1947 Double Murder in Morris County Recounted by Prosecutors
Morris County, NJ — The Morris County Prosecutor’s Office recounted the chilling details of a 1947 double murder in Ionia, now part of Randolph, stemming from an argument over a horse.
Nineteen-year-old Paul Southerland Weinrich was accused of murdering Jerome DiGiovanna and Eleanor Tulp following a series of disputes related to a horse that had caused damage to the property. Weinrich told officers that tensions escalated when DiGiovanna insisted on riding the horse despite it having a saddle sore. The argument culminated on November 1st when DiGiovanna allegedly ordered Weinrich to leave the house.
The following day, an enraged Weinrich shot Tulp three times with his brother’s rifle. He then waited for DiGiovanna to return home and shot him as well. Weinrich stayed in the house for four days while continuing to work at his factory job in Irvington. After learning from a neighbor that police had been to the house, he fled in the victim’s car. He was apprehended by Pennsylvania State Police after leaving a gas station without paying for fuel.
Investigators discovered Tulp’s body wrapped in a sheet in the bedroom and DiGiovanna’s body in a shallow grave near the backyard chicken coop. On February 26, 1948, a Morris County jury found Weinrich guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison.