News Articles - Jefferson County, Kentucky
WOMAN SEEKING TO KILL ROOSEVELT ARRESTED
Demented Traveler Giving Name as Carrie Ade Taken by
Louisville Police as She Denounced President.
Louisville, Ky., May 12 – A woman said she was
enroute to Washington kill President Roosevelt was arrested here today and gave her name as Miss Carrie Ade, of
115 Central avenue, New Rochelle, N.Y. Her talk was of a rambling nature and a charge of lunacy was entered against
her.
The woman was well dressed and of a refined
appearance. She drove up in front of the depot, alighted, seated herself on the steps and began emptying on the
sidewalk the contents of several suit cases. When an officer accosted her she said Roosevelt was responsible for
her wrongs and that she intended to kill him. The [Quincy Daily Whig, Quincy,
Ill, May 13, 1908 - Submitted byDebbie Gibson]
Robert Carter, 28 years old, is in the county jail, charged with
the murder of Daniel Skaggs, 44, a cripple who died at 4:15 o clock yesterday morning at the City Hospital of a
fractured skull suffered Saturday night when it is alleged Carter struck him in the head with a fence picket. The
alleged assault was committed at Skaggs home, 2623 West Walnut Street, where Carter was a boarder. The fight between
the two men is said to have resulted from Skaggs ordering Carter to leave the house. Carter said Skaggs advanced
toward him with his hand in his hip pocket and he wrenched a picket from the fence and struck once on the head.
Skaggs injuries were not considered serious at first, but Sunday morning his condition became worse and his wife
took him to the hospital. Carter maintains he struck Skaggs as self-defense. He said before he was requested to
leave Skaggs home, the latter looked for a pistol. L. D. Sutherland, another boarder, verified this statement.
Sutherland said he also was requested to leave with Carter. Surviving Skaggs are his widow, Mrs. Hattie Skaggs;
a daughter, Miss Bessie Skaggs, and a stepson, Calvin Skaggs. Funeral arrangements have not been made.
COURIER JOURNAL OBITUARY 03/20/1923
Mrs. Mary Zinsmeister, 55 years old,
is in a serious condition at SS. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital as a result of burns suffered at 2:45 o clock yesterday
afternoon when gasoline exploded in the kitchen of her home, 1308 South Sixth Street. According to members of the
family, Mrs. Zinsmeister was cleaning a coat when the accident occurred. She had placed a quantity of gasoline
in a pot of boiling water on the stove to heat. It is thought she spilled the gasoline in attempting to take it
from the stove. Frank Dubourg, her son, who was asleep upstairs, heard Mrs. Zinsmeister s screams and extinguished
the flames with a blanket. Dr. Leo Block said Mrs. Zinsmeister will recover. Dubourg
COURIER JOURNAL ARTICLE 11/18/1922
Man Attacks Two Women, Ends His Life - Husband Stabs Wife, Mother-in-law Here, Then Cuts Own
Throat
An alleged frequent threat to attack his family and kill himself was fulfilled at 4:10 o clock
Friday afternoon by William Ducoff, 37 years old, who jabbed his wife and mother-in-law with an ice pick in the
back yard of his home at Eighteenth Street and Bernheim Lane, and then, running to his bed, sawed his neck with
a butcher knife until his head nearly dropped off. The two women warded off Ducoff s lunges by throwing up their
left arms and receiving the point of the ice pick in their flesh above the elbow. The wife, Mrs. Mary Ducoff, 33,
was treated by a physician for a deep wound in the arm and the mother-in-law, Mrs. Victoria Schick, 53 for two
smaller punctures, in the upper arm and wrist. Both refused to go to a hospital. Ducoff s son, William, 7, saw
his father rush into the kitchen after his sortie against the two women. The apparently crazed man slammed the
back door, William said, and braced his knee against it with the ice pick poised in air, as if to prevent his being
followed. Then he grabbed a butcher knife in the kitchen, ran into the adjoining bedroom, where William had fled,
and threw himself crosswise over the bed, with his feet dangling over. As Ducoff swept the knife in a circle toward
his own throat, according to the boy s story, William ran into the yard crying, Daddy s killing himself. Neither
woman would enter, but Mrs. Mame Reinert, a neighbor, came to say that she had heard the noise and had called the
police. Before the police arrived, the only person to enter the house is said to have been a small boy who reported
that Ducoff s body was making a gurgling noise. City police arrived after Ducoff died. They found that his home
lay just across the city limits, and summoned Jefferson County police under Chief Ambrose Hagerman to take charge
of the case. Relatives of Ducoff agreed that he had shown symptoms of insanity. Members of the family placed Ducoff
s threats as coming chiefly after a move two weeks ago, when he broke bones in his foot. He had been hobbling about
since in a morbid humor, with a pink slipper tied on his foot by a rubber band, they said. He previously lived
at a nearby soft drink stand, which he had operated since buying it four years ago from Mr. Schick, it was said.
Coroner Roy Carter pronounced death due to suicide. Both Coroner Carter and police declared that Ducoff had served
a term in prison as a liquor law violator. Besides his wife and son, Ducoff is survived by three daughters, Mary
Helen Ducoff, 16; Margaret Ducoff, 14 and Dorothy Ducoff, 6; a half-sister, Mrs. Will Noonan, and a half-brother,
Fred Seabert. COURIER JOURNAL OBITUARY 09/11/1926