KILLED IN THE BALTIMORE.
A WAITER FELL SEVEN STORIES DOWN
AN ELEVATOR SHAFT.
While Carrying Breakfast to Lew Dock-
stander, the Minstrel, the Man
Walked Into Shaft's Opening
and Died Instantly.
A few minutes before 11 o'clock a call for a waiter came from room 729, occupied by Lew Dockstader, the minstrel. Towns answered the summons. He waited while Mr. Dockstader wrote on a breakfast check an order for a meal.
THE TRAY IN THE ELEVATOR.
Towns went to the kitchen, where the order was served. He placed it on a big tray and went up on the service elevator to take the order to Mr. Dockstader's room. The next that is known is that Towns was at the bottom of the elevator shaft. The tray containing the breakfast ordered by Mr. Dockstader lay on the floor of the elevator.
William Draper, the elevator boy, was too excited at the time to give any explanation of how the accident had occurred. Yesterday afternoon an attempt was made to question him in the private office of the hotel. He could not explain why Towns was at the bottom of the elevator shaft and the tray which he had been carrying remained in the elevator. There was no one on the seventh floor at the time of the accident except Draper, who was operating the elevator. The coroner viewed the body immediately after the accident.
THE FIRST ACCIDENT THERE.
Towns was 33 years old and lived at 1415 Lydia avenue. A wife and three children survive him.
The elevator is used exclusively for employees. It has been in use for eight years. The equipment had been recently renewed. D. J. Dean, one of the managers of the hotel, said that there had never been an accident in the elevator.
Towns had been in the employ of the hotel for several years. He was a favorite waiter and was assigned to wait upon Mr. Dockstader immediately after the arrival of the minstrel in Kansas City early this week.
