The Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office says a husband and wide are dead from an apparent murder-suicide at their home moment before hosting a graduation party for their youngest son.
Sheriff Orvis Campbell says this occurred in the 2000 block of Gordon Road NW in Dover Township, about 1:30pm Sunday.
Campbell says it’s a mystery why the 64-year-old man would have shot his 53-year-old wife in the bedroom of their home since they hadn’t been fighting.
“The information was that the husband had contacted the wife who was up on top of the hill setting up for a party. Asked her to come down and help him. A couple others came down with her. She went into the bedroom and that’s where the shooting occurred. There was no precursor.”
Sheriff detectives and Dover paramedics responded. The husband was found deceased on the bed. The wife was on the floor clinging to life. She was taken to Mercy Hospital in Canton, where she was pronounced deceased that afternoon.
Campbell says there were no witnesses to the shooting, they only heard it.
“We looked around and talked to the witnesses about what they heard, about what was going on. The preliminary indication that it’s a murder-suicide and that the subject had been suffering from some depression due to a medical illness.”
The incident remains under investigation.
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