Orangeville Banner
Thursday, December 14, 1905

 A property sold; a higherpriced property bought; a ruing of the latter bargain; an unsuccessful attempt to withdraw from the deal; a brooding over the matter to the point of insanity. This seems the only explanation available for the motives that actuated the principal in the awful crime committed at Shrigley at noon Thursday of last week.

The principal was Melancthon farmer James Coulter, about 56 years of age. His victims were his wife Mary, about 45, his daughter Ida, aged 14 or 15 and his son Willie, aged 11 or 12.

Coulter had a load of oats ready to take to Melancthon Station. He had told his neighbours he was going to market his oats, had hitched up his team and was seen to drive down the lane as far as his house, stop, and then turn the wagon around again and drive back to the barn.

George Kitching and Leonard Ostrander, who were loading wood at the opposite side of the road from the Coulter farm, saw smoke issuing from an upstairs window as though the place was on fire. Hurrying to the house to give the alarm of fire, and making their way in at the kitchen door, their surprise and horror at the sight that met their gaze can easily be imagined. Stretched out on the floor were three members pf the family — the husband, wife and daughter — the man and woman quite dead and the daughter at practically her last gasp, unconscious.

Upstairs, clothing and a feather tick on a bed were discovered to be on fire and the blaze was quickly extinguished. Further investigation led to the discovery of the boy in the barn, alive but unconscious, and he died the same evening without regaining consciousness.

Having bludgeoned his wife and children with an axe, the husband had taken his own life with his 32-calibre revolver.

An inquest in Shelburne Friday led to the coroner’s jury concluding: “We believe the said James Coulter was temporarily insane when he committed the several deeds of violence mentioned.”