100 years ago in The Record
Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1918. Three bodies are found in an Oakwood Avenue apartment this evening, nearly 24 hours after they died of accidental asphyxiation, The Record reports. The dead are 30 year old Lizzie Riegert, the tenant of record; her son Francis, age 12; and Frank Rogers, 40, a hod- carrier for contractor William S. Hamil. “Rogers had planned to marry Mrs. Riegert, as the arrangements, even to the purchase of the ring, showed,” our reporter notes. Investigators believe that Rogers, who was recently ill with “an attack of neuraligia, or possibly influenza,” accidentally caused the deaths Monday night. “Rogers had taken a quart bottle of whisky off the kitchen mantelpiece and poured out half a teacupful, when he probably thought he would first try and ease the pain in his head. Going over to the big kitchen range, where a wood fire was burning merrily, he lifted one of the big lids, wrapped it in several thicknesses of newspaper, making a hot wad, which he prepared to apply to the right side of his face. “Before seating himself he put out the gaslight. There is an inverted mantel for lighting purposes on the lowest section of the pipe. There is a stop cock made especially for the lighting and extinguishing of the gas. He turned this off, but his hand must have accidentally caught in the double chain that controls an upper gas cock arrangement for a cooking stove.”
Rogers apparently turned on the gas flow to a tube that lay loose on the kitchen floor. Investigators believe it would have been impossible for him to notice the tube while he was turning out the light. He then felt his way back to the table and died in a chair without touching his whisky. The Riegerts shared a bedroom directly off the kitchen.
It’s not until 7:45 p.m. today that a next- door neighbor calls the police to report a gas odor. Motorcycle policeman Michael Shea jimmies a lock to get in through the rear and “was met by a wave of gas.” With the neighbors too frightened to assist him, Shea can barely make it to the kitchen before he has to retreat while the open door vents the room.
Using a flashlight, Shea “recoiled for an instant” upon finding Rogers’ body. He opens windows throughout the apartment while searching for the Riegerts. After sticking his head out a window to gasp for air, he finds them in their beds.
Afterward, the neighbor recalls hearing moaning around 4 a.m., while passers-by recall smelling gas but assuming that it came from a nearby gas works.