Police Officer Henry DeKeersgieter

Henry DeKeersgieter

Police Officer Henry DeKeersgieter succumbed to a stab wound received nine days earlier after arresting a man for auto theft.

He had observed the man attempting to steal the car on LaSalle Street and took him into custody. He walked the suspect to a call box at Grattan and Chouteau. As he called the incident in the man suddenly produced a razor and cut Officer DeKeersgieter's neck before fleeing. Officer DeKeersgieter was able to shoot twice at the suspect before collapsing.

Officer DeKeersgieter was treated at a hospital and released after four days. However, as a result of the wound he contracted septic pneumonia and died at his home. The suspect was apprehended three days after the attack in Memphis,Tennessee, and charged with murder.

The suspect, 20, in and out of prison and reformatory schools since he was 12, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and sentenced to 20 years. The murder charge was dismissed because it could not be determined if the razor attack actually caused his death. He was paroled at some point after 1940. On June 12, 1952, he and five other men were arrested in St. Louis for several burglaries and cracking several safes.

Officer DeKeersgieter had been with the agency for 18 years and was survived by his wife and two children. His wife was a professional swimmer. In August of 1938 she became one of a very few people who ever swam the Mississippi River from Alton, Illinois, to St. Lewis, a distance of 23 miles.