Joe Runyon Injure 10 Of His Friends

Waterford, Mich, Oct 25 (AP) - Folks were talking around here today in low shocked voices about Joe Runyon and what made him do it. They still found it hard to believe that 10 of their friends wee in hospitals with gunshot wounds - two critically injured. What else could they talk about? They'd seen the smashed glass around around the Waterford Hotel and the blood in Stanley's Bar and the oak tree where Runyon finally killed himself. They couldn't figure Joe. Only a couple of days ago he'd been a respectable 57 year old farmer. A little moody perhaps and down on his luck, but Joe was a nice guy generally. Suddenly it came. Under a dark cloudy sky, Runyon stalked up to the Waterford Hotel last night and blazed away through the window at friends with whom he's been drinking shortly before. Then he crossed the highway and fired the shotgun into Stanly's. He was a very quite fellow, never talked to anybody unless they talked to him," said Kenneth Friesner, a bartender wounded in the attack. Early yesterday evening Fiesner notices a difference in Runyon, who was drinking at the Waterford. For the last tow weeks, Joe seemed to be more surly," he said. "When he came in the first time about an hour before the shooting, I sort of avoided him. Mournfully, Runyon asked if Friesner were "losing faith" in him. The bartender said "What's on your mind," at his, Runyon broke down and sobbed. Mrs. Nellie Lange, the waitress, ask Runyon if he wanted some soup nd he just sobbed more. After a while he left. The next time they saw him he was firing through the window. Speculating like all the rest was Stanley Zurawski, owner of Stanley's bar, another victim. I have known him for more than two years," he said. "He seemed kindly enough, but he loved to drink. He worked on the farm, and it meant a lot to him. About six months ago he decided to go on the wagon. But in August some pigs and cows died. "Then he started to drink again and became more solem. I don't know. Something must have snapped," Zurawski concluded. Zurawski's wife Irene and his mother, Mrs. Helen Psciuk are two who were critically wounded by Runyon. Gradually, as officers pressed their investigation, the townsfolks learned more about the lonely farmer. The facts were still hazy, for Runyon had been uncommunicative. But it shaped up as a tragedy reaching back over the years. He had come from Detroit threes years before. There apparently, he had been divorced. His children, an undetermined number, had left him. Settling here, Runyon went to work at a Pontiac auto factory and also tended his farm. He was troubled by asthma. His rent was a constant problem. He had no close friends and his life was dragging him on into a solitary old age. To forget, he would drink. Only two weeks he was fired from his old job. This broke him up more than ever. He was thinking about his son, and probably longing for someone to depend upon. So after he had ripped his own chest open with a shotgun blast, Runyon's parting note as found in his ramshackled house. "Take over Joe," it said. "Dad's quit work." Meticulously Runyon had listed all his belongings and left the inventory for his 30 year old son. This was the story as best Under Sheriff Donald O. Menzies and his deputies could piece it together.