Thriller Thursday - Stabbing Affair In Evanston Leads to Operation

Stabbing Affair In Evanston Leads to Operation

To escape from under the shadows of the gallows through a surgical operation performed upon another man, was the peculiar, if not harrowing, experience of Jack Harless, an Evanston, Wyo., railway clerk, last Sunday. The man who underwent the operation is J. R. Schillerman, telegraph operator, who is now confined in the Dee hospital with a fighting chance for life.

Schillerman, according to reports from Evanston, was seriously stabbed by Harless last Wednesday, with a pocket-knife, the assault following a trivial quarrel. He received long and deep wounds across the abdomen, right breast and right shoulder. Harless was arrested on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and his victim was given surgical attention at the Evanston hospital.

Saturday night, the wounded man's condition became so serious that the attending physician apparently fearing on account of the depth of his abdominal wound that the intestines had been penetrated and that the infection had set in, order [sic] the man removed to the Dee hospital in this city. This was done and a thorough examination of Schillermn's condition by Dr. R. S. Joyce revealed symptoms of appendicitis. An operation was performed and the Ogden physician's diagnosis proved correct. It was found that the wound made by Harless had not penetrated through the abdomen, but that Schillerman's appendix had burst, causing his serious condition.

In the meantime, a rumor became current at Evanston that the operator was dead and Harless, who had been released on bond, was rearrested and charged with murder. He was again released, however, when the report was sent in Evanston that his victim was still alive.

Stabbing Affair in Evanston Leads to Operation, The Ogden Standard, Ogden, Utah, 8 August 1916, page 7, column 3.