Monday, April 9, 1917

Two Saratoga Springs men are found dead by the same method of suicide within hours of each other this afternoon, The Saratogian reports.

“Death intervened this afternoon to save Sayles A. Puckett, a recluse, from eviction from the premises he had been occupying on High street for the past year,” one reporter writes.

Puckett’s body is found by city marshal Rodney Van Wagner, who went at the owner’s request to evict Puckett for failure to pay rent. Van Wagner learns from neighbors that Puckett had not been seen since last Friday, April 6.

“His life of late had become practically that of a hermit, they said, and he remained closeted in the home for many days at a time, so they had not particularly noticed his absence at this time.”

“About fifty years of age,” Puckett shot himself through the right temple sometime over the weekend. A coroner determines that he’s been dead for at least two days. A search of his apartment reveals $160 in his dresser, leading investigators to presume that “despondency” rather than “immediate financial need” drove Puckett to end his life.

Not long afterward, Robert Esmond visits the Cady Hill home of his uncle, Egbert E. Emigh. He finds Emigh lying in bed in his underwear with a bullet hole in his head. “Later developments” reveal that the 48 year old Emigh killed himself, but the Saratogian report doesn’t speculate on his reasons. The coroner determines that Emigh died eight to ten hours before Esmond found him.

“The finding of the body was unusual inasmuch as it was almost coincident with the discovery of the body of Sayles A. Puckett,” a reporter notes, “Both men were bachelors living alone, their ages were almost the same, each took his own life by shooting with a revolver in the head, the wounds being in almost the same places.”