Volume 18 , Issue 12

1936 - Bomb Explosion Fatal To Former Alva Man and Wife

Have you heard this news stories that appeared in The Ada Weekly News, Ada, Oklahoma, dated 16 April 1936, Thursday, page 1: "Bomb Explosion Fatal to Former Alva Man and Wife."Contrivance exploded while the couple was riding with friends. Suicide suspected. Other occupants of car declare university professor hurled bomb.

Found on Newspapers.com

Los Angeles, April 16 (1936) -- A handwritten note, phrased in biblical language, was disclosed on this date by detectives investigating a puzzling bomb explosion which killed Dr. William D. Morality, 59, former Alva, Oklahoma, professor, and his wife, Dorothy, 55.

Cant. Blaine Steed, chief of police homicide squad, said Morality apparently set off the blast with suicidal intent as he sat in an automobile with his wife and two other persons the night before (April 15, 1936).

Morality, University of Southern California professor, was an English teacher at Northwestern Oklahoma State Teachers college, Alva, then a normal school, in 1904. The note, written in ink, on new paper, and found in a bill fold on Morality's body, read:

"If the Lord will be with me, and deliver into my hand the power to do good, with that power I will do good, with all my might. (signed) W. D. Moriarty." Detective Lieut. Thomas Sketchley, who searched the body at the morgue, took the note to add to other evidence detectives had gathered, indicating the deaths were a result of a decision by Moriarty to commit suicide.

Sketchley and other officers planned to further question Harley McCoy, 28, rail bond broker, and his fiancé, Miss Eleanor Thonis, 21, who were in the front seat of the car when the explosion took place. They related some of the case details the night before.

They received painful but no dangerous injuries and were recovering at a hospital. In a fearful moment before the detonation, Miss Thonis said she turned and saw a bomb in Dr. Moriarty's hands, his wife beside him in the back seat.

As Dr. Moriarty hurled the bomb to the floor, Miss Thonis said she attempted to leap from the automobile.

Her back and head were burned and lacerated by the explosion. McCoy was injured seriously.

Capt. Blaine Steed of the police homicide squad said he concluded Dr. Moriarty an economics expert, touched off the crude black powder bomb in despondency over financial losses.

Prof. R. H. Ross, director of business research at U.S.C., where Dr. Moriarty taught economics, was reported by Capt. Steed as saying an intimation of suicide had come a few days ago.

"I won't be here next year, and I'm going to take a lot of people with me." Dr. Moriarty was quoted as declaring.

From his hospital cot, McCoy told police Dr. Moriarty had asked to go on a pleasure ride the night before, taking his wife and their dog with him.

"He seemed to be in high spirits although he had recently suffered some business reverses and I had heard him threaten suicide several times." McCoy related. "I looked back and noticed he was holding something in his hands. Then he said: "Look what I've got!" "I saw it was a bomb."

The explosion shattered the machine. The Moriarty dog was killed. The couple had one son, John Moriarty, U. S.C., and University of Washington graduate, who was connected with the federal bureau of foreign and domestic commerce.

Dr. Moriarty also left a brother, Robert, and a sister, Mrs. Minne Datson, both of Tacoma, Washington, Mrs. Moriarty left a sister, Miss Mary McMahon, Kiowa, Kansas. Born in Oil City, Pennsylvania, Dr. Moriarty was graduated from the University of Michigan, in 1904, and taught at Northwestern Normal school, Oklahoma, Michigan, and the University of Washington, before coming to U. S. C. as director of the merchandising school in 1925.

Moriarty was president of the California commodity exchange from 1930 to 1933 and wrote several books and monographs.

Prof. A. G. Vinson said Moriarty was a young unmarried man when he came to teach in Alva, Oklahoma, and employed in the English department and was a member of the faculty for two or three years. He was a popular teacher and very well liked.
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