4-9-10
Latest Incident Revives Thoughts Of Other Tragedy
By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN
The parallels were uncanny.
But the shooting of a CCS junior and senior on Oct. 14, 1961, by a freshman ended tragically.
The two older boys, Philip F. Lindroth and Howard D. Lindstadt, both 17, were killed, shot in the alley between First National Bank (now the wax museum) and the National Commercial Bank & Trust Co. (now Key Bank).
The younger boy, Charles E. Warner, 16, fled the scene in his father’s car. He was located nine hours later in his aunt’s summer camp at Big Moose Lake; state troopers shot him as he tried to escape, and he died nine days later in the Utica hospital.
“They were picking on me,” the boy told authorities, echoing one of the scenarios that has been circulating since the shooting and suicide attempt that occurred last Friday, April 2, in Cooper Park.
Then as now, though, police were mystified.
Everyone who was in town at the time remembers the event vividly to this day.
Gary Baldinger, for instance, happened by and remembers Lindstadt’s sheet-covered body in the alley.
He recalled a poignant story.
Gerry Smith, then the town police officer, hurried from the scene to 22 Main, where the police station was then on the second floor, to call state police at Sidney.
There, he met Herb Warner, the young Warner’s father.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” he said.
“Herb,” the officer replied, trying to unlock the door, “have you heard what happened?”
Warner interrupted, reporting he was looking for his son, who had taken four guns from the family’s Bowerstown home at 5 p.m. and left in the family car.
“You better come in,” Smith told him.
“So even before the state police were called,” said Baldinger, “they knew who it was.”
According to the report in the Oct. 18, 1961, edition of The Freeman’s Journal, young Warner stopped for gas at Crain’s Service Station, then at Chestnut and Elm, a few minutes before the shooting.
Attendant Robert Gorence later told police he spotted a shotgun and six shells on the front seat. He asked him about it, and was told the gun was new.
At about 7 p.m., Warner was spotted driving east on Main. He turned into the alley, where police surmised he had arranged to meet the two older boys.
He stepped out of the car, firing the shotgun five times. Lindstadt died immediately; Lindroth was taken to Bassett Hospital, where he died at 9:30 p.m.
Warner drove through Pioneer Alley and turned right on Pioneer Street. An all-points bulletin was issued throughout Central New York, and road blocks were set up at various points, before Warner was apprehended five hours later.
Police said they shouted to him, but he sped off down a dirt road. They fired warning shots, then shot the youth three times.
“Word of the tragedy spread rapidly throughout the village,” The Freeman’s Journal reported. “...Acquaintances of the three boys, including their school teachers, were shocked by the tragedy.
The three were described as long-time boyhood friends who had a falling out about a year before the shootings.
“Warner ... was described as a quiet and rather shy youth. He was called an average student in school, but one who approached the school work seriously. He was pictured as being moody, and as ‘the kind of person who feels things more deeply’ than the average boy.”
Lindstadt was “a better than average student, and somewhat outspoken, candid and ready to joke with people in a happy go lucky way.” Lindroth was called an average student, and quieter than Lindstadt.
Herb Warner has since passed away, but he never got over what happened.
“It was a heavy burden,” said Baldinger.
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