The Nation - News from Nov. 3, 1988

Two teen-agers were sentenced to at least 50 years in prison for murdering two Roman Catholic priests in their rectories in Buffalo, N.Y. The trial judge, New York state Supreme Court Justice Frederick Marshall, sentenced the pair to the maximum term, and said he wished he could have imposed the death penalty, which was abolished in New York in 1965. Marshall told defendants Theodore Simmons, 19, and Milton Jones, 18, the sentence was meant to “voice the outrage and disgust of the community.” The two were convicted in separate trials of robbing, torturing and murdering the Rev. A. Joseph Bissonette, 55, in St. Bartholomew’s Church on Feb. 24, 1987, and Msgr. David Herlihy, 74, in St. Matthew’s Church on March 7, 1987. The crimes sent shock waves through the city, and terrorized churchmen.