MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio — Coroner Dr. Frank Sweeney has ruled murder and double suicide in the deaths of a 33-year-otd mother, her 10-year-old daughter and a male friend. All three were cut down with shotgun blasts in the woman's home three miles east of here Friday. Sheriff Frank Giffin said Mrs. Doris Truax apparently killed her daughter, Dorothy Diane, whose body was found in the bedroom. The girl was shot in the head with a 20-gauge shotgun. Coroner Sweeney said Mrs. Truax and the friend, Foye Allen Goodrich, 42, apparently took their own lives later, Their bodies, with shotgun wounds in the chests, were found in the kitchen. Two shotguns, 20 and 12-gauge, were lying nearby. Mrs, Truax served as secretary to the Rev. Herschel Roper, pastor of Mount Gilead's First Baptist Church. He found the bodies when he came to take her to Mount Gilead for somo church work. Goodrich was a former Sunday School superintendent and clerk of the church. Mrs. Truax also was the mother of two other children, a boy and a girl. She had taken the boy (name and age unavailable) to school in Mount Gilead and the girl, about 4, to visit her husband's parents in nearby Chesterville. Sheriff Giffin said the boy told his teacher that, before coming to school, he heard a noise like a gun going off. That, and the condition of the body of the 10-year- old daughter, led the sheriff to believe she was shot several hours before Mrs. Truax and Goodrich. The coroner found three notes at the scene but declined to disclose what they said. Sheriff Giffin said Mrs. Truax' husband Lowell, about 35, was working at the Hydraulic Preps Manufacturing Co. in Mount Gilead when the shootings took piace.
MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio — Coroner Dr. Frank Sweeney has ruled murder and double suicide in the deaths of a 33-year-otd mother, her 10-year-old daughter and a male friend. All three were cut down with shotgun blasts in the woman's home three miles east of here Friday. Sheriff Frank Giffin said Mrs. Doris Truax apparently killed her daughter, Dorothy Diane, whose body was found in the bedroom. The girl was shot in the head with a 20-gauge shotgun. Coroner Sweeney said Mrs. Truax and the friend, Foye Allen Goodrich, 42, apparently took their own lives later, Their bodies, with shotgun wounds in the chests, were found in the kitchen. Two shotguns, 20 and 12-gauge, were lying nearby. Mrs, Truax served as secretary to the Rev. Herschel Roper, pastor of Mount Gilead's First Baptist Church. He found the bodies when he came to take her to Mount Gilead for somo church work. Goodrich was a former Sunday School superintendent and clerk of the church. Mrs. Truax also was the mother of two other children, a boy and a girl. She had taken the boy (name and age unavailable) to school in Mount Gilead and the girl, about 4, to visit her husband's parents in nearby Chesterville. Sheriff Giffin said the boy told his teacher that, before coming to school, he heard a noise like a gun going off. That, and the condition of the body of the 10-year- old daughter, led the sheriff to believe she was shot several hours before Mrs. Truax and Goodrich. The coroner found three notes at the scene but declined to disclose what they said. Sheriff Giffin said Mrs. Truax' husband Lowell, about 35, was working at the Hydraulic Preps Manufacturing Co. in Mount Gilead when the shootings took piace.
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