what Made Joe Runyon Injure 10 Of His Friends? Friends Ponder
Moody Michigan Farmer Takes His Own Life After Shooting Up Tavern
Waterford, Mich, Oct 25 (AP) - Folks were talking around here today in low shocked voices about Joe Runyon and what made him do it. They still found it hard to believe that 10 of their friends wee in hospitals with gunshot wounds - two critically injured.
What else could they talk about? They'd seen the smashed glass around around the Waterford Hotel and the blood in Stanley's Bar and the oak tree where Runyon finally killed himself.
They couldn't figure Joe. Only a couple of days ago he'd been a respectable 57 year old farmer. A little moody perhaps and down on his luck, but Joe was a nice guy generally.
They's read about Howard Unruh in Camden, N. J., who killed 13 people. But that was in a big city. Such things couldn't happen in this quite little resort but- Shot Drinking Friends,
Suddenly it came. Under a dark cloudy sky, Runyon stalked up to the Waterford Hotel last night and blazed away through the window at friends with whom he's been drinking shortly before. Then he crossed the highway and fired the shotgun into Stanly's.
"He was a very quite fellow, never talked to anybody unless they talked to him," said Kenneth Friesner, a bartender wounded in the attack.
early yesterday evening Fiesner notices a difference in Runyon, who was drinking at the Waterford.
"For the last tow weeks, Joe seemed to be more surly," he said. "When he came in the first time about an hour before the shooting, I sort of avoided him."
Mournfully, Runyon asked if Friesner were "losing faith" in him. The bartender said "What's on your mind," at his, Runyon broke down and sobbed.
Mrs. Nellie Lange, the waitress, ask Runyon if he wanted some soup nd he just sobbed more. After a while he left. The next time they saw him he was firing through the window.
Speculating like all the rest was Stanley Zurawski, owner of Stanley's bar, another victim. "I have known him ofr more than two years," he said. "He seemed kindly enoough, but he loved to drink. He worked on the farm, and it ment a lot to him. About six months ago he decided to go on the wagon. But in August some pigs and cows died."
Believes Something Snapped
"Then he started to drink again and became more solem. I don't know. Something must have snapped," Zurawski concluded.
Zurawski's wife Irene and his mother, Mrs. helen Psciuk are two who were critically wounded by Runyon.
Gradually, as officers pressed their investigation, the townfolks learned more about the lonely farmer. The facts were still hazy, for Runyon had been uncommunicative. But it shaped up as a tragedy reaching back over the years. He had come from Detroit threes years before. There apparently, he had been divorced. His children, an undetermined number, had left him.
Settling here, Runyon went to work at a Pontiac auto factory and also tended his farm. He was troubled by asthma. His rent was a constant problem. He had no close firends and his life was dragging him on into a solitary old age. To forget, he would drink.
only two weeks he was fired fro his old job. This broke him up more than ever. He was thinking about his son, and probably longing for someone to depend upon.
So after he had ripped his own chest open with a shotgun blast, Runyon's parting note as found in his ramshackled house. "Take over Joe," it said. "Dad's quit work."
Meticulously Runyon had listed all his belongings and left the inventory for his 30 year old son.
This was the story as best Under Sheriff Donald O. Menzies and his deputies could piece it together.
Progress Bulletin, Oct 25, 1949, Page 1
Man wounds 10 Commits Suicide
waterford, Mich., Oct 25, (AP) A crazed middle-aged farmer shot up two taverns last night, then killed himslef after wounding ten persons. on a mad spree with a shot gun, Joe Runyon, 57, terrorized this sleepy little resort village in a begrudging farewell t the world.Two of his victims, both women, were critically wounded.
Tramping back across a street, Runyon fired seven of eight charges from a 12-gauge shotgun thru windows of two taverns, witnesses said.
At the end of a violent 10 or 12 minutes, he walked a short distance up the street and fired a final charge thru his own chest.
This was the last in a series of rapid reloadings Runyon's gun was a single shot weapon.
Reported in critical condition today at Pontiac General Hospital were Mrs Irene Zurawski, 37, and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Helen Psciuk.
Family Bar:
It was at the Zurawski family's small bar where Runyon made one attack.
Six persons were wounded there and another four at the bar of the Waterford Hotel across the street before Runyon shambled away to kill himself.
The shootings recalled the recent Camden N. J. mass killing of 13 persons by Howard Unruh, young forer service man who later was found insane.
Runyon, a former aut factory worker in nearby Pontiac, lived alone on a farm he was said to have bought a year ago.
Little is known of him, but evidently things had gone wrong recently and he had become ddespondent.
At his tidy farm house was found a note saying:
"Tkae over, Joe, Dad's quit work. (obscenity) 'em all." There was also a list of Runyon's possessions.
Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor, George Taylor, said the note apparently was meant for Runyon's son, Joe Jr., a Pontiac resident.
Quiet Person
Runyon a stocky man of medium height was known as a quiet person. He had his daily beer in town and peddled his farm crops here.
e began his rampage shortly before 8:30 p.m. Accounts of witnesses varied but it was established that he walked from one bar to the other, standing at the windows to fire blasts inside.
Patrons screamed in fright. Some dropped to the floor. A television program was being bradcast.
Mrs Zurawski was shot in the neck and face. Her mother-in-law was wounded in the face and chest. The latter's son, Stanley Zurawski, 29, was shot in the left arm.
The Rev. Fr. Frederick A. Delaney, pasrot of Our Lady of The Lakes parish in Waterford, was driving past the hotel. He saw Runyon firing through the bar windows of the Waterford Hotel. Before the priest could intervene, Runyon had fired five shots through each of the five windows overlooking the bar. One blast struck the bartender and felled five others in the crowded barroom.
Priest Shouts At Him
The priest shouted at the man, "Hey, you stop that shooting!"
With that, the man ran across the street and pumped two more shots into Stan's bar.
Mrs. Etta Ficher, 60, daytime bartender at the hotel bar, said the farmer had been in the bar earlier in the evening and spoke in a ddespondent manner. She quoted him as saying: "Well three of my horses died again, and I lost $250."
Mrs. Ficher said she stayed after her working hours to watch the bar's television and was seated at a table when Runyon returned after 8 p.m. with the shotgun. She escaped his blast by lying flat on the floor.
Waterford village (pop 450) six miles northwest of Pontiac. It is a well known stopping place for motorists on U. S. Highway 10. Shorly before 8:30 p.m. an itinerant 57 year old farm hand appeared at Stan's tavern, in the heart of Waterford. He shot down fice customers as he blasted through windows.
While screams of the wounded woke the village, the man raced across the street to the Waterford Hotel.
Mounting to the wide veranda, he ran to the windows of the hotel's bar. Shoving the barrel of his gun throuhg the glass, he fired two shots in succession.The man then returned the gun on himself and fired into his abdomen.