Robert and Elizabeth McDyer
Kentucky Post, Monday, 11 December 1905, page 1
TRAGEDY-Wearied of life's battle, Robert McDyer, 23 and his wife, Lizzie McDyer, 17 of Melbourne, Campbell County Ky. decided to end it all in death. With a double barreled shotgun McDyer killed his young wife last Saturday and then sent a shot through his own heart. Domestic troubles prompted the tragedy. The killing occurred in the couple's room on the second floor of the two story frame house occupied by William Ellison. McDyer and his wife had been married little more than a year. Friday McDyer told his mother that he and his wife had quarreled. He said he would not life without her.
Saturday McDyer and his young wife had a long talk and planned the tragedy. Later McDyer went to his mother's home and borrowed his brother William's shotgun. Shortly before 3 pm there was an ominous silence up the upper room. Then the roar of a shotgun was heard. She heard a heavy fall. Again ominous silence, and while the terrified woman below held her breath the shogun spoke a second time. Mrs. Ellison ran to the Melbourne Carriage Works, three squares away and told her husband.
They returned to the house and found a heavy dresser had been moved against the door. Shoving this aside they entered. The place was heavy with dense smoke and blood was everywhere. Lying on the floor with a gaping wound below the heart was McDyer. Mrs. McDyer, still breathing, was found in a pool of blood under the bed. So close had the shotgun been held to the woman that her clothing had been set afire. She expired before Dr. Panquely reached the scene.
An examination of the room showed that after the killing of his wife, McDyer had tied one end of a clothesline to the iron bedstead. The other he attached to the trigger of the shotgun. Then he placed the muzzle against his breast and walked away. Letters left by McDyer show how carefully things had been planned. The most significant letter was addressed to William Ellison, owner of the house, showing both the young people had fully decided to die. It reads:
"Mr. Bill Ellison, Please return this gun back to Willy McDyer; that is all I ask of you. My wife and I have decided to die at 3 pm. We both want to be buried in the same box at the Cold Spring Methodist Church by my father. There is just room for me. Good by, Bill, Please return everything over to my mother."
Coroner Higgins does not believe that both planned death. He now things that McDyer wrote the notes while his wife was entirely ignorant of his plans.
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Kentucky Post, Tuesday, 12 December 1905, page 5
VERDICT-The closing scenes in the Melbourne, Campbell County, tragedy was enacted yesterday, when the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Robert McDyer, the victims were laid to rest, but not in the same grave, as the husband in letters written before he killed his wife and self requested. The remains of McDyer were laid away in the Asbury Methodist Cemetery at Melbourne and those of his wife were buried at St Joseph Cemetery.
Coroner Higgins has returned a verdict in which he finds that McDyer came to his death from a gun shot would, self-inflicted. The verdict in the case of Mrs. McDyer was her death was also the result of a gunshot wound, inflected by her husband. Although not officially expressed, Coroner Higgins stated the killing of the woman was a cold blooded premeditated murder.
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Kentucky Post, Friday, 22 December 1905, page 5
MARRIED-Mrs. Emma McDyer of Brent Ky. and Charles W Taylor of Cold Spring were married yesterday by Squire Hutchinson of Newport. The bride was a widow and is the mother of Robert McDyer, who killed his wife and then himself at his home in Melbourne about three weeks ago.