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Half a Loaf or Nothing. Florida's most famous precedent for such deals in capital cases arose from the baffling disappearance of respected Palm Beach Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth and his wife in 1955. When Prosecutor Philip O'Connell finally cracked the case six years later, still with not even a body as evidence, he did so by granting immunity to a thug named Bobby Lincoln, who brazenly testified that he had bludgeoned the Chillingworths and drowned them in the Atlantic. He had been hired by Judge Joseph A. Peel, said Lincoln, because Peel feared that Chillingworth was about to expose the protection he was selling to moonshiners and numbers men. Peel went to prison for life.
Soon after the Worthingtons' bodies surfaced, Gebhardt and young Worthington were arrested as prime suspects, but the evidence was all circumstantial and neither man would confess anything. Then Gebhardt's lawyer, who under Florida law had no way of learning the strength, or weakness, of the case against his client, offered the deal that did the police's work for them. "It was half a loaf or nothing," insisted Prosecutor Richard Gerstein. "In addition, the one who initiated the murder was killing his own parents and would inherit their estate if not convicted of murder." Unless Worthington now cops out, Gerstein must, of course, still persuade a jury that he is guilty. As for Confessed Murderer Gebhardt, he says with all due solemnity: "I know that my conscience will never be clear, and I will dedicate the rest of my life to God and helping society."