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CHAPTER 23<br />

From the Dallas Morning News, April 11, 1963 (page 1):<br />

1<br />

RIFLEMAN TAKES SHOT AT WALKER<br />

By Eddie Hughes<br />

A gunman with a high-powered rifle tried to kill former Maj. General Edwin A.<br />

Walker at his home Wednesday night, police said, and missed the controversial<br />

crusader by less than an inch.<br />

Walker was working on his income taxes at 9:00 PM when the bullet crashed<br />

through a rear window and slammed into a wall next to him.<br />

Police said a slight movement by Walker apparently saved his life.<br />

“Somebody had a perfect bead on him,” said Detective Ira Van Cleave.<br />

“Whoever it was certainly wanted to kill him.”<br />

Walker dug out several fragments of the shell’s jacket from his right sleeve and<br />

was still shaking glass and slivers of the bullet out of his hair when reporters<br />

arrived.<br />

Walker said he returned to his Dallas home Monday after the first stop of a<br />

lecture-tour called “Operation Midnight Ride.” He also told reporters . . .<br />

From the Dallas Morning News, April 12, 1963 (page 7):<br />

MENTAL PATIENT SLASHES EX-WIFE, COMMITS SUICIDE<br />

By Mack Dugas<br />

(JODIE) 77-year-old Deacon “Deke” Simmons arrived too late on Wednesday<br />

night to save Sadie Dunhill from being wounded, but things could have been much<br />

worse for the 28-year-old Dunhill, a popular librarian in the Denholm<br />

Consolidated School District.<br />

According to Douglas Reems, the Jodie town constable, “If Deke hadn’t arrived<br />

when he did, Miss Dunhill almost certainly would have been killed.” When<br />

approached by reporters, Simmons would only say, “I don’t want to talk about it,<br />

it’s over.”<br />

According to Constable Reems, Simmons overpowered the much younger John<br />

Clayton and wrestled away a small revolver. Clayton then produced the knife with<br />

which he had wounded his wife and used it to slash his own throat. Simmons and<br />

another man, George Amberson of Dallas, tried to stop the bleeding to no avail.<br />

Clayton was pronounced dead at the scene.<br />

Mr. Amberson, a former teacher in the Denholm Consolidated School District<br />

who arrived shortly after Clayton had been disarmed, could not be reached for<br />

comment but told Constable Reems at the scene that Clayton—a former mental

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