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From: Chris Hendrickson <>
Subject: [Bklyn] Brooklyn Standard Union July 18, 1929 - Court
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 20:55:54 -0400


Brooklyn Standard Union July 18, 1929 - Court

COURT SCORES MAN HELD AS CHILD BEATER

“Burning Too Good If You Are Guilty,” NOVA Tells REILLY

“If what is contained in this indictment is the truth, burning at the
stake would be too good for you,” County Judge NOVA declared to-day when
Edward J. REILLY, 40, a truck driver, of 991 Putnam avenue, was
arraigned before him on an indictment for first degree assault.

REILLY is accused of beating Vincent CAMPBELL, three years old, the son
of REILLY’s common-law wife, Catherine V. CAMPBELL, in the apartment
they occupied together then at the Putnam avenue address, REILLY pleaded
not guilty.

REILLY was held in $25,000 bail, which he could not furnish, for trial
at a later date, which has not yet been fixed. He was taken to Raymond
street jail.

Assistant District Attorney SULLIVAN, who presented the case against
REILLY to the Grand Jury, told reporters the assault was “one of the
most heinous crimes I have ever heard of.” He told REILLY he was
fortunate not to be held on a murder charge.

In the complaint made by Mrs. CAMPBELL in the Magistrate’s court, to
which she took oath and which is now in the possession of the District
Attorney, she tells the following story:

“On June 18, at 991 Putnam avenue, at 2:15 A.M., REILLY came home an
asked me to go out for beer. Vincent was asleep in his crib at the time.
Near by another baby, six month old, was asleep. When I returned REILLY
was standing in the kitchen in a pool of blood, wiping his hands with a
towel.

“‘Don’t make a sound or I’ll kill you. I’ve just killed Vincent,”’ said
REILLY to me.

“Then I went into the baby’s Vincent room and found the child lying
naked on the bed. His head covered with bruises, seven of his teeth
knocked out, and bleeding profusely from the mouth. Doesn’t he look
nice.’ REILLY said as he came near me.

She went on:

“Then he pushed me from the room and said: ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d kill
him? I hate him.’

“When we got back to the kitchen, he held me in a chair and called to
the child to get up out of bed and said to come out and stretch on the
floor. My baby obeyed and laid on its side.

‘Turn over on your back so I can see you suffer. You –.’ he said. Then
he told his friend, a man by the name of MCNAMARA who happened to be in
the apartment at the time, to give him a glass of water. He took a
mouthful and dashed the rest of it on the baby’s face. The baby cried.
REILLY sat calmly smoking cigarettes and flickering the ashes on the
child’s body. The child screamed.

“Shut up,” said REILLY as he picked the baby up and held him tightly
under his arm and taking the gas tube with one hand pressing it against
the child’s open and bleeding mouth, he said, ‘Turn on the gas, Mac.
You’ll kill the kid. I’ve killed more than one - in my life.”

“Then he threw the child on the floor, opened a drawer and said: ‘If I
can get my sharp knife I’ll finish both of them. I won’t swing for this,
for there’ll be no one to prove it.’

At that point, the complaint states, Mrs. CAMPBELL managed to escape
from the room and got a policeman who arrested REILLY.

The police record seven arrests for REILLY since 1918, including one on
a charge of homicide. Only two ended in convictions, however. In 1924 he
was given 30 days in the workhouse for disorderly conduct, and in 1927
he spent four months in the same house of detention for petty larceny.


transcribed by Chris Hendrickson for Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page

Researching: ABRAMS, AHLERS, DIGNAN, FUHRMANN, HENDRICKSON, JEMMOTT,
PETRI, SADLER,
SILKENSTADT, SOPER, STRATHMANN, VOGT, VON FINTEL, and ZORN

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