Vacant Lauterbach Cottage Hardware, 15th Street and South Grand Avenue, 2015 (SCHS)
No one was ever charged with the 1981 ax attacks at Lauterbach’s Cottage Hardware Store, but the case did lead to a change in Illinois’ mental-health privacy law.
The attacks took place inside the family-owned hardware store at 15th Street and South Grand Avenue the morning of March 18, 1981. John Ewing, 64, a Fiat-Allis retiree who had come to the store to buy contact paper, was killed. Co-owner Yvonne Lauterbach, 48, and Floyd Giddings, 37, who operated a sewing machine repair shop in the building, suffered permanently disabling injuries.
The attacker apparently ordered all three victims to their knees at the front of the store and hit each in the head with an ax from the store’s inventory.
The man, described by people who saw him walking away from the building as a light-skinned black man with graying hair and a graying beard and mustache, took $40 from the cash register and undisclosed amounts of money from the victims.
The victims were discovered about a half-hour after the crime by one of Giddings’ customers who heard raspy breathing behind a store counter.
Ewing (1916-81), struck three times in the head, was dead when police arrived. Neither Lauterbach (1933-2000) nor Giddings (1944-89) ever fully recovered from their injuries (though Lauterbach did earn a degree from Lincoln Land Community College in 1990). Police later called their deaths “murder delayed.”
The police investigation involved as many as 20 officers and detectives, but all suspects were eventually cleared.
One of those suspects was a mental patient at St. John’s Hospital, who reportedly told another patient he had been the ax-wielding murderer. Psychiatric nurse Elaine McCall told officers the second patient did resemble the description of the robber, but – citing medical confidentiality laws – refused to name the man.
McCall continued to refuse when called before a grand jury; she ultimately was cited for contempt of court and fined $250. After appeals failed, St. John’s officials agreed in June 1982 to disclose the name.
By then, however, police said they already had identified the man in the course of an unrelated investigation and had ruled him out as a suspect.
In July 1982, the Illinois General Assembly voted to create an exemption to medical confidentiality rules so that a judge, under certain conditions, could order a medical professional to disclose information in murder investigations.
Lauterbach Cottage Hardware, founded by Peter Lauterbach in the early 20th century, had been at 15th and South Grand for nearly 70 years when the attacks took place. The operator for most of that period was Peter’s daughter, Lucy.
A sister, Alice Thein, reminisced about Lucy’s business methods to SJ-R feature writer Loretta Green in 1974. Lucy carried a large stock of coal miners’ lanterns and tools, Thein said, as well as gardening tools aimed at the same market.
She kept open until 9 o’clock on Saturday night because the miners got paid that day and they always came in to pay their bills. They were good people; they worked hard and in the summer when they had no work in the mines, they raised large gardens.
Demolition nearly finished of Lauterbach Cottage Hardware, April 2018 (photo courtesy Liz Rutherford)
By 1974, Thein was operating the store, but much of Lauterbach’s inventory hadn’t changed. Among items on the shelves, Green reported, were
(A) choker mouse trap, powder horn, caboose lamp, pottery or stone jars used for pickles and sauerkraut in early days, stove polish, sharpening stones, lamp burners and a pocketbook with two compartments that Mrs. Thein says were called “farmer’s pocketbooks” because they always carried them.
Thein still owned the building when the attacks occurred in 1981, although Yvonne Lauterbach and her husband, Peter (1934-1996), a grandson of the founding Peter Lauterbach, were buying the property from her contract-for-deed. Ownership reverted to Thein after the attacks. The hardware building and attached home, unused since the attacks, remained at 15th and South Grand, nearly covered by creeping vines, until they finally were demolished in April 2018.
Original content copyright Sangamon County Historical Society. You are free to republish this content as long as credit is given to the Society.
Mike, have you ever written about the “hammer” attacks that killed a neighbor of mine on South State by the name of Dace, and two other men, I think in the early 1970s? Some of the hammering also went on in a pharmacy, I think on South Grand, and that is where the perp was stopped by a one-armed African-American man.
There were also some grisly murders here that I remember took place around the time of the Richard Speck nurse murders in Chicago.
Just a note about Mr. Dace. He and his Wife were members at South Side Christian Church on MacArthur. Mrs. Dace took her husband’s Bible to the prison an gave it to the man that killed her husband and told him to read it and find Jesus, and that she forgave him…he read it, was saved, got out of prison and went around giving his testimony at churches and how he was forgiven!
There are members at South Side that know all of the story.
Ms. Barrett: I think Sandy has seen it by now, but SangamonLink does have an entry on the hammer attacks and the man who committed them, Frank Sherry. It’s here. Thanks for reading.
http://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/?p=7595
My mother remembers going there for a skate keys in the 1960s. She grew up on Loveland Avenue between Spruce & Cedar.
I remember this as if it was yesterday. I lived 6 houses to the west of the hardware store on the same side. I’m a Lauterbach, per Alice the store owner we were distant relatives. When this happened the SPD went thru every house and garages in the area looking for the suspect. People wonder why nothing has been done with the building its full of asbestos. Yvonne lived across the street from us and Floyd lived one block North. This was a horrible tragedy.
Kendra: Thanks for reading, and thanks for your memories.
I used to go there with my grandfather Walter Wood (So.17thSt), I remember playing with the cats running around. Litter boxes under the tables. We called it Miss Lucy’s. Loved going there, a lot of GOOD memories!
Ms. Huffman: Thanks for reading.
Its pic I’m trying to get of my grandma. She was across the street at the pharmacy. How do i get pics from state journal register?
Ms. Williams: If you have a Lincoln Library card, you can search old State Journal-Registers online for free by using a program called NewsBank. Here’s the link: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/user/librarycard/LincolnLibrary?destination=search%2Fnb%3Fp%3DAMNEWS%26b%3Dpubname%26t%3Dstate%253AIL%2521USA%252B-%252BIllinois%2Fpubname%253A13D09C142C972071%257C13D09CDA6F396332%257C13D09C7F3495C992%257C13D0A597A7997365%257CSJRB%2521Multiple%252BPublications
If you don’t have a card, there’s a very similar database called GenealogyBank. It costs a little — about $7 a month last time I checked, but it’s your best bet if you’re not a library user.
Otherwise, you normally could go up to the library and get help either from the Sangamon Valley Collection (local history room) or at the microfilm desk. However, the third floor, where both the SVC and the microfilm collections are, closes Tuesday for renovation.
If you want to use microfilm, I think you can get access to it at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. But the NewsBank/GenealogyBank database is far more user-friendly. I’d try that first. Good luck.
I lived in this home after the attacks for a number of years. Loved it!
I was in school at Sacred Heart grade school that day. The teachers informed us as to what happened, and made sure we all got on the bus, or to our parents safely. I remember going their prior with my mother.
When I was kid, my dad would take me to “Lucy’s” as he called the store. She had “hard to find parts” like a headlight for a 1934 Ford and a tire rim for a 1951 Chevy.
Great place to go!
I lived two doors west when the murders took place. My fathers’ brother owned an automotive shop on Spruce street. My father also worked at the shop and I remember when he returned home the evening of the murders he said the police went through all the abandoned cars on their lot looking for the suspect.
i am floyd giddings sister..my work at state allowed me to go and sit with floyd in the afternoon it was really hard watching him suffer, he was at st. johns north for a year or more his family suffered a lot not knowing where their next meal was coming from his 2 boys were little tykes then somehow they made it with friends helping out
Mrs. Beall: Thanks very much for the followup.
Mike,
Yvonne (Beloit) Lautherbach was my oldest sister. I had all of the news paper articles from the incident, however in a move they have been lost. I have limited information in the family genealogy, about it. My daughter informed me that it was on-line. I was delighted to find this posting of the crime and I am greatfull to have read this. I did not know that the store was demolished. Now living in Florida, due to my health I will never return to Illinois, so I’am thrilled to have this information.
Thanks
Mr. Beloit: I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m glad you found our entry informative.
I was born, essentially, because of this tragedy. My Dad was one of the officers guarding survivors and my Mom was one of their nurses. They dated, got married and here I am.