In the spring of 1910, the town of Belfast, New York, was shaken by the violent death of one of its own lawmen. Norman Chalker, a male Town Constable, was killed on the evening of April 20, 1910, while attempting to quell a disturbance at the Grand Central Hotel. A group of American railroad workers had been drinking and became disorderly, prompting the hotel proprietor to ask them to leave. As the men were exiting, one of them fired several shots into the air.
Constable Chalker, who was in another part of the hotel, heard the gunshots and went to investigate. He confronted one of the railroad men, and an argument quickly escalated into a physical altercation. During the struggle, Chalker was surrounded by the group and was fatally shot. The hotel's proprietor, Bruce Gleason, was also shot and later died from his injuries.
In the immediate aftermath, a posse was formed, and several of the men involved were arrested. However, the investigation into the murders of Chalker and Gleason was fraught with conflicting witness testimonies. Some witnesses claimed an Italian man fired the fatal shots, while others insisted the American railroad workers were responsible. This led to accusations against Luigi Vicchiano, the son-in-law of the hotel owners.
Despite the arrests and accusations, the case of Norman Chalker's murder remains one of Allegany County's oldest unsolved homicides. Over the years, two different men were tried for the double homicide, decades apart, but both were ultimately acquitted. The conflicting accounts and lack of conclusive evidence have left the question of who fired the fatal shots unanswered for over a century.
