RAY, John Emzy

Prescott Evening Courier, Prescott, Arizona Tuesday, October 19, 1927, page 1, column 3 Cook Tires Of Life; Suicides E. M. Ray, 43 years of age and is said to have been a 'cracker-jack' cook, committed suicide about 10:30 o'clock last night at the Fair Oaks orchard by shooting himself in the head with a high powered rifle. The man had been employed at the orchard, where a crew of men is busy picking and packing the apple crop, for some time and had not seemed morbid, his fellow-workers said, although they thought him just a bit queer. He sat with them for a short time last night, they said, and then saying 'good-night' went into his tent. A few minutes later, he returned and borrowed a lamp, going into the kitchen where he wrote a note. A few minutes later, the men heard a shot fired and decided that Ray had shot a skunk. When he failed to come back, however, they investigated and found his body about 75 feet from the house, dead. Coroner Gordon Clark and Deputy Sheriff William Poulson were notified of the man's suicide after midnight last night and reached the Fair Oaks orchard about 5 o'clock this morning, when an inquest was held. Members of the coroner's jury included Gordon Pattye, Tom Moore, J. A. Miller, Holly Miller, Horace Todd and Lester Ruffner and the verdict was death by gun-shot wound with suicide intent.