Two similar articles with different headers describing an assault that took place at the Wiconisco Roller Skating Rink, Wiconisco, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and the punishment given to the perpetrator. The header, “Lykens Young Man Sent To Jail For Assault,” is on an article from the Sunbury Daily Item, May 22, 1962. The header “Jail Youth for Crippling Man” is on the article from the Pottsville Republican, May 23, 1962.
Richard Sedesse, 21, of the Lykens area, who crippled a Lykens man who was taking tickets at a roller skating rink near Lykens, was sentenced Monday to 11 1/2 to 23 months in Dauphin County Prison, and fined $10.
Judge Carl B. Shelley handed down the sentence on Sedesse who was charged with aggravated assault and battery. The victim was Robert Zaring, 42, of Lykens. Sedesse allegedly started to enter the roller skating rink when Zaring stopped him asking for a ticket. Sedesse replied he only wanted to look for someone, and when Zaring attempted to stop him, Sedesse struck him a single blow above his left eye.
Zaring is incapacitated, has had three operations, and physicians claim he will not improve.
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A notice of the death of Robert L. Zaring appeared in the Sunbury Daily Item, June 8, 1964:
ROBERT L. ZARING
Robert L. Zaring, 45, Lykens, died Sunday in Policlinic Hospital, Harrisburg. services will be held Wednesday from a Lykens funeral home with burial in Elizabethville.
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The Death Certificate of Robert Lester Zaring indicates that he died on June 7, 1964, at the Harrisburg Polyclinic Hospital. The cause of death was septicemia due to post-operative pyelonephritis and a post-operative intracranial tumor. This was all a result of the assault that Zaring received at the roller rink, more than two years earlier.
Robert Lester Zaring (1919-1964) was the son of Ralph H. Zaring (1894-1971) and Verna E. [Romberger] Zaring (1894-1952). Ralph Zaring was the owner of the Wiconisco Roller Rink.
The man who assaulted him was Richard Sedesse, possibly Richard C. Sedeshe. Several members of that family used different spellings of the surname including Sedeshe. More information is sought on this individual.
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News articles from Newspapers.com. Death certificate from Ancestry.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.