[3] After completing his first year of high school, Wood quit his studies, causing conflict with his father, who sent him away to be examined at the Binghamton State Hospital.

[3] Wishing to take his anger out on someone, Wood started harassing random women on the streets of Elmira, until he came across 33-year-old Pearl D. Robinson in a suburban backyard on July 5.

After grabbing hold of her, Wood strangled Robinson by wrapping a rope around her neck, before he proceeded to stab her a total of 142 times with a knife in various locations and finally crushing her skull with an iron bar.

[3] The vicious crime horrified the community, with police mobilizing to immediately catch the perpetrator, interviewing family members and acquaintances of the victim in order to gather potential clues.

[4] However, at the time, the police's leading theory was that Robinson knew her killer, prompting them to largely ignore Wood as a potential suspect.

[4] The following month, Wood was arrested for harassing a woman named Grace Hunsinger at a Broadway pharmacy, for which he was found guilty and ordered to serve a 7-year prison term at a local reformatory.

Two years later, after perceiving that 42-year-old local carpenter and World War II veteran John E. Lowman had been pestering his girlfriend, Wood invited him to a rooming house in the city.

[3] During this time, Wood moved into a rooming house and found himself a job at a local laundry, but eventually had to quit it due to high blood pressure.

[7] Intent on robbing the apartment, Wood went to an adjacent room, where he found Rescigno's roommate, 78-year-old Frederick Sess, who was fast asleep.

"[7] After leaving the apartment, Wood went to a tavern called Cronin's Bar and Grill, where he drank beer and chatted with the bartender, explaining away the blood on his hands as the result of a fight he had been in.

[3] In the meantime, the news director for the WELM radio station, Michael J. Morgan, after reading newspaper accounts of the double murder, realized that it shared similarities with that of Lowman decades prior.

[11] In the following years, Wood's execution was stayed on three occasions, as attorneys and civil liberties unions attempted to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of insanity.

"[1] Wood, still laughing, then sat down in the chair, brushing it off with his hand, smoking a cigarette and waiting patiently until they had finished the preparational procedure.