Prosecutor: When Tragedy Struck, Police Were Prepared

Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi came to Chatham Borough Council meeting Dec. 14, ready to be honored for the work he had done in helping find Jose Feliciano, the man who stands accused of murdering the Rev. Edward Hinds, soon after the murder took place.

But he was quick to pass the praise on to many others who were standing in the room with him. After accepting an oversized key to the borough from Mayor Nelson Vaughan, and telling the crowd of about 60 gathered that when he was a child, he lost his house key so often that his mother eventually pinned it to his clothing ("she would find it kind of ironic now I got a key to the town," he said as the room erupted in laughter), Bianchi spoke about what the Chatham Borough Police Department did to helping his office find the accused killer.

"This is not the biggest department in the county, by any stretch of the imagination, but I can tell you, it is one of the best," Bianchi said.

Hinds, the pastor at St. Patrick's Church, was found Oct. 23 with 32 stab wounds in his body, dressed in vestments, after he did not show up for Friday morning Mass. Police then began a day-and-a-half long manhunt for the killer that ended Oct. 24 when they arrested Feliciano, a janitor at the church.

Feliciano had initially attempted to assist police after the murder happened by attempting to perform CPR on Hinds after he was found in the church kitchen.

"There's nothing we can do," he had said after making several attempts to resuscitate Hinds. After that, police became suspicious.

Bianchi said any multi-agency investigation can often be met with resistance from the hometown police department. Police members in such cases, he said, often feel as if they are being undermined by the higher-ups and, as a result, react negatively. That did not happen in Chatham, even though surrounding police deparments from neighboring municipalities (such as Chatham Township) were also involved.

"Their primary concern was the safety of the children [in Chatham]," Bianchi said.

And on a night when the borough council accepted former police chief John Drake's retirement, each member of the police department was called up, one by one, to the front of the room to accept a plaque of recognition from Bianchi. Each member also shook hands with Mayor Nelson Vaughan, Bianchi and Prosecutor's Office Chief of Investigations William Schievella.

Drake also gave credit to Bianchi.

"I've served under many prosecutors in 31 years of law enforcement here, and I can say without a doubt that I have never seen a prosecutor with [your] level of commitment and dedication to law enforcement," Drake said. "To have you there all Friday night into Saturday morning [after the murder], and then again Saturday afternoon, sent a clear message to me that you're a professional law enforcement officer. And we're proud to have you as our prosecutor."