A Mysterious Murder/Suicide 40 Years Ago

Last week – as happens 11 times a  week—another murder/suicide occurred in Denver. A young Black woman, only 33, was killed by her boyfriend who then killed himself. She left behind four young daughters, one only an infant and another who witnessed her mother’s death. Via local television news, the young mother’s father advised others in intimate violent situations: “Tell somebody.” 

Also last week, in Kansas City, home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, a documentary about one of the team’s legendary players made its debut. A Good Man: The Jim Tyrer Story features the Chiefs’ offensive lineman who narrowly missed being inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. Instead he shot and killed his wife and then himself on Sept. 15, 1980 - exactly 40 years ago this week.

Jim Tyrer Wikipedia

In the new documentary, some of Tyrer’s former teammates talk about the physical abuse Tyrer had to take on the field. Tyrer had an exceptionally big head, such that his fellow players affectionately dubbed him “Pumpkin Head.” In the 1960s and early 1970s when Tyrer was playing with the Chiefs, helmets were not as protective as they are today and, one teammate recalls, linemen could not use their hands and were told, “Your helmet is your weapon.” Helmet design at the time meant offensive linemen like Tyrer were recognizable by the gashes and ridges on their foreheads. Violent slams to the head also were legal play on the field in those years.

One of Tyrer’s former teammates speculates that while playing football --throughout high school, college and then as a professional --Tyrer must have suffered “a handful of concussions.” Quite possibly, like tight end and convicted killer Aaron Hernandez, another football player whose case involving a murder conviction, acquittal in two other slayings and ultimate suicide in prison was investigated by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team and broadcast in a three-part documentary series, Tyrer may have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), irreparable brain degeneration thanks to repeated head injuries.

When Jim Tyrer was playing with the Chiefs, helmets were not as protective as they are today. Kansas City Chiefs

CTE does cause physical problems –hard to accept for an athlete used to being in peak condition -- as well as difficulties with planning and carrying out tasks, emotional instability, depression and impulsive behaviors. No brain researcher can say for sure whether it causes violent acts. But given the aggression that football players must practice during games, Hernandez’s and Tyrer’s violent acts off the field are not very surprising.

I am enormously grateful that Hernandez did not kill his wife and new baby daughter, and that Tyrer did not shoot any of his four children, three of whom were at home when he and his wife died. But Tyrer is guilty of domestic violence because he killed his wife. We can never know whether his wife suffered any other violence. One of her female friends told Sports Illustrated that Martha Tyrer, a private woman, kept the family going while her husband struggled financially after he retired from the Chiefs in 1975.

In Washington, D.C., the Center for Violence Policy has been keeping track of murder/suicides since 2002. But how many in the past, like the Tyrer case, have been missed?  How accurate are the Center’s figures? Can we draw any conclusions about the frequency of murder/suicides in a particular state or particular community from the statistics available?

After the ABC affiliate station in Denver carried out an almost year-long investigation into a local case in which an abusive ex-husband killed his 10-year old son and himself, Colorado formed a new task force on domestic violence. In order to recruit other states to do the same, we need a recount of all available reports from police and news media of murder/suicides.

So often, they are the horrible grand finale of repeated domestic violence.

 Ann Marie Cunningham is a Columbia University Lipman Fellow for 2020 who will be working with the Mississippi Center for investigative Reporting. She is a veteran journalist/producer and author of a best-seller. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Technology Review, The Nation and The New Republic. Contact her at amclissf@gmail.com.