By Jon Dinan
BEACH LAKE, PA — Former longtime Callicoon resident Carolyn Verderber, 54, is currently being detained in Wayne County Jail without bail for attempting to kill her estranged husband, 47 year-old Joe Verderber. The incident was reported Thursday at 3:45 p.m.
The couple had been separated for some time before Joe visited Carolyn’s Beach Lake, PA, home Thursday to fix a water filter.
According to published reports, as Joe began working, he told Carolyn that she should watch what he was doing, as he presumed she was likely to be awarded the home at 36 Third St. in their upcoming divorce trial.
Shortly thereafter, a police report alleges, Carolyn plunged a butcher knife into his back, burying the entire blade.
With the weapon still inside him. Joe managed to run to a neighbor's house. Meanwhile, the assailant fled the scene in her champagne colored Pontiac Grand Am.
Amanda Ebert of North Branch was sitting in her parent’s living room when she heard a strange disturbance.
“I was the only one awake when I heard the front doorbell, along with a lot of banging. I could see Joe staring at me through the glass and there was a knife very visibly sticking out of his back,” Ebert, said, adding that only the handle was visible.
Ebert was visiting her parents, former Jeffersonville residents Dian and Leslie Bogert, at their current residence, located next door to Carolyn Verderber. The couple was napping at the time of Joe’s arrival.
Awakened by the commotion, Dian and Leslie sprung into action. They immediately called an ambulance and a local nurse to assist the victim. The nurse arrived first. She monitored Joe’s vital signs and placed a towel around the wound in an attempt to stop some of the bleeding.
Moments later, ambulances from both Tusten and Honesdale, Pa. arrived on the scene. Joe was loaded into the Honesdale ambulance and transported to an area where he could be medically evacuated by a helicopter.
The chopper flew Verderber to Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton, PA, where he is currently being treated, and expected to make a full recovery.
“They’re the nicest people. You really just don’t expect something like this to happen,” said Amanda Ebert.
Later on Thursday evening, Carolyn Verderber was apprehended upon returning home, and arrested on charges of attempted homicide and aggravated assault.
She was arraigned Friday morning before Magisterial District Judge Ronald Edwards, who sent her to Wayne County Prison. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.