New York City's Police Report #5

Topic: Serious Charge Against An Italian 1878

On Wednesday night two young women, named Rose Heslin and Kate Rogers, (the latter married.) residing at No. 1947 Third avenue, were walking on Third avenue with the intention of buying some shoes, when they were accosted by a stranger, an Italian named Anton Gausepi, of First avenue and Ninety-eighth street, who asked them where they were going. They informed him of their errand, when he told them he could give them the shoes they desired very cheap. They went to his store, when he entered into conversation with them, and without their knowing it, locked the door separating the front of the store from his workshop. He then made improper proposals to Miss Heslin, so Kate Rogers says, and upon her resenting them, struck her and knocked her down. Kate Rogers took hold of his arm, and tried to prevent further violence, but the Italian threw her aside with an oath, and rushing over to his work-bench, seized a sharp shoemaker's knife and ran toward Rose. The latter fearing that he intended to stab her, sprang in affright from him, and leaped from the window, a distance of 15 feet, into the rear area, striking her head against a water-butt and falling to the ground bleeding and senseless.

Gausepi then turned to Kate Rogers, and with another oath unlocked the door, told her to leave and threw after her her companion's hat, which had fallen from the latter's head as she sprang from the window. Great excitement arose among the neighbors, and an alarm being sent to the station-house the Police and an ambulance arrived on the scene. Rose was found lying insensible in the area, and was removed to the Ninety-ninth Street Hospital, where she was pronounced to be suffering from a severe concussion of the brain. Officer Petit, of the Eighty-seventh Street Station, went in search of Gausepi, and captured him at his brother's house in Italian row, in One Hundred and Seventh-street. The prisoner was taken yesterday to the Harlem Police Court, where having expressed a wish to have counsel to defend him, he was remanded until today for examination. The injured girl's injuries are so critical that it is feared she will be unable to leave the hospital for some time.

Source: The New York Times September 6, 1878

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