HYDE PARK — A tranquil town neighborhood is in shock today after a domestic incident ended with a father and husband dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Hyde Park police said Sunday that William Doyle, 36, shot and killed himself Saturday night at his home on Schryver Lane following a dispute with his wife that left her injured.
Neighbors talked of a helpful, happy family man.
“He was a wonderful guy,” Walter Bendyk told the Journal Sunday. “I’m going to miss him.”
The police description of the events Saturday night painted a darker picture.
Police said they responded to a call to 10 Schryver Lane about 8:56 p.m. Saturday and were admitted into the brick and yellow-beige-sided home on the cul-de-sac by a small child.
An officer went upstairs and spotted Doyle and his wife standing next to a sliding glass door and wrestling over a pistol-grip shotgun in the dining room, police said.
The wife broke away from Doyle as an officer secured a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, according to police. She headed out of the kitchen and past the officer, police said.
The officer ordered Doyle at gunpoint to drop the weapon, but he refused. After repeated commands for Doyle to drop the weapon, he stepped onto a deck and out of sight of the officer, police said. A gunshot sounded, and then the officer moved toward the deck and discovered Doyle there with a gunshot wound to his head, police said.
Emergency personnel called to the scene and at Saint Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie attempted to save Doyle, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital, police said.
Police discovered that his wife had been struck with the back of the shotgun several times during the dispute, police said. She was also taken to Saint Francis Hospital, where she was treated for her injuries.
Police said the two children in the home at the time of the incident were not injured. The couple have two older children who were not in the residence at the time, according to police.
An investigation is continuing, police said Sunday afternoon.
Bendyk said he was horrified to hear what had happened.
Bendyk and his wife, Olga, who have lived in their house for 55 years, said they had known Doyle since he first moved to the normally quiet neighborhood as a teenager.
“(They were) a beautiful family,” Olga Bendyk said.
Like the Bendyks, next door neighbors Fay and John Roach said Doyle and his wife were always quick to help out when needed.
“He would do anything for anyone,” Fay Roach said. “They were just great.”
Roach, who has lived in her home for roughly 43 years and also knew Doyle as a young man, wondered what had happened Saturday night. She said the couple seemed to get along and work well together as a team. She had never heard them fight nor had known Doyle to raise his voice when speaking with the children.
Roach heard what she said sounded like a gunshot Saturday night and feared a child had accidentally done something with a gun.
She and Walter Bendyk said their quiet and friendly neighborhood where children usually play was full of emergency and police vehicles following the incident.
Doyle was employed by the Town of Hyde Park’s Highway Department, town Supervisor Thomas Martino said.
“It’s indeed a tragedy,” Martino said.
Saturday’s incident adds to a string of domestic violence-related fatalities that have occurred in the county over the course of the last 16 months:
• On July 29, 2010, Anthony Riccardulli, 55, fatally shot his wife, Linda, 47, in their Hyde Park home and then turned the gun on himsel.
• On Sept. 4, 2010, Gabriel Lopez-Perez, 30, of Brooklyn fatally stabbed Maria de la Paz Ruiz-Alvarez, 27, in her Wappingers Falls apartment.
• On Dec. 2, 2010, Robert Loucks was charged in the strangling of Tyrese Storms, 25, in their Pleasant Valley home.
• On Feb. 18 of this year, Lee Welch, 27, fatally shot his wife, Jessica Welch, 28, near the Poughkeepsie Railroad Station, then fatally shot City of Poughkeepsie Detective John Falcone before killing himself.
• On June 12, the burned body of Jasmine Nunez, 22, of the Bronx, was found in James Baird State Park in LaGrange. It was later determined she was killed by her boyfriend, Andres Ceballos, 26, who killed himself during a confrontation with police June 21 in Virginia.
• On Sept. 20, John Hogan, 47, of Red Hook, shot his ex-wife and then killed himself.
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