I Shot Him Because I Loved Him

On the night of August 13th, 1925, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Clayton McMullin, a young father and husband, was shot to death in the street while visiting a friend. His wife and daughter were inside the house, only feet away, when he yelled out, "I've been shot!", staggered up onto the front porch, and took his final breath. The car from which the shots had been fired sped away from the scene, carrying his killer inside. Arthur Janisse was behind the wheel, and he was heading for the hospital, with his wife, Ruth, bleeding in the seat beside him from a gunshot wound to the leg. What happened on that harrowing, humid summer night in Windsor? What lead up to that moment, out on the street, when gunfire rang out, piercing the stillness of the small, quiet neighbourhood, and a life was taken? What could have compelled Ruth to pull the trigger? "I shot him because I loved him," she'd replied, when questioned by the police. That was only a tiny piece of the story, yet it was the entire thing at the same time. Ruth was a complicated woman, and the story behind what happened between Clayton and Ruth was complicated as well, but also simple. She had loved him, and then she shot him.