officers reconstruct their investigation on the day and night of December 24. SBI Agent Starling said he advised Frank that he did not have to talk to them and that if he did, his statements could used against him. Starling questioned Frank at about 8:15 that night with Barry Winston present. He asked Frank whether or not he and Lucille had ever had problems and at that point, Mr. Winston took Frank into a private conference room. When they returned, Mr. Winston told the agent that there would be no more questioning that night.

The jury did not hear the arguments that lasted for four hours before the judge ruled that Frank’s rights were not violated by introduction of things he said that night.

SBI Agent Satterfield told the jury that Frank had talked to him, too, beginning at about 1:00 Christmas morning. Frank had said that he supposed there were three motives for a murder like Lucille’s, money, financial difficulties and another woman. Sergeant Pendergraph testified that Frank said something similar to him.

The defense made sure to have Agent Satterfield tell the jury, Frank did deny killing Lucille.

Giduz wrote that prosecution witnesses gave up answers on cross-examination grudgingly. Think of the way Lucille’s letter was kept out of the first trial.

Gordon Battle suggested to Sergeant Farrell that Frank actually said something like, “If I’m guilty of what I’m accused of, how can you stand to sit in the same room with me?” Farrell denied that he was altering or twisting Frank’s words.

The letter Lucille wrote, dated, “on the Eve of” and signed, became a major topic of debate later that afternoon in the courtroom. The defense wanted it read into evidence, but the judge denied their request.

A sidebar: Mr. Allison, the last of the first trial’s jurors to come around to a guilty vote, attended the second trial and had to be cautioned not to talk to the new jury.

On Monday, October 18, after calling 18 witnesses, the last one being Dr. Rodman, the state rested.

Dr. Rodman used a blackboard to make extensive notes about how he determined the time of death. He explained to the jury that by using both body temperature and information about the degree of rigor mortis at the time the body was found, he could say that Lucille died no earlier than ten o’clock that morning and no later than noon.

The defense began with Stanley Forte who told his familiar story in detail. He then had to withstand an aggressive and long cross-examination. The prosecution focused on the two life insurance policies from the perspective of the policy on Lucille being excessive. Giduz’ article refers to the discrepancy in Frank and Lucille’s income as if Frank earned more. At that point in their lives—with him in graduate school and teaching one course and her with a fulltime job that paid what she considered to be a good salary—that doesn’t seem to be true.

Once again, Solicitor Cooper brought out Frank’s words, “Together again, baby,” and asked the significance of the phrase. This time, Stan had an answer. He said it was a common expression in athletics, advertizing and show business, all of which Frank had experience in. He went on to quote a baseball player from the 1965 World Series who had called a teammate “baby.”

As in the first trial, Cooper asked Stan if he knew that Frank was dismissed from the CIA for a security violation. In the second trial, the defense was ready to counter the implication. They put into evidence proof that there was nothing dishonorable or unusual in Frank’s separation from the CIA and that Frank had left of his own accord.

The defense called to the stand the parade of witnesses who had seen Stan and Frank together on Christmas Eve 1963 between ten o’clock in the morning and noon.

The greatest difference in the defense’s case was that Frank himself testified.

He denied that he killed Lucille. He denied saying things that the police officers and SBI agents testified to. One does wonder, if he had speculated to Agent Satterfield about motives for murder or had asked Sergeant Farrell how he could stand to sit in the same room with a murder, why did the first jury not hear about it?

When asked whether or not he had told Agent Satterfield about having seen a psychiatrist, Frank said he had not. He did acknowledge that he had seen a psychiatrist at UNC for 14 or 15 sessions.

Mr. Cooper asked Frank if Lucille had given him money before they married. Frank said yes and agreed that it could have been as much as $700. Cooper questioned Frank about getting Stan Forte to cash Lucille’s checks for him. Frank said that was true. There were other questions about finances—all aimed at creating a sense that Frank had a financial motive for killing his wife.

Perry Young had moved on from The Chapel Hill Weekly (and went on to a long and important career as a writer using his full name, Perry Deane Young). A reporter for The Charlotte Observer named J.A.C. Dunn wrote the kind of long and detailed stories about the second trial that Mr. Young had written about the first. Mr. Dunn had previously worked at the Chapel Hill Weekly. That paper carried his articles from The Charlotte Observer.

Mr. Dunn reported that Mr. Cooper wanted to have the postal inspector testify again—as in the first trial—about an investigation of material Stan Forte had received by mail. The defense protested. The jury was excused and the matter was debated. Mr. Cooper wanted to use the inspector to impeach Stan’s testimony. The judge ruled that it was irrelevant, so it was not heard. Irrelevant seems to me to be an understatement.

Mr. Dunn also wrote that Mr. Cooper asked Frank about his expertise about movies. Frank was in fact more than knowledgeable about movies, theater and Hollywood. The subject of his dissertation at UNC was playwright Philip Barry who wrote for both the stage and the movies. Cooper zeroed in on the movie, A Place in the Sun. Frank had seen the movie a number of times. In the movie, a man kills his wife. Frank pointed out that a subtheme is “‘the unfairness of prosecution staffs and planted evidence.’”

Something none of the reporters whose clippings I have explained how Lucille’s final letter was at long last put into evidence, but it was once the prosecution stipulated that it was in her handwriting.

It was read aloud in court on Tuesday, October 19. It was addressed to Kevin Kerrane. Frank broke down in tears upon hearing it.

Kevin Kerrane testified for the defense. He told the jury about the bathroom window with no lock on it, and he told about Eddie Gorman having had a key when he cleaned the apartment five or six months earlier. The prosecutor asked Kevin if he had told the police about these facts, and Kevin said that he had told Agent Satterfield and the Chapel Hill officer who had questioned him early in 1964. In rebuttal, the solicitor called Agent Satterfield and the officer back to the stand. They both denied that Kevin had told them about Eddie and the key.

Kevin saw Agent Satterfield in the corridor later and asked him why he had lied. Satterfield’s answer was, “oh, you know Rinaldi’s guilty.”

A number of character witnesses, including my father, were called to attest for Frank.

By noon on Wednesday, October 20, 1965, both prosecution and defense rested.

Mr. Cooper’s assistant solicitor, Robert Satterfield, presented the first part of the prosecution’s closing. Mr. Dunn reports that Satterfield talked for half an hour.

Gordon Battle began dismantling the prosecution’s case and as he finished his presentation, he read Lucille’s letter again and said, “Nothing can bring back Lucille or the baby, but we can tell Frank Rinaldi he is free to go out and pick up the crumbled and shattered pieces of his life…” (from Mr. Dunn’s report)

Barry Winston spoke for half an hour.

At 4:10 that afternoon, Victor Bryant began his closing statement. Dunn describes him as an old-fashioned orator, elderly, with a soft voice, and with the ability to fix the courtroom on himself and his words. He also read the words from Lucille’s letter, “Frank has kissed and smiled his kisses and smiled and departed for Durham to tell Santa what a good girl I am.”

Mr. Bryant also used a very unattractive ploy. He suggested that the Begg family wanted to collect the $40,000 in life insurance. It brought gasps, according to Mr. Dunn, and caused Clara Begg to cry. It wasn’t a pretty thing to say, but Mr. Bryant might reply that the Beggs had said some ugly things, too, without any more support.

Mr. Cooper gave his closing the next day at 9:35 a.m. He spoke for over an hour and decried Mr. Bryant’s attack on the Begg family. He made his argument relying upon Eddie Gorman’s testimony and Frank’s financial situation.

Judge Fountain spent an hour and a half reviewing evidence for the jury and instructing them on how to apply evidence. He gave them a lunch break and then added to his charge. He explained the legal definition of an alibi and reminded the jury that Frank claimed to have an alibi.

The jury had three verdicts to choose from: guilty of first degree murder, guilty of second degree murder, and not guilty.

The jury began to deliberate at 2:05 p.m. on Thursday, October 21, 1965.

The reporters who covered the second trial all contributed to a sense that it was a tense and hard-fought trial. None of the lawyers seem to have suffered a let-down in the eleven months since the first trial. They worked hard and gave it all they had.

Mr. Dunn gave lively descriptions of the atmosphere in and around the courtroom while the jury deliberated. Lawyers argued a point again, until someone said it no longer mattered. Some people paced. Mr. Bryant, an opera fan, talked opera in the back of the room. My father chatted with Frank and his family. The jury was in a room above the courtroom and sounds from the room could be heard.

At about ten o’clock, the jury sent for coffee and indicated that they wanted to work longer. They did reach a verdict that night, after a total of eight hours and 40 minutes—not guilty.

Frank Rinaldi, his brother, father and uncle wept and embraced. Friends and supporters cheered the jury. Frank found a telephone and called his mother. He thanked his lawyers and jury. He did not have kind words for the press, blaming coverage of the case for the 99 potential jurors who were dismissed for cause—for having made up their minds in a way that could not be changed.

Mr. Bryant acknowledged Frank’s friends for standing with him.

The foreman of the jury, Donald Stewart, gave interviews talking about the process. The jury used secret ballots and the first count was six to six. They reviewed the evidence and, from Mr. Stewart’s account, focused on the time of death and the alibi witnesses. They took a total of five ballots to reach a unanimous verdict. Although minds were settled or changed, they seemed to find a process that prevented the monkey from being put on anyone’s back.

As I have said, it seems clear to me that the two people on the first jury who believed Frank was guilty began with that perspective and then worked evidence to fit it. They had the strength of personality to prevail. Perhaps the lawyering for the defense was crisper and sharper the second time around and perhaps the jurors’ individual and collective characters were more inclined to looking fairly and without prejudice at the information they were given. Arguments such as “the kind of person” Frank was (or was labeled by the solicitor) did not penetrate.



I know little about Frank’s life after acquittal. Kevin feels that he was reclusive for a period of time and that certainly seems understandable. I have no way of knowing his mental or emotional state, but it is not hard to imagine he was changed forever. He completed his PhD at the University of Massachusetts. His obituary says that he retired as Dean of Paeir College of Art in Connecticut. He lived in Waterbury with his parents in the house in which he was raised. His mother, Dora Christiano Rinaldi, died at age 103 in August 2009, just three months before Frank’s own death.

My father described Frank as theatrical, my sister recalls. Kevin told me that he could be flamboyant, and that he was generous and not at all physical, that he could be petulant and that, although they had the usual sorts of fallings-out that roommates have, he never saw Frank angry.

The 1963 loss of Lucille and the baby still devastates two families. I feel deeply sorry for all who lived and live with that loss; it is beyond imagining. I close by humbly offering the same metta to all: may you be safe; may you be happy; may you be at peace; may you have ease of well-being.

(Metta is a form of yogic mediation. It is the “loving kindness” meditation. The person who is meditating sends out to others wishes for happiness, for safety, for peace, for ease of well-being.)

Two names have been changed. They are marked with asterisks when they first appear.

My sources are: 	Conversation and email with Kevin Kerrane Greensboro Daily News, Friday, December 27, 1963 Byline, Roland Giduz Durham Morning Herald, Thursday, Jan. 2, 1964 Editorial The News of Orange County, Thursday, Jan. 9, 1964 No byline The Chapel Hill Weekly, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1964 Byline, Perry Young The Chapel Hill Weekly, Sunday, Nov. 15, 1964 Byline, Perry Young The Chapel Hill Weekly, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 1964 Byline, Perry Young The News of Orange County, Thursday, Nov. 19, 1964 No byline The Chapel Hill Weekly, Sunday, Nov. 22, 1964 Byline, Perry Young Greensboro Daily News, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1965 Byline, Roland Giduz The Durham Sun, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1965 Byline, Roland Giduz The Daily Tar Heel, Thursday, Oct. 14, 1965 Byline, Ed Freakley Unidentified paper Byline, Reese Hart The News of Orange County, Oct. 14, 1965 No byline Greensboro Daily News, Friday, Oct. 15, 1965 Byline, Roland Giduz Greensboro Daily News, Saturday, Oct. 16, 1965 Byline, Roland Giduz Unidentified paper Byline, Roland Giduz The Chapel Hill Weekly, Sunday, Oct. 17, 1965 Byline, J.A.C. Dunn The Durham Sun, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 1965 Byline, Roland Giduz The Chapel Hill Weekly, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 1965 No byline The Charlotte Observer, unknown date Byline, J.A.C. Dunn The Durham Sun, Thursday, Oct. 21, 1965 Byline, Reese Hart The Charlotte Observer, Friday, Oct. 22, 1965 Byline, J.A.C. Dunn The Durham Sun, Friday, Oct. 22, 1965 Byline, Reese Hart Greensboro Daily News, Friday, Oct. 22, 1965 No byline Greensboro Daily News, Saturday, Oct. 23, 1965 No byline Charlotte Observer, Saturday, Oct. 23, 1965 Byline, J.A.C. Dunn The Chapel Hill Weekly, Sunday, Oct. 24, 1965 Byline, not shown; probably J.A.C. Dunn

Unknown paper Byline, Lawrence Maddry Two articles written after the Not Guilty verdict; clippings do not show dates; no bylines.

The Independent Weekly, August 13, 2003 A Cautionary Tale for D.A. Jim Harden, by Perry Deane Young