Patterson Cemetery District, Stanislaus County, CA 

Submitted by Gale Stroud and Burta Herger 26 Aug 2007

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McDonald James H  410829 p6
Sergeant James H. Mc Donald; Former Newman Girl Murdered By Ex-Husband; Newman, August 28 (Special) � Mrs.
Robert A. Newcomb, the former Miss Dorothy Dunn of Newman and her husband of a week were shot and killed early
last Saturday morning by Sergeant James H. McDonald,  her former husband. McDonald turned the gun on himself and
inflicted a fatal wound from which he died early Tuesday morning in an Oakland hospital.

Near Hayward; The tragedy occurred in a house in the hills between San Leandro and Hayward, during the first night at
home of the newly-wedded pair.  According to sheriff's deputies, McDonald had evidently been awaiting their return.  At
about 4 a.m. he gained access to the house by shooting off the lock on a rear door.  Awakened by the noise, Newcomb
jumped out of bed and switched on a light.  A volley of pistol shots was poured into his body, causing almost instant
death. Mrs. McDonald grabbed a .25 caliber pistol from a bureau drawer and fired at McDonald, the bullet striking him in
the left arm.  She then turned and ran into the yard as a shot struck her right arm.  On the lawn the two faced each other as
McDonald took deliberate aim and shot her in the abdomen, after which he fired the pistol twice into his chest.

Planned The double murder and resultant suicide had apparently been planned  for several days, as officers found a note
in McDonald's car which charged that  "my wife married me with a selfish motive, then left... but this is the end and
cannot live without her." As pieced together by the police, the marriage to McDonald, an ROTC instructor at Fremont
High School in Oakland, took place in June.  She left him six days later and recently went to Ensenada, Mexico, to obtain
a quick divorce.  There she married Newcomb, an Oakland plumber whose home was just a block away from
McDonald's.  The two arrived in Oakland Friday night from their honeymoon trip up the Coast.  Evidently they were
afraid of what McDonald might do, as they obtained an escort home from the sheriff's office at Hayward.  But no one
was seen lurking around the house shortly before midnight. As Miss Dorothy Dunn, Mrs. Newcomb spent her girlhood .in
Newman and attended the local schools.  For several years, she was an operator in the local telephone office, later
moving to Modesto and then to Oakland to reside. She is survived by her daughter, June; her mother, Mrs. Georgia
Graeme and two sisters, Kathleen and Bernardine.