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The Seattle Daily Times
Monday Evening, November 3, 1919
Page 1, Column 2

Sergeant Is Shot Down By Officer

Guy L. Carleton Is Slain in Street by Patrolman Charles E. Roselius After Auto Chase

Victim Was Riding With Latter’s Wife

Husband Overhears Telephone Conversation and Follows Woman to Place of Meeting Downtown

Police Sergeant Guy L. Carleton, 41 years old, was shot and instantly killed by Patrolman Charles E. Roselius, 37, when Carleton alighted from his automobile at Whatcom Avenue and Hanford Street at 8:15 last evening at the conclusion of an automobile chase of several miles. Roselius, following his wife, Mrs. Jennie Roselius, had finally found her and her companion, the police Sergeant and shot Carleton down.

Mrs. Roselius ran from the scene when, she believed, her husband meant to slay her, too and she reached her home at 7333 California Avenue. There she was arrested by the police. Both Patrolman Roselius and Mrs. Roselius are in the City Jail.

Mrs. Roselius declared at the Central Station after she had been arrested that her husband was jealous of Sergeant Carleton without cause.

Other policemen related how the Sergeant had been warned against paying attentions to Mrs. Roselius.

Roselius Worried

That the trouble had become acute was related by Captain of Police Charles E. Dophin, who said this morning that the Sergeant was removed from the West Seattle Substation two months ago because of the Roselius matter. Captain Dolphin also said that Roselius had not slept an average of more than two hours a night for the last six months and he said that two patrolmen at the West Seattle Station had disarmed him several months ago when he attempted to destroy his own life with a pistol.

A conversation Roselius said he had overhead his wife have over the telephone last evening, in which she arranged to meet Sergeant Carleton at First Avenue and Yesler Way, brought matters to a climax, according to the statement he made after he had shot down Carleton.

Three shots were discharged by Roselius as the automobiles were speeding down Whatcom Avenue, all of them striking the Carleton car. It was when both cars had stopped and the two men met on the street level that the killing occurred.

Carleton Was Armed

Carleton carried a 38 caliber automatic pistol but he did not draw it in self-defense, although he had been fired upon three times.

“He made a move at his hip for his gun and I shot him,” said Roselius to Captain Dolphin in the City Jail this morning.

The Roselius Carleton trouble became so acute that about two months ago, according to Mrs. Roselius, her husband went to see Mrs. Carleton at her home and told her about it. Mrs. Carleton went to see Mrs. Roselius and told her what Patrolman Roselius had reported to her.

“I told her,” said Mrs. Roselius, “that I had gone out with Guy at times but there was nothing out of the way about our companionship. I so convinced her that I was telling her the truth that she seemed to think it was all right and that Charlie had been jealous without cause. She said:

‘Mrs. Roselius, I am sorry that I came to see you about this in your own home. We will just forget about it.’ I accepted her statement in good faith and we made arrangements for her to come and have lunch with me later and spend the afternoon. She had never gotten around to it.”

Mrs. Carleton came to the police station last night and talked to the officers but no statement was taken from her for the record.

Patrolman Roselius says he overheard a conversation on the telephone between his wife and Sergeant Carleton, planning a meeting last night at 8:15 o’clock at First Avenue and Yesler Way. This was in the afternoon. Mrs. Roselius said last night that he must have tapped the telephone wire from the outside, as she didn’t think he was in the house at the time. He was to go on duty at the West Seattle Police Station at 8 o’clock in the evening.

Follows His Wife

“My wife left the house shortly before I did,” Roselius said, “and caught a jitney. I caught another jitney and asked the driver if he could overtake the car ahead which was coming to town.

“She got out of the jitney at First Avenue and Yesler Way and walked across the street and got into Guy Carleton’s machine. I said to my driver to follow Carleton’s car. We went down to Railroad Avenue and then started south and I told the driver to overtake the car so I could see who was in it.

“The other car speeded up and we tried to pass on the left side, but he hugged the traffic so we could not pass, so we tried the right side.

“I took a couple of shots toward the car. I don’t remember if it was toward the car or toward the bay. I guess he knew who was following him when I took the shots at the car.

“He got out of his car on the right side and came around back of his car. I got out of my car and went around back. He said something, but I don’t remember just what he said.

“I was on the right hand side of my car and he got on the left side of his car and made a reach for his pocket – I thought for his gun and I shot him.

Patrolman N.P. Anderson came along and he said: ‘You know me; what happened?’

“I said to wait a minute and I took the shells out of my gun. I still had one loaded shell in the gun and I handed the gun and the shells to Anderson.”

Roselius then said that the jitney driver remarked that if he had known of his object he would not have hauled him.

Patrolman Anderson ran into the affair by accident, not being on duty at the time. He was coming from West Seattle in an automobile with his wife and father, Andrew Anderson, 5044 Alki Avenue. He gave a vivid account of the shooting and subsequent events. The cars came racing down Whatcom Avenue, with shots flying and glass shattering, causing a panic to the traffic along the crowded thoroughfare, he said.

Runs Down Victim

“The car in the rear was gaining on the other car,” Patrolman Anderson said, “and when they were about 150 feet from me three or four shots were fired from the rear car. When they were just in front of the gas station there the car in the rear pulled to the right of the car ahead. I was then about even with the other two cars.

“After the shots were fired the car ahead put on brakes and came to a dead stop in front of the oil station. The car in the rear skidded up in front of the oil station and stopped about twenty to twenty five feet from the other car.

“I saw the man jump out of the second car and run toward the first car with a gun in his hand.

“I saw a man and a woman get out of the first car on the right hand side and the woman ran away and the man stayed by the car. The man in the second or rear car ran up to the man in the first car and shot right at him. The man dropped to the pavement and the man with the gun stood there waving the gun over the man on the pavement and snapping the trigger.

“There might have been a shot fired after the man fell to the pavement; I am not positive, but I think there was.

“While the man stood there waving the gun over the other fellow he kept yelling something about breaking up his home and running off with his wife and that he would not do that to anyone else’s home or words to that effect. Just before the man fell he yelled something at the other man about ‘Don’t shoot.’ and some name which I could not make out.

“I had the man covered with my gun and after he shot the other man I went up to him and he waved me away, saying he still had a loaded shell in his gun.

“I went up to him and said: ‘What’s the matter here, don’t you know me?’ and he said: ‘Keep your hands off!’

Woman Disappears

“While he was waving the gun over the fallen man the woman came up and pleaded with him and they were both excited and finally she left.”

Patrolman Anderson in his statement said the man who was shot was Sergeant Guy L. Carleton and the man who did the shooting was Patrolman C.E. Roselius.

There were five empty shells and one unexploded cartridge in Roselius’ pistol but the unexploded shell had been hit by the firing pin, Anderson said.

Patrolman Anderson then took Roselius into the oil station, handcuffed him and called the police station. Sergeant M.B. Pence and Patrolman John DeBoer responded to the call in a police jitney and the patrol wagon carried other officers. Roselius was taken to the police station and Sergeant Carleton’s body was removed to the morgue by Deputy Coroner L.D. Tiffin.

An examination of the body by Deputy Coroner Frank Koepfli showed that Sergeant Carleton had been shot through the left temple and through the heart. Either shot would cause almost instant death.

Chief of Police J.F. Warren and Sergeant Jence examined Sergeant Carleton’s car and found that bullets from Patrolman Roselius’ gun had broken the left rear glass in the top, the left windshield, the lower left wind guard and the motor meter.

Mrs. Roselius Question

Mrs. Roselius was questioned at the police station by Chief Warren and Lieutenant of Detectives W.B. Kent. She told them she went to First Avenue and Yesler Way in a jitney to meet Sergeant Carleton and she got in his car and they started south for a drive and were almost to the oil station when the car behind tried to pass them.

“Sergeant Carleton said they were trying to pass him and they could not do it, as he had a better car,” said Mrs. Roselius. “He started to slow up when there were several shots fired – I think three. The shots broke the glass. He stopped and said we had better get out and I got out and he did and we stood there with three or four other men. Someone shot – I could not say who and Carleton dropped and I ran.”

“Did you know who was doing the shooting?”

“No, sir. Had no idea. Thought it was someone trying to practice. I took the Fauntleroy car and went home.”

“Did you recognize your husband’s voice?”

“He (Carleton) said something about: ‘Charlie, don’t shoot; I am a brother officer.’”

Edward Shubert, 4208 Lowman Drive, was the driver of the car that carried Patrolman Roselius in his chase after his wife and Sergeant Carleton. He drives a car on the Gatewood jitney line and knows Roselius. He told of Roselius getting into his car. Shubert said:

“When Roselius got in my car he said: ‘Hurry; I want to catch that car ahead of us.’ We unloaded the three passengers I had and drove to First Avenue and Yesler Way. When we got there he said to follow that maroon colored car and we started to the waterfront. When we got there he said: ‘Step on it; I want to get a look at the driver.’

“As he was an officer I thought nothing of the affair, supposing he was following someone. We didn’t catch up with them and he said to ‘step on it again, I want to catch up with him.’

“When we neared the oil station near Hanford Street the other car slowed up and just then I heard a shot right next to my car and I pulled into the oil station. The other car stopped in the street. Charlie jumped out of my car. He didn’t even stop to open the door, but jumped over and the other man got out of his car and said something, but I could not make it out because my ears still rang from the shot.”

“Could you see the officers?”

“Yes, Charlie walked in front of the other fellow and shot.”

Trouble Causes Transfer

Captain Dolphin, in command of the West Seattle Station, this morning said it was on account of the affair between Sergeant Carleton and Mrs. Roselius that Carleton was transferred from West Seattle to headquarters two months ago. Roselius had complained to the Captain and he, in turn, had talked to Carleton about it.

“Carleton was set in his ways,” Captain Dolphin said this morning. “I warned him that such an affair could only end in trouble and told him that not only his duty to himself and family but to the department demanded that he cease his attentions to Mrs. Roselius. As a brother officer talking to brother officer and appealing to him on behalf of officers, I urged that he quit his attentions to the woman, as it was getting to be a serious affair. He didn’t seem to think there was such a state as I told him and I could not get him to see it that way. I then asked for his transfer.”

Three years ago, while serving as a motorcycle patrolman, Roselius met with a serious accident. His spine was injured and he wore a steel jacket for a long time or until brother patrolmen took up a subscription and sent him to Mayo Brothers Hospital at Rochester, Minnesota for treatment. The man’s superior officers this morning said that Roselius has been “acting queerly” for months. He lost considerable weight.

Two accidents while on the motorcycle during the past summer further incapacitated the man. He has not ridden a wheel for two months or since his second accident, which laid him up in the hospital for several weeks.

Carleton was born November 11, 1878 in Ireland. He is survived by a widow, one son, Thomas P. Carleton and two stepsons, Edwin H. and William H. Bishop. The family home is at 4302 Seventh Avenue South. He entered the police department November 1, 1904; served almost two years and resigned, but reentered the service again December 4, 1908. He was made a Sergeant January 6, 1917.

Sergeant Carleton was one of the organizers and a charter member of Seattle Lodge Loyal Order of Moose, in 1910. He was a past Dictator. He was also a member of Seattle Lodge No. 92, B.P.O.E.

Roselius was born at Nebraska City, Nebraska, July 27, 1882 and was married eight years ago in this city. There have been no children, but Mrs. Roselius’ sister’s death in Boston at the time of the child’s birth, four years ago, gave to the Roselius couple the care an adoption of a girl, Naomi. She has been generally known as their daughter. Roselius entered the police department June 3, 1909 and had been assigned to West Seattle Precinct since 1911. He was in the Motorcycle Division most of the time.

Mrs. Roselius is 29 years of age, a native of Nova Scotia.

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Generously contributed by: Sheila Simpson