A Butler County man broke into his ex-wife's home and waited a day for her to return before shooting her in the head and then turning the rifle on himself, police said Monday.
Police found the bodies of Gary F. Eury, 38, and Rene Eury, 36, Sunday night in the living room of the Butler Township home she shared with her parents and the couple's 16-year-old son, Zane. The couple divorced in May.
Gary Eury apparently planned to kill himself in front of his wife, but instead shot her first, Butler Township police Chief Gary Garman said.
In a suicide note found by police, Gary Eury told his son that he wasn't bad, just sick, Garman said. The note made reference to money that both Zane and his mother would be receiving after Gary Eury's death and said they would be taken care of, Garman said.
"But something happened that turned it into a murder-suicide," Garman said. "It doesn't appear from the note that this was his original plan."
Police speculated that Gary Eury became upset upon finding pictures in his ex-wife's house of her and another man. The photos were found on a table in another room, police said.
Police said Gary Eury harassed other men his ex-wife dated.
Rene Eury returned home around 8 p.m. after spending a weekend with her boyfriend and picking up her son at a friend's house. When they arrived, Gary Eury confronted his ex-wife and ordered their son into the attic, police said.
Gary Eury ordered his son to hit the attic floor every 20 seconds to indicate he was still there. After hearing the gunshots, the teen ran to a neighbor's house and called 911, police said.
Rene Eury was lying on her back on the couch, and her husband was found on his back on the floor with a .30-caliber rifle nearby, police said. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Rene Eury's parents were vacationing in Florida. Relatives at the ranch-style home on Clark Avenue declined to comment. The brick home sits on the corner in a quiet neighborhood with well-kept lawns and middle-class homes.
Neighbors were shocked by the shooting. Betty Jones, 87, said Rene Eury and her parents have lived in the neighborhood only a few years.
"The neighborhood was overrun with police cars" Sunday night, she said. "It's very shocking, and it's sad."
Gary and Rene Eury had lived together along Chicora Road, north of Butler. Neighbors there described Gary Eury as a kind man, but said he became depressed after the divorce.
He worked as a painter, while Rene Eury worked at Irene Stacy Community Mental Health Center in Butler.
Zane Eury is a sophomore at Butler Intermediate High School.
The Eurys filed protection-from-abuse orders against each other in January 2005. Both voluntarily dismissed the orders a week later.
Those orders detail a physical confrontation between the pair when Rene Eury attempted to kick her husband out of their home.
