100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN

Monday, June 3, 1918. An attempted murder-suicide at Rexford Park leaves a Massachusetts woman recovering at Ellis Hospital after her husband kills himself, The Saratogian reports.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Tower moved from Springfield two weeks ago to open a restaurant at the amusement park near the border of Saratoga and Schenectady counties. While Charles Tower ran the restaurant, Mrs. Tower operated a soda fountain nearby. She tells Saratoga County sheriff William J. Dodge and Ballston Spa coroner Robert B. Castree that her husband was “extremely jealous of her” and “watched her almost constantly” at the fountain.

Charles calls his wife into the restaurant this afternoon to help arrange some tables. They go upstairs to their living quarters where, according to Mrs. Tower, “he locked the door and told her if she had any statement to make to do so at once for he was going to kill her and then shoot himself.”

With no further ado Charles draws a revolver and starts shooting, hitting his wife three times. “Believing she was dead Tower placed the muzzle of the revolver in his mouth and shot himself.”

Wounded in her left side, left breast and left arm, Mrs. Tower crawls to a window and calls for help. Doctors at Ellis state that she has “a fair chance of recovery.” She tells investigators that Charles had threatened suicide more than once in the past. He was 35 years old.