James Day

After doing two very long and complicated cases I decided to do one that is very much not long, or complicated. At the time this case took place in Evansville Indiana in 1984 I lived in Indianapolis but still had family in the area. I knew approximately where this took place within the city and for years I would think about it as we drove on the main road near the home.

On the morning of Thursday October 18, 1984 Candice Day returned home around 10:00 after working at her new job at the Post Office. When she walked in the door she found her husband, James, sitting in the front room in a chair with a gunshot wound to his head. She called 9-1-1 and then she went into each of her children's rooms and found that all six of her children were also dead. James had apparently shot fifteen year old Michael, fourteen year old Bartholomew, nine year old John, eight year old Stephen, seven year old Christopher and six year old Laura, all in the head while they lay sleeping in their bed before turning the gun on himself.

Candice had left for work before three that morning and it was speculated that the shooting began around six. It was said that while the gun was a .45 it had been converted to allow it to use .22 ammo and that would have caused it to not make much noise. This means that not only were the other children not alerted to what was going on but neither were the neighbors.

The FBI has defined “mass murder” as being defined as the murder of four or more people without any “cooling off” period in between. The Day murders were said to be the first mass murder in Evansville and the first in the state to take seven victims.

Of course there was speculation as to why James Day would have murdered all his children and then himself but since a note was apparently not left that is all it seems that it was, speculation. The couple had marriage problems throughout the years and a few years prior to the murders they would separate, and even file for divorce. But, the divorce was dropped and the couple reconciled after about a year. The separation was said to have occurred after a domestic violence issue. According to neighbors another incident had occurred about two months before the murders. They claimed that James had fired shots into a wall during an argument with Candice but when the police arrived it is alleged that she had hidden the guns so he did not get into trouble. For her part Candice would say that while they had their issues, recently things had seem very good and she could not explain the actions of her husband.