Adams, Bob - Ed Smith - cutting affray - Putnam

A serious cutting affray occurred at Roachdale last Friday as a result of which one of the participants may die. Bob Adams, of Roachdale, and Ed Smith, of Lizton, had trouble during the evening, although the former had repeated attempted to force a fight, the latter played discretion against the other’s valor. Both men were at the Monon depot at midnight and Adams again attempted to lead Smith into a fight, again without success, until, as the northbound passenger train pulled into the station he leaped upon Smith and sank a dirk into his back, between the shoulder blade and the spinal column. The wound was an ugly one and the physician in whose care Smith was placed, considers it a very serious case, fearing that the knife entered the lung cavity, in which event the victim will die. After committing the crime, Adams jumped upon the rear platform of the passenger train and rode to Ladoga, where he left the train and started east across the country afoot.  

Both men are tough characters and the scrape calls to mind a murder of a few years ago, Bob Adams being a son of the Adams who was killed at Roachdale a few years ago by Noah Evans, who is now serving a life sentence in the penitentiary for his crime, and the peculiar circumstances may exist of a son serving the same kind of sentence in the same prison with the murderer of his father. - kbz