"Staff writers Wayne A. Hall and Michael Randall contributed to this report.
Victim begged for help
Described shooter before succumbing;
Search intensifies
DAVE L'HEUREUX Staff Writer (see also at "Findagrave.")
FISHKILL - The 911 call into State Police headquarters in Millbrook was concise and chilling.
'He shot me!' said the voice at the other end. 'Please help me!'
Shot once in the chest, Valley Central school administrator Richard H. Aderson lived long enough to describe the man who shot him to the Troop K dispatcher.
He was still alive, sitting up in the driver's seat, when a trooper pulled up behind his Volvo just off the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84. The trooper assured him help was on the way.
Aderson, 47, died at 7:08 p.m. Wednesday. His wound came from what a police source described as a large caliber bullet. At least one shell casing was found at the scene.
Aderson was driving home from work shortly before 6 p.m. along I-84 from Montgomery to Poughkeepsie, when his gray 1995 four-door Volvo was involved in a minor accident with a late-model green Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee, he told police, appeared to have New Hampshire license plates.
Aderson got out. So did the man driving the Cherokee. The two were talking intensely when the other man pulled out a gun.
He shot once, hitting Aderson in the chest. Then he got back in the Cherokee, and drove east.
New Hampshire State Police have assisted New York with a printout of vehicles, presumably of people in that state who own Jeep Cherokees. New Hampshire's motor vehicles office counted 24,267 Jeep vehicles of all models.
The shooter is described as middle-age white man, possibly bearded and balding. He was wearing glasses.
'I'd say there's a good likelihood of catching this guy,' said Capt. Fred Schall, local Troop T zone commander for southern Dutchess County. 'The victim gave a good description.'
Aderson called 911 on a cellular telephone. The call was picked up by State Police at Troop K headquarters in Millbrook, about 15 miles east of Poughkeepsie.
'He called just about 6 o'clock, and talked for about nine minutes,' Capt. Schall said. 'He said he'd been shot, and he knew he was in bad shape. He kept saying, "Please help me!" '
Dispatchers at the Dutchess County Bureau of Fire were alerted, and sent a crew from Alamo Ambulance Service to the scene at 6:02 p.m.
A trooper from the Troop T station in Newburgh also was called to the scene. The trooper and the Alamo crew arrived within minutes.
The Alamo crew then brought the severely injured educator to St. Luke's Hospital in Newburgh at 6:30 p.m., said Alamo Communications Director Ken Hotaling in Poughkeepsie.
Death came at 7:08 p.m., said Nicholas Licata, spokesman for St. Luke's. An autopsy was set for yesterday afternoon.
Late yesterday afternoon, State Police troopers were stopping motorists just before they entered the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge toll plaza, seeking anyone who might have seen something the day before.
Motorists were asked whether they regularly commute that way, whether they went that way Wednesday night, and whether they work with anyone else who commutes the same way.
Police also handed out copies of the press release on the shooting, which included descriptions of the suspect and his vehicle.
There were some delays getting through the toll plaza, but there was an even longer delay about four or five miles east.
With the shooting scene still cordoned off by a combination of orange cones, tape and several state Department of Transportation plows, traffic approaching Exit 12 was backed up for one to two miles at rush hour because two lanes of traffic had to merge into one.
During a late-morning briefing at the Wappingers Falls station, Capt. Thomas Fazio, a Bureau of Criminal Investigation captain for Troop K, noted that even minor traffic mishaps often evoke strong emotions.
But not fatal shootings, which left Aderson's colleagues at Valley Central in shock.
'He was first and foremost, a father and husband,' Valley Central Superintendent Beverly L. Ouderkirk said in her office yesterday afternoon. 'And he had a knack for reaching out and relating to people.'
A native of The Bronx, Aderson was graduated from Columbus High School in The Bronx and has a bachelor's degree in history from Queens College in 1971. He continued his education at Fordham University.
Aderson's specialty was special education. He dealt with crisis intervention with the Warrant Division of the Bronx Family Court in 1971-73, and worked in the New York City school system in 1974-80.
Aderson taught in several Westchester County districts throughout the 1980s. In 1989, he was hired as director of Special Services at the Haldane district in western Putnam County, a job he held until going to work for Valley Central in August 1994.
Valley Central is still recovering from the June 15, 1996, slaying of a student, 12-year-old Danny Meyers of Maybrook. Valley Central also dealt with the 1989 wall collapse that killed nine children at East Coldenham Elementary.
'Valley Central has had more than its share of tragedies,' Ouderkirk said."
------------------------------------------
"Last words to be aired.
By DAVE L'HEUREUX (see also at "Findagrave."
Staff Writer
WAPPINGERS FALLS - For the first time, the world will hear Richard Aderson's last words.
State Police investigators Friday were to release a one-minute excerpt of Anderson's Feb. 5 call to a police dispatcher in Millbrook.
The tape will reveal the Valley Central administrator's pleas for help after being mortally wounded in a roadside dispute near Fishkill.
'We are not releasing most of the conversation, because much of it is still pertinent to our case,' said Lt. Bruce McAleavey of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The same excerpt will air Saturday night on 'America's Most Wanted' - the televised crime-solving program. A 6-1/2-minute reenactment of the shooting will lead the hour-long program, which runs at 9 p.m. on WYNY Fox 5.
'This was such a powerful story that we're putting it in the first segment,' said Peter Gillespie, a repor ter for the nationally syndicated show.
Despite a composite sketch and a massive interstate manhunt, the man who shot Richard Aderson remains at large. Investigators and friends hope the televised re-enactment can yield new clues.
'We have a significant amount of hope that this will generate new leads,' said New Jersey resident John Rutledge, who grew up with Aderson in the Bronx.
Aderson had lived long enough to tell the dispatcher that his assailant had been driving a green, late-model sport utility vehicle. The vehicle, he believed, bore New Hampshire license plates, prompting a review of all registered sport utilities throughout several northeastern states.
Several passers-by later offered descriptions of the assailant. A com posite sketch drawn from one depicted a white man in his 40s or 50s. He had a thin nose, receding hairline and stood about 6 feet tall.
The police artist also showed the assailant as clean-shaven, as the eyewitness could not, in the twilight gloom, confirm the presence of a beard.
Other witnesses told police that the assailant's sport utility had sideswiped Aderson's 1995 Volvo while changing lanes. The two vehicles later pulled over to the right hand shoulder of I-84, just west of the Route 9 exit. Eyewitnesses told police the sport utility was parked behind the Volvo.
A resident of Poughkeepsie, Aderson had worked at Valley Central since August of 1994. He had left his office less than an hour before the gunshot, which ended his life. Aderson left behind a wife and three children."
------------------------------------
"Family relives I-84 shooting 'America's Most Wanted' re-enacts events for TV.
By OLIVER MACKSON Staff Writer
Arlene Basior saw a re-enactment of her little brother, Richard Aderson, cq
being shot to death saturday night on television.
'It was torture,' she said, sobs punctuating her words. 'But I felt obligated to him to watch it.'
She knew it might be unbearable for her parents and her sister-in-law, Aderson's widow Laura, to watch.
The nationally syndicated FOX-TV show 'America's Most Wanted' broadcast the re-enactment as the second segment on yesterday's 9 p.m. episode.
A tape of Aderson's 911 call to State Police played as actors retraced the steps of Aderson and his unknown assailant that evening on Interstate 84.
They had stopped on the eastbound shoulder after the assailant's Jeep veered into Aderson's lane and sideswiped his car.
'We had an accident ... he pulled out a gun and shot me. Oh, please help me! He wore glasses,' Aderson told dis patcher Jim Manzi, his voice labored on his cellular phone.
The killer, a balding, bespectacled man driving a green Jeep Cherokee, continued east on the highway after shooting Aderson. The vehicle had New Hampshire license plates.
'I had to watch it,' Basior, 50, said last night from her home in Connecticut. 'He was all I had. He was a wonderful person. He is terribly missed, and he should be here.'
She had last spoken with him on her birthday Jan. 22, when he told her, 'You're as young as you feel.'
Aderson, 47, lived in Poughkeepsie and worked as an administrator in the Valley Central School District in Montgomery. The Bronx native and his wife had three children.
Before he took an assistant superintendent's job at Valley Central, Aderson worked in the Haldane School District in Cold Spring.
One of his former Haldane colleagues, Carol LaColla, taped last night's show. She, too, was dreading pushing the 'play' button.
'I think it's still beyond my understanding: The senselessness of it is ridiculous,' she said. 'His wife is one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people I've ever known, and for her to have to deal with this is just awful.'
'America's Most Wanted' is taking tips on the crime at (800) 274-6388 (800CRIME-TV). Callers can remain anony mous."
-------------------------
Aforementioned articles were gleened from:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970604115025/www.th-record.com/Archives/archive.htm
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F.Stienstra.
Victim begged for help
Described shooter before succumbing;
Search intensifies
DAVE L'HEUREUX Staff Writer (see also at "Findagrave.")
FISHKILL - The 911 call into State Police headquarters in Millbrook was concise and chilling.
'He shot me!' said the voice at the other end. 'Please help me!'
Shot once in the chest, Valley Central school administrator Richard H. Aderson lived long enough to describe the man who shot him to the Troop K dispatcher.
He was still alive, sitting up in the driver's seat, when a trooper pulled up behind his Volvo just off the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84. The trooper assured him help was on the way.
Aderson, 47, died at 7:08 p.m. Wednesday. His wound came from what a police source described as a large caliber bullet. At least one shell casing was found at the scene.
Aderson was driving home from work shortly before 6 p.m. along I-84 from Montgomery to Poughkeepsie, when his gray 1995 four-door Volvo was involved in a minor accident with a late-model green Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee, he told police, appeared to have New Hampshire license plates.
Aderson got out. So did the man driving the Cherokee. The two were talking intensely when the other man pulled out a gun.
He shot once, hitting Aderson in the chest. Then he got back in the Cherokee, and drove east.
New Hampshire State Police have assisted New York with a printout of vehicles, presumably of people in that state who own Jeep Cherokees. New Hampshire's motor vehicles office counted 24,267 Jeep vehicles of all models.
The shooter is described as middle-age white man, possibly bearded and balding. He was wearing glasses.
'I'd say there's a good likelihood of catching this guy,' said Capt. Fred Schall, local Troop T zone commander for southern Dutchess County. 'The victim gave a good description.'
Aderson called 911 on a cellular telephone. The call was picked up by State Police at Troop K headquarters in Millbrook, about 15 miles east of Poughkeepsie.
'He called just about 6 o'clock, and talked for about nine minutes,' Capt. Schall said. 'He said he'd been shot, and he knew he was in bad shape. He kept saying, "Please help me!" '
Dispatchers at the Dutchess County Bureau of Fire were alerted, and sent a crew from Alamo Ambulance Service to the scene at 6:02 p.m.
A trooper from the Troop T station in Newburgh also was called to the scene. The trooper and the Alamo crew arrived within minutes.
The Alamo crew then brought the severely injured educator to St. Luke's Hospital in Newburgh at 6:30 p.m., said Alamo Communications Director Ken Hotaling in Poughkeepsie.
Death came at 7:08 p.m., said Nicholas Licata, spokesman for St. Luke's. An autopsy was set for yesterday afternoon.
Late yesterday afternoon, State Police troopers were stopping motorists just before they entered the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge toll plaza, seeking anyone who might have seen something the day before.
Motorists were asked whether they regularly commute that way, whether they went that way Wednesday night, and whether they work with anyone else who commutes the same way.
Police also handed out copies of the press release on the shooting, which included descriptions of the suspect and his vehicle.
There were some delays getting through the toll plaza, but there was an even longer delay about four or five miles east.
With the shooting scene still cordoned off by a combination of orange cones, tape and several state Department of Transportation plows, traffic approaching Exit 12 was backed up for one to two miles at rush hour because two lanes of traffic had to merge into one.
During a late-morning briefing at the Wappingers Falls station, Capt. Thomas Fazio, a Bureau of Criminal Investigation captain for Troop K, noted that even minor traffic mishaps often evoke strong emotions.
But not fatal shootings, which left Aderson's colleagues at Valley Central in shock.
'He was first and foremost, a father and husband,' Valley Central Superintendent Beverly L. Ouderkirk said in her office yesterday afternoon. 'And he had a knack for reaching out and relating to people.'
A native of The Bronx, Aderson was graduated from Columbus High School in The Bronx and has a bachelor's degree in history from Queens College in 1971. He continued his education at Fordham University.
Aderson's specialty was special education. He dealt with crisis intervention with the Warrant Division of the Bronx Family Court in 1971-73, and worked in the New York City school system in 1974-80.
Aderson taught in several Westchester County districts throughout the 1980s. In 1989, he was hired as director of Special Services at the Haldane district in western Putnam County, a job he held until going to work for Valley Central in August 1994.
Valley Central is still recovering from the June 15, 1996, slaying of a student, 12-year-old Danny Meyers of Maybrook. Valley Central also dealt with the 1989 wall collapse that killed nine children at East Coldenham Elementary.
'Valley Central has had more than its share of tragedies,' Ouderkirk said."
------------------------------------------
"Last words to be aired.
By DAVE L'HEUREUX (see also at "Findagrave."
Staff Writer
WAPPINGERS FALLS - For the first time, the world will hear Richard Aderson's last words.
State Police investigators Friday were to release a one-minute excerpt of Anderson's Feb. 5 call to a police dispatcher in Millbrook.
The tape will reveal the Valley Central administrator's pleas for help after being mortally wounded in a roadside dispute near Fishkill.
'We are not releasing most of the conversation, because much of it is still pertinent to our case,' said Lt. Bruce McAleavey of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The same excerpt will air Saturday night on 'America's Most Wanted' - the televised crime-solving program. A 6-1/2-minute reenactment of the shooting will lead the hour-long program, which runs at 9 p.m. on WYNY Fox 5.
'This was such a powerful story that we're putting it in the first segment,' said Peter Gillespie, a repor ter for the nationally syndicated show.
Despite a composite sketch and a massive interstate manhunt, the man who shot Richard Aderson remains at large. Investigators and friends hope the televised re-enactment can yield new clues.
'We have a significant amount of hope that this will generate new leads,' said New Jersey resident John Rutledge, who grew up with Aderson in the Bronx.
Aderson had lived long enough to tell the dispatcher that his assailant had been driving a green, late-model sport utility vehicle. The vehicle, he believed, bore New Hampshire license plates, prompting a review of all registered sport utilities throughout several northeastern states.
Several passers-by later offered descriptions of the assailant. A com posite sketch drawn from one depicted a white man in his 40s or 50s. He had a thin nose, receding hairline and stood about 6 feet tall.
The police artist also showed the assailant as clean-shaven, as the eyewitness could not, in the twilight gloom, confirm the presence of a beard.
Other witnesses told police that the assailant's sport utility had sideswiped Aderson's 1995 Volvo while changing lanes. The two vehicles later pulled over to the right hand shoulder of I-84, just west of the Route 9 exit. Eyewitnesses told police the sport utility was parked behind the Volvo.
A resident of Poughkeepsie, Aderson had worked at Valley Central since August of 1994. He had left his office less than an hour before the gunshot, which ended his life. Aderson left behind a wife and three children."
------------------------------------
"Family relives I-84 shooting 'America's Most Wanted' re-enacts events for TV.
By OLIVER MACKSON Staff Writer
Arlene Basior saw a re-enactment of her little brother, Richard Aderson, cq
being shot to death saturday night on television.
'It was torture,' she said, sobs punctuating her words. 'But I felt obligated to him to watch it.'
She knew it might be unbearable for her parents and her sister-in-law, Aderson's widow Laura, to watch.
The nationally syndicated FOX-TV show 'America's Most Wanted' broadcast the re-enactment as the second segment on yesterday's 9 p.m. episode.
A tape of Aderson's 911 call to State Police played as actors retraced the steps of Aderson and his unknown assailant that evening on Interstate 84.
They had stopped on the eastbound shoulder after the assailant's Jeep veered into Aderson's lane and sideswiped his car.
'We had an accident ... he pulled out a gun and shot me. Oh, please help me! He wore glasses,' Aderson told dis patcher Jim Manzi, his voice labored on his cellular phone.
The killer, a balding, bespectacled man driving a green Jeep Cherokee, continued east on the highway after shooting Aderson. The vehicle had New Hampshire license plates.
'I had to watch it,' Basior, 50, said last night from her home in Connecticut. 'He was all I had. He was a wonderful person. He is terribly missed, and he should be here.'
She had last spoken with him on her birthday Jan. 22, when he told her, 'You're as young as you feel.'
Aderson, 47, lived in Poughkeepsie and worked as an administrator in the Valley Central School District in Montgomery. The Bronx native and his wife had three children.
Before he took an assistant superintendent's job at Valley Central, Aderson worked in the Haldane School District in Cold Spring.
One of his former Haldane colleagues, Carol LaColla, taped last night's show. She, too, was dreading pushing the 'play' button.
'I think it's still beyond my understanding: The senselessness of it is ridiculous,' she said. 'His wife is one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people I've ever known, and for her to have to deal with this is just awful.'
'America's Most Wanted' is taking tips on the crime at (800) 274-6388 (800CRIME-TV). Callers can remain anony mous."
-------------------------
Aforementioned articles were gleened from:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970604115025/www.th-record.com/Archives/archive.htm
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F.Stienstra.
"Staff writers Wayne A. Hall and Michael Randall contributed to this report.
Victim begged for help
Described shooter before succumbing;
Search intensifies
DAVE L'HEUREUX Staff Writer (see also at "Findagrave.")
FISHKILL - The 911 call into State Police headquarters in Millbrook was concise and chilling.
'He shot me!' said the voice at the other end. 'Please help me!'
Shot once in the chest, Valley Central school administrator Richard H. Aderson lived long enough to describe the man who shot him to the Troop K dispatcher.
He was still alive, sitting up in the driver's seat, when a trooper pulled up behind his Volvo just off the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84. The trooper assured him help was on the way.
Aderson, 47, died at 7:08 p.m. Wednesday. His wound came from what a police source described as a large caliber bullet. At least one shell casing was found at the scene.
Aderson was driving home from work shortly before 6 p.m. along I-84 from Montgomery to Poughkeepsie, when his gray 1995 four-door Volvo was involved in a minor accident with a late-model green Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee, he told police, appeared to have New Hampshire license plates.
Aderson got out. So did the man driving the Cherokee. The two were talking intensely when the other man pulled out a gun.
He shot once, hitting Aderson in the chest. Then he got back in the Cherokee, and drove east.
New Hampshire State Police have assisted New York with a printout of vehicles, presumably of people in that state who own Jeep Cherokees. New Hampshire's motor vehicles office counted 24,267 Jeep vehicles of all models.
The shooter is described as middle-age white man, possibly bearded and balding. He was wearing glasses.
'I'd say there's a good likelihood of catching this guy,' said Capt. Fred Schall, local Troop T zone commander for southern Dutchess County. 'The victim gave a good description.'
Aderson called 911 on a cellular telephone. The call was picked up by State Police at Troop K headquarters in Millbrook, about 15 miles east of Poughkeepsie.
'He called just about 6 o'clock, and talked for about nine minutes,' Capt. Schall said. 'He said he'd been shot, and he knew he was in bad shape. He kept saying, "Please help me!" '
Dispatchers at the Dutchess County Bureau of Fire were alerted, and sent a crew from Alamo Ambulance Service to the scene at 6:02 p.m.
A trooper from the Troop T station in Newburgh also was called to the scene. The trooper and the Alamo crew arrived within minutes.
The Alamo crew then brought the severely injured educator to St. Luke's Hospital in Newburgh at 6:30 p.m., said Alamo Communications Director Ken Hotaling in Poughkeepsie.
Death came at 7:08 p.m., said Nicholas Licata, spokesman for St. Luke's. An autopsy was set for yesterday afternoon.
Late yesterday afternoon, State Police troopers were stopping motorists just before they entered the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge toll plaza, seeking anyone who might have seen something the day before.
Motorists were asked whether they regularly commute that way, whether they went that way Wednesday night, and whether they work with anyone else who commutes the same way.
Police also handed out copies of the press release on the shooting, which included descriptions of the suspect and his vehicle.
There were some delays getting through the toll plaza, but there was an even longer delay about four or five miles east.
With the shooting scene still cordoned off by a combination of orange cones, tape and several state Department of Transportation plows, traffic approaching Exit 12 was backed up for one to two miles at rush hour because two lanes of traffic had to merge into one.
During a late-morning briefing at the Wappingers Falls station, Capt. Thomas Fazio, a Bureau of Criminal Investigation captain for Troop K, noted that even minor traffic mishaps often evoke strong emotions.
But not fatal shootings, which left Aderson's colleagues at Valley Central in shock.
'He was first and foremost, a father and husband,' Valley Central Superintendent Beverly L. Ouderkirk said in her office yesterday afternoon. 'And he had a knack for reaching out and relating to people.'
A native of The Bronx, Aderson was graduated from Columbus High School in The Bronx and has a bachelor's degree in history from Queens College in 1971. He continued his education at Fordham University.
Aderson's specialty was special education. He dealt with crisis intervention with the Warrant Division of the Bronx Family Court in 1971-73, and worked in the New York City school system in 1974-80.
Aderson taught in several Westchester County districts throughout the 1980s. In 1989, he was hired as director of Special Services at the Haldane district in western Putnam County, a job he held until going to work for Valley Central in August 1994.
Valley Central is still recovering from the June 15, 1996, slaying of a student, 12-year-old Danny Meyers of Maybrook. Valley Central also dealt with the 1989 wall collapse that killed nine children at East Coldenham Elementary.
'Valley Central has had more than its share of tragedies,' Ouderkirk said."
------------------------------------------
"Last words to be aired.
By DAVE L'HEUREUX (see also at "Findagrave."
Staff Writer
WAPPINGERS FALLS - For the first time, the world will hear Richard Aderson's last words.
State Police investigators Friday were to release a one-minute excerpt of Anderson's Feb. 5 call to a police dispatcher in Millbrook.
The tape will reveal the Valley Central administrator's pleas for help after being mortally wounded in a roadside dispute near Fishkill.
'We are not releasing most of the conversation, because much of it is still pertinent to our case,' said Lt. Bruce McAleavey of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The same excerpt will air Saturday night on 'America's Most Wanted' - the televised crime-solving program. A 6-1/2-minute reenactment of the shooting will lead the hour-long program, which runs at 9 p.m. on WYNY Fox 5.
'This was such a powerful story that we're putting it in the first segment,' said Peter Gillespie, a repor ter for the nationally syndicated show.
Despite a composite sketch and a massive interstate manhunt, the man who shot Richard Aderson remains at large. Investigators and friends hope the televised re-enactment can yield new clues.
'We have a significant amount of hope that this will generate new leads,' said New Jersey resident John Rutledge, who grew up with Aderson in the Bronx.
Aderson had lived long enough to tell the dispatcher that his assailant had been driving a green, late-model sport utility vehicle. The vehicle, he believed, bore New Hampshire license plates, prompting a review of all registered sport utilities throughout several northeastern states.
Several passers-by later offered descriptions of the assailant. A com posite sketch drawn from one depicted a white man in his 40s or 50s. He had a thin nose, receding hairline and stood about 6 feet tall.
The police artist also showed the assailant as clean-shaven, as the eyewitness could not, in the twilight gloom, confirm the presence of a beard.
Other witnesses told police that the assailant's sport utility had sideswiped Aderson's 1995 Volvo while changing lanes. The two vehicles later pulled over to the right hand shoulder of I-84, just west of the Route 9 exit. Eyewitnesses told police the sport utility was parked behind the Volvo.
A resident of Poughkeepsie, Aderson had worked at Valley Central since August of 1994. He had left his office less than an hour before the gunshot, which ended his life. Aderson left behind a wife and three children."
------------------------------------
"Family relives I-84 shooting 'America's Most Wanted' re-enacts events for TV.
By OLIVER MACKSON Staff Writer
Arlene Basior saw a re-enactment of her little brother, Richard Aderson, cq
being shot to death saturday night on television.
'It was torture,' she said, sobs punctuating her words. 'But I felt obligated to him to watch it.'
She knew it might be unbearable for her parents and her sister-in-law, Aderson's widow Laura, to watch.
The nationally syndicated FOX-TV show 'America's Most Wanted' broadcast the re-enactment as the second segment on yesterday's 9 p.m. episode.
A tape of Aderson's 911 call to State Police played as actors retraced the steps of Aderson and his unknown assailant that evening on Interstate 84.
They had stopped on the eastbound shoulder after the assailant's Jeep veered into Aderson's lane and sideswiped his car.
'We had an accident ... he pulled out a gun and shot me. Oh, please help me! He wore glasses,' Aderson told dis patcher Jim Manzi, his voice labored on his cellular phone.
The killer, a balding, bespectacled man driving a green Jeep Cherokee, continued east on the highway after shooting Aderson. The vehicle had New Hampshire license plates.
'I had to watch it,' Basior, 50, said last night from her home in Connecticut. 'He was all I had. He was a wonderful person. He is terribly missed, and he should be here.'
She had last spoken with him on her birthday Jan. 22, when he told her, 'You're as young as you feel.'
Aderson, 47, lived in Poughkeepsie and worked as an administrator in the Valley Central School District in Montgomery. The Bronx native and his wife had three children.
Before he took an assistant superintendent's job at Valley Central, Aderson worked in the Haldane School District in Cold Spring.
One of his former Haldane colleagues, Carol LaColla, taped last night's show. She, too, was dreading pushing the 'play' button.
'I think it's still beyond my understanding: The senselessness of it is ridiculous,' she said. 'His wife is one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people I've ever known, and for her to have to deal with this is just awful.'
'America's Most Wanted' is taking tips on the crime at (800) 274-6388 (800CRIME-TV). Callers can remain anony mous."
-------------------------
Aforementioned articles were gleened from:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970604115025/www.th-record.com/Archives/archive.htm
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F.Stienstra.
Victim begged for help
Described shooter before succumbing;
Search intensifies
DAVE L'HEUREUX Staff Writer (see also at "Findagrave.")
FISHKILL - The 911 call into State Police headquarters in Millbrook was concise and chilling.
'He shot me!' said the voice at the other end. 'Please help me!'
Shot once in the chest, Valley Central school administrator Richard H. Aderson lived long enough to describe the man who shot him to the Troop K dispatcher.
He was still alive, sitting up in the driver's seat, when a trooper pulled up behind his Volvo just off the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84. The trooper assured him help was on the way.
Aderson, 47, died at 7:08 p.m. Wednesday. His wound came from what a police source described as a large caliber bullet. At least one shell casing was found at the scene.
Aderson was driving home from work shortly before 6 p.m. along I-84 from Montgomery to Poughkeepsie, when his gray 1995 four-door Volvo was involved in a minor accident with a late-model green Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee, he told police, appeared to have New Hampshire license plates.
Aderson got out. So did the man driving the Cherokee. The two were talking intensely when the other man pulled out a gun.
He shot once, hitting Aderson in the chest. Then he got back in the Cherokee, and drove east.
New Hampshire State Police have assisted New York with a printout of vehicles, presumably of people in that state who own Jeep Cherokees. New Hampshire's motor vehicles office counted 24,267 Jeep vehicles of all models.
The shooter is described as middle-age white man, possibly bearded and balding. He was wearing glasses.
'I'd say there's a good likelihood of catching this guy,' said Capt. Fred Schall, local Troop T zone commander for southern Dutchess County. 'The victim gave a good description.'
Aderson called 911 on a cellular telephone. The call was picked up by State Police at Troop K headquarters in Millbrook, about 15 miles east of Poughkeepsie.
'He called just about 6 o'clock, and talked for about nine minutes,' Capt. Schall said. 'He said he'd been shot, and he knew he was in bad shape. He kept saying, "Please help me!" '
Dispatchers at the Dutchess County Bureau of Fire were alerted, and sent a crew from Alamo Ambulance Service to the scene at 6:02 p.m.
A trooper from the Troop T station in Newburgh also was called to the scene. The trooper and the Alamo crew arrived within minutes.
The Alamo crew then brought the severely injured educator to St. Luke's Hospital in Newburgh at 6:30 p.m., said Alamo Communications Director Ken Hotaling in Poughkeepsie.
Death came at 7:08 p.m., said Nicholas Licata, spokesman for St. Luke's. An autopsy was set for yesterday afternoon.
Late yesterday afternoon, State Police troopers were stopping motorists just before they entered the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge toll plaza, seeking anyone who might have seen something the day before.
Motorists were asked whether they regularly commute that way, whether they went that way Wednesday night, and whether they work with anyone else who commutes the same way.
Police also handed out copies of the press release on the shooting, which included descriptions of the suspect and his vehicle.
There were some delays getting through the toll plaza, but there was an even longer delay about four or five miles east.
With the shooting scene still cordoned off by a combination of orange cones, tape and several state Department of Transportation plows, traffic approaching Exit 12 was backed up for one to two miles at rush hour because two lanes of traffic had to merge into one.
During a late-morning briefing at the Wappingers Falls station, Capt. Thomas Fazio, a Bureau of Criminal Investigation captain for Troop K, noted that even minor traffic mishaps often evoke strong emotions.
But not fatal shootings, which left Aderson's colleagues at Valley Central in shock.
'He was first and foremost, a father and husband,' Valley Central Superintendent Beverly L. Ouderkirk said in her office yesterday afternoon. 'And he had a knack for reaching out and relating to people.'
A native of The Bronx, Aderson was graduated from Columbus High School in The Bronx and has a bachelor's degree in history from Queens College in 1971. He continued his education at Fordham University.
Aderson's specialty was special education. He dealt with crisis intervention with the Warrant Division of the Bronx Family Court in 1971-73, and worked in the New York City school system in 1974-80.
Aderson taught in several Westchester County districts throughout the 1980s. In 1989, he was hired as director of Special Services at the Haldane district in western Putnam County, a job he held until going to work for Valley Central in August 1994.
Valley Central is still recovering from the June 15, 1996, slaying of a student, 12-year-old Danny Meyers of Maybrook. Valley Central also dealt with the 1989 wall collapse that killed nine children at East Coldenham Elementary.
'Valley Central has had more than its share of tragedies,' Ouderkirk said."
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"Last words to be aired.
By DAVE L'HEUREUX (see also at "Findagrave."
Staff Writer
WAPPINGERS FALLS - For the first time, the world will hear Richard Aderson's last words.
State Police investigators Friday were to release a one-minute excerpt of Anderson's Feb. 5 call to a police dispatcher in Millbrook.
The tape will reveal the Valley Central administrator's pleas for help after being mortally wounded in a roadside dispute near Fishkill.
'We are not releasing most of the conversation, because much of it is still pertinent to our case,' said Lt. Bruce McAleavey of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The same excerpt will air Saturday night on 'America's Most Wanted' - the televised crime-solving program. A 6-1/2-minute reenactment of the shooting will lead the hour-long program, which runs at 9 p.m. on WYNY Fox 5.
'This was such a powerful story that we're putting it in the first segment,' said Peter Gillespie, a repor ter for the nationally syndicated show.
Despite a composite sketch and a massive interstate manhunt, the man who shot Richard Aderson remains at large. Investigators and friends hope the televised re-enactment can yield new clues.
'We have a significant amount of hope that this will generate new leads,' said New Jersey resident John Rutledge, who grew up with Aderson in the Bronx.
Aderson had lived long enough to tell the dispatcher that his assailant had been driving a green, late-model sport utility vehicle. The vehicle, he believed, bore New Hampshire license plates, prompting a review of all registered sport utilities throughout several northeastern states.
Several passers-by later offered descriptions of the assailant. A com posite sketch drawn from one depicted a white man in his 40s or 50s. He had a thin nose, receding hairline and stood about 6 feet tall.
The police artist also showed the assailant as clean-shaven, as the eyewitness could not, in the twilight gloom, confirm the presence of a beard.
Other witnesses told police that the assailant's sport utility had sideswiped Aderson's 1995 Volvo while changing lanes. The two vehicles later pulled over to the right hand shoulder of I-84, just west of the Route 9 exit. Eyewitnesses told police the sport utility was parked behind the Volvo.
A resident of Poughkeepsie, Aderson had worked at Valley Central since August of 1994. He had left his office less than an hour before the gunshot, which ended his life. Aderson left behind a wife and three children."
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"Family relives I-84 shooting 'America's Most Wanted' re-enacts events for TV.
By OLIVER MACKSON Staff Writer
Arlene Basior saw a re-enactment of her little brother, Richard Aderson, cq
being shot to death saturday night on television.
'It was torture,' she said, sobs punctuating her words. 'But I felt obligated to him to watch it.'
She knew it might be unbearable for her parents and her sister-in-law, Aderson's widow Laura, to watch.
The nationally syndicated FOX-TV show 'America's Most Wanted' broadcast the re-enactment as the second segment on yesterday's 9 p.m. episode.
A tape of Aderson's 911 call to State Police played as actors retraced the steps of Aderson and his unknown assailant that evening on Interstate 84.
They had stopped on the eastbound shoulder after the assailant's Jeep veered into Aderson's lane and sideswiped his car.
'We had an accident ... he pulled out a gun and shot me. Oh, please help me! He wore glasses,' Aderson told dis patcher Jim Manzi, his voice labored on his cellular phone.
The killer, a balding, bespectacled man driving a green Jeep Cherokee, continued east on the highway after shooting Aderson. The vehicle had New Hampshire license plates.
'I had to watch it,' Basior, 50, said last night from her home in Connecticut. 'He was all I had. He was a wonderful person. He is terribly missed, and he should be here.'
She had last spoken with him on her birthday Jan. 22, when he told her, 'You're as young as you feel.'
Aderson, 47, lived in Poughkeepsie and worked as an administrator in the Valley Central School District in Montgomery. The Bronx native and his wife had three children.
Before he took an assistant superintendent's job at Valley Central, Aderson worked in the Haldane School District in Cold Spring.
One of his former Haldane colleagues, Carol LaColla, taped last night's show. She, too, was dreading pushing the 'play' button.
'I think it's still beyond my understanding: The senselessness of it is ridiculous,' she said. 'His wife is one of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest people I've ever known, and for her to have to deal with this is just awful.'
'America's Most Wanted' is taking tips on the crime at (800) 274-6388 (800CRIME-TV). Callers can remain anony mous."
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Aforementioned articles were gleened from:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970604115025/www.th-record.com/Archives/archive.htm
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F.Stienstra.
