CHURCH JANITOR CONFESSES TO KILLING PRIEST!

The longtime church janitor confessed to the brutal murder of a beloved New Jersey priest whose body was found in the rectory kitchen, authorities said on Saturday.
Jose Feliciano stabbed the Rev. Edward Hinds 32 times with a kitchen knife after an argument at St. Patrick's Church in Chatham on Thursday evening, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said.

Police suspected Feliciano from the beginning, Bianchi said. The 64-year-old janitor and a church deacon found Hinds Friday morning after the priest didn't show up for Mass.

Feliciano feigned shock when he saw the mutilated body and attempted to resuscitate the priest before cops arrived.

"He gave a couple of compressions and then said, 'There's nothing we can do,' which made police feel kind of suspicious," said Bianchi.

Cops said Hinds, 61, had wounds all over his body that suggested he was beaten before the fatal stabs. His injuries included defensive wounds on his hands and bruises on his face. He was stabbed in the neck, face, torso and the back of his head.

In the midst of the attack, Hinds called 911 from his cell phone for help. The call was cut off and the 911 operator called back, authorities said.

Feliciano answered and said, "Everything is fine," then hung up.

"I'm just totally stunned," said the priest's cousin and next-door neighbor, Dan Miller. "For this to happen to anyone, no less a priest, is just terrible. My God, how could this be? I'm just stunned at the brutality.

"Chatham will never be the same," he said. "For him to die so brutally, and for it to happen in this quiet little place, it's hard to fathom."

Feliciano later told investigators he cleaned up the blood with rags and towels and stole the cellphone. He took the evidence with him in a black plastic bag.

His wife, Marisol Feliciano, and teenage daughter picked him up a short time after the murder, cops said. When Feliciano arrived at his Pennsylvania home, he tossed the bloody towels in a trash can at a park nearby, cops said.

He also placed a call using Hinds' cellphone at the park on Thursday night, cops said. Investigators were able to trace the call to where they found the bloody rags on Friday.

Feliciano went home after he ditched the bloody rags and destroyed the cellphone, cops said. He also threw away the knife, then went to work on Friday as if nothing had happened.

When cops interviewed him on Saturday, Feliciano "confessed to the murder of Father Hinds," cops said.

In the meantime, cops stormed the house with guns drawn, where they recovered the knife and cellphone.

Feliciano worked at the church for 17 years. His daughter is a student at the school there and his older son is a graduate.

Hinds was brewing a cup of coffee in his clerical robes when Feliciano attacked him, cops said. The priest's beloved cocker spaniel, Copper, was at his side.

Hinds spent most of his life in the Chatham area, where his family has lived since the Revolutionary War, relatives told the Daily News. He even attended high school at St. Patrick's Church.

"His life was solely devoted to helping people," Dan Miller said. "And now most of our family is gone, Eddie's gone, and we're sitting here wondering, 'How could this happen here?'"