Ocean County , NJ History

From the Star Ledger 14 Jul 2006: Seven state employees, including two psychiatrists, were suspended yesterday for "neglect of duty" and other mistakes that allowed a patient at a state hospital to be killed by her roommate, a Human Services spokeswoman said. Acting Human Services Commissioner James Smith also dismissed two temporary nurses who were working at Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Camden County on July 14, the day 54-year-old Margaret Cetrangolo was strangled in her bedroom. State Police arrested patient Salwa Srour, 36, who was the victim's roommate for less than a day. She has been held at the Ann Klein Forensic Center in Trenton since her arrest. The disciplinary charges expose a breakdown in communications and a failure to follow hospital policy days before the homicide and an attempt to cover up mistakes after the fact. "It was human error every step of the way," Human Services spokeswoman Ellen Lovejoy said. "It's unacceptable."...

From the New Jersey Mirror MAY 25, 1881 At Camden last week, James M. Allen, who it was alleged tried to establish a free love, Mormon, communistic and socialistic colony at Ancora, was arraigned for trial. He was accompanied by two women, said to be his wives, neither of whom is over thirty years of age, and one of his fathers-in-law sat beside him. One of the wives wore a neat suit of blue and the other wore a Bloomer costume. They were very affectionate toward each other and their joint husband . Allen said that he would act as his own counsel. The case was finally dismissed, on the ground that no breach of the law had been shown.

from the Hunterdon Democrat, 15 May 1883: A sad story comes from Ancora, a little village on the line of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad, in Camden county. A six-year-old daughter of Edward Fowler, a prominent resident of Ancora, was taken sick a week ago with smallpox. The father became alarmed and sent for the wife, who had been separated from him for over five years, to return to her home and nurse her child. The mother had only a short time before recovered from an attack of smallpox. She came to the bedside of her suffering daughter, and there did all that a fond mother could. The disease assumed a complicated form, and Dr. Junkey, of Hammonton, it is said, was telegraphed for, but for some unknown reason failed to respond to the summons... On Wednesday night the child died. As there was not an undertaker within several miles the parents set at work to prepare the body for burial themselves... By the pale light of the moon the coffin was lowered into the grave.

From the New Jersey Mirror, APR 7 1909: Rolling beneath the wheels of the Mount Holly 6.30 train as it was leaving the Pennsylvania Railroad terminal at Camden, on Saturday evening, Robert F. MacDougall, one of the best known newspaper men in South Jersey was instantly killed. He was cut in twain, the body being mangled. With Frank Chew, of Ancora, MacDougall tried to catch what they believed to be the Waterford train. Both ran after the latter as it was going out of the terminal. Chew safely boarded the train, but MacDougall missed the hand rails and fell to the platform. The next instant he rolled beneath the wheels, the latter passing diagonally across his body. There was some evidence of life when the ambulance crew reached him and a run was made to the Cooper Hospital. Long before that institution was reached, however, life had fled. The body was practically cut in two by the car wheels. MacDougall was 54 years old. A widow and three sons survive him. He had been in the newspap...

The search spread from Cape May County to Canada, but William Enman didn't go very far at all. The 64-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who admitted to a 1974 double killing was found in a wooded area on Ancora Psychiatric Hospital's 657-acre grounds around 3 p.m. Tuesday, officials said. He was wearing camouflage. Enman was believed to have walked away from the hospital Sunday afternoon when he failed to return from an unsupervised walk. A search for him included a state police helicopter, infrared scanners and police dogs, but it was two staff members looking out a window who recognized Enman as he wandered the hospital's grounds, said Ellen Lovejoy, spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services. The staff member got into a car and followed Enman until a state trooper and members of the hospital's police staff arrested Enman. He had banged his head after scaling a fence and, despite concerns of a flight to property he owned in Nova Scotia and a rumored sighting at ...

An admitted killer who walked away from a southern New Jersey psychiatric hospital over the weekend has been captured, CBS 2 and wcbstv.com have learned. William Enman was found in Ancora, wearing camouflage clothing in a wooded area behind the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, where he had escaped from on Monday, authorities said. He was taken into custody without incident. Enman now faces charges of escape. "He banged his head after scaling a fence the first night and remained in the area ever since," State Police spokesman Steve Jones said. Enman, 64, was taken back to Ancora after being discovered by a State Police detective and two Human Services police officers. Jones said he was unarmed and taken into custody without incident. The arrest ended 48 hours of frantic searching that had authorities chasing several leads that ended nowhere. Now that Enman has been caught, he will likely face criminal charges of escape. If convicted, it is possible he will end up in a state pris...