{"id":1061,"date":"2026-07-18T13:34:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/44parkave.com\/holdernewt\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2026-07-18T14:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T18:00:36","slug":"jack-weeks-lake-a-murder-suicide-from-barrytown-to-beacon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/44parkave.com\/holdernewt\/2026\/07\/jack-weeks-lake-a-murder-suicide-from-barrytown-to-beacon\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Weeks Lake – A Murder-Suicide from Barrytown to Beacon"},"content":{"rendered":"

While researching the Blithewood Light Infantry (and Drum Corp), a short-lived early 20th century organization for boys in Red Hook and Rhinebeck, I identified about 120 boys (mostly born around 1893) who were reported to be BLI members sometime between 1905 and 1911. On the surface most of these boys seem to have grown up to be average citizens but a few stand out. The story of Jack Weeks Lake, a member of the Blithewood Drum Corps in 1905 from Barrytown, deserves a content warning because he killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself in Wappingers Falls on December 13th, 1930.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Weeks Lake was born in Linlithgo, Columbia County, NY on December 26th, 1891 to James Augustus Lake (who often went by his middle name) and Henriette Berrer. Augustus was seven years Henriette\u2019s senior and may have been widowed when he married her. Weeks\u2019 parents lived in Poughkeepsie in 1880 when they were just starting their family. Who Weeks\u2019 grandparents were, or how or when his parents came together, remains unclear.\u00a0 The Lakes don\u2019t appear to be very involved in their local community for whatever reason. Aside from a brief time in the first decade of the 20th century, when Weeks\u2019 father was running for Red Hook town constable, there is almost no mention of the family in any area newspapers. This is unusual for the time when something as trivial as visiting another family one town over would be reported on. Also interesting is that, as of this writing, there are only three family trees on ancestry.com for Augustus and Henriette, and all of them are private.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weeks had three siblings, all older brothers, James Augustus Lake born December 12th, 1880 in Poughkeepsie, William Teetor Lake born April 7th, 1886 in Dutchess County, and Homer John Lake born August 20th, 1883. Like his brothers, Weeks appears to have two names, but usually went by his first name. He appears in the 1930 census as John W. Lake and, at least in 1930, called himself \u201cJack Weeks Lake\u201d. Brother James moved to Brooklyn, married Rosa Romney, and died of thrombosis in 1940. William was married twice, first to Anna Holcomb and second to Marguerite (last name unknown) and had at least four children, making his home in the Capitol district. He died in 1956 and is buried in Colonie, Albany County, NY. Homer married Hattie C. MacCallum and had two children they inventively named Hattie and Homer. He separated from his wife early on and it\u2019s unknown what became of his children. Homer eventually moved to Peekskill and died sometime after 1949.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Town of Milan in 1914 Weeks Lake married Blanche Day from Rock City. They moved to Albany and lived there together through at least 1928. They had only one child, Alma Lake, who married Carl L. Retzloff of Troy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first clue that things were a little different about Weeks (aside from the lack of social column mentions about him or his family) is a news story that was picked up by a few regional papers for its gruesomeness. The Hudson <\/span>Columbia Republican<\/span><\/i> ran an article in their November 5th, 1903 issue that detailed how Weeks, aged 12 or so, cracked fellow student William Strobel Jr.\u2019s head so hard with a baseball bat that he knocked him out, fracturing his skull. Supposedly, Weeks had been \u201cswinging a ball club around his (own) head\u201d in a careless fashion and Strobel walked into it. Good news, Strobel lived to age 89 and seems to have had a normal life, which is more than can be said for some other folks who came in contact with Weeks Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n

While living in Albany after his marriage, Weeks worked as a deck hand, a driver for a fruit dealer, a chauffeur, and in some capacity for an interior decorator. No mention of he or his wife could be found in searches in upstate papers, though Blanche was reported locally occasionally visiting her folks back in Rock City with their daughter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some time after 1910, Weeks\u2019 parents separated. His father Augustus lived on his own in Barrytown in 1915. In 1920, at 78 years of age, Augustus roomed in Albany with Weeks and his young family, while laundress Henriette lived with their laborer son Homer and granddaughter Hattie, as she had since 1915, in Barrytown. Homer had also been separated from his wife since sometime after 1910.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what was going on with this family, what difficulties they faced, or what issues they were dealing with. We can only speculate according to what information we do have. For the first time, Weeks, along with his family, are in the local paper visiting his mother, just days before she died without a will on March 27th, 1928. Her sons and estranged husband looked to collect what was estimated to be $1,000 from the estate and filed for letters of administration. Her widower Augustus wouldn\u2019t live to see a dime, passing on July 13th, 1928 in Albany, aged 82.<\/span><\/p>\n

It could be that this event broke Weeks somehow. Sometime between then and December of 1930, he left his wife and child and moved to southern Dutchess County. He was recorded in the federal census in April of 1930 as a single construction truck driver living with the family of Walter Van Wagner on New Hackensack Road in the Town of Wappinger. In December he roomed with Ernest Ruf at 78 Washington Avenue, Beacon. Weeks (who went by \u201cJack\u201d at this time) worked for the New York Trap Rock Company quarry as a driver. His boss was a man named Leonard Kinney of Wappingers Falls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kinney had a sister-in-law named Mrs. Anna Lasco Daley. Whether Anna had recently separated from her husband, Daniel Daley before she met Weeks or if meeting Weeks led to the separation is unclear. Her two children were living with an aunt in New York City after the couple split. Reports say Anna had been \u201ctaking up with\u201d Weeks for \u201csome time\u201d, and that she had been apart from Mr. Daley for about a year.<\/span><\/p>\n

For whatever reason, before Friday, the 12th of December, Anna called it off with Weeks. That night Jack Weeks Lake begged her to come back, going so far as to threaten her life if she wouldn\u2019t. He didn\u2019t give her much time to think about it. Weeks entered her home the following morning while her father was still asleep \u201con the kitchen couch\u201d and her sister and Mr. Kinney were upstairs. The former couple talked for about an hour before her father was awakened to Weeks threatening to \u201ccut the heart out of his daughter\u201d before he pulled out a Smith & Wesson revolver and shot her in the forehead, killing her instantly. He then turned the gun on himself and pierced his own skull from ear to ear. Weeks would survive a few hours before perishing at Vassar Hospital later that day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Poughkeepsie Eagle News<\/span><\/i>, in the usual gruesome fashion, printed all three notes Weeks left behind. They are to the point, verging on cartoonish in their simplicity, and were apparently written that Friday night. He confesses to what he is about to do, explaining that he was heartbroken and felt he could neither live without Anna nor see her with anyone else. He said she \u201cpassed as my wife\u201d while they were together and thought he was justified in \u201ctaking her with\u201d him. Though conceivably she had simply decided to break things off with him, he thought she had \u201cdouble crossed\u201d him and that he couldn\u2019t help but murder her.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Clearly, Weeks was a very disturbed man. There is some evidence that he hadn\u2019t done something this extreme due to a passing fancy. A typewritten note from Anna\u2019s husband Daniel Daley, dated November, 17th, was also found in Weeks\u2019 apartment. It shows that there was an established relationship that had gone on long enough to warrant this note in which Daley blamed Anna for her infidelity and asked Weeks to \u201ctake the stand or sign a statement\u201d that he was \u201cout\u201d at \u201cdifferent places\u201d with Anna, citing that Daley and his friends had seen them together. Later, Daley would deny he sent the note, though it was typed on his workplace\u2019s stationary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though this was a sensational story that made the front page of papers such as the <\/span>Poughkeepsie Eagle News, Beacon News, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Albany Times-Union<\/span><\/i>, our local papers appear to have missed the connection to Barrytown and did not run it. Even the announcements about his burial in St. John the Evangelist Cemetery appear to have missed their notice, perhaps owing to the family keeping to themselves and scattering. If there was local talk, it wasn\u2019t recorded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weeks\u2019 widow Blanche Day Lake never remarried and passed away in 1960. She\u2019s buried in Troy with her daughter Alma\u2019s family. Alma Retzloff passed away in 2002. A gravestone for Weeks, or anyone with the surname Lake, cannot be found in the St. John cemetery in Barrytown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources:<\/b><\/p>\n