Horror at Hillsdale

Hillsdale, Mich.

SHORTLY after noon on October 17, Lissa Roche unlocked her husband’s gun cabinet and removed a .38 special. She stepped out of their kitchen door into the backyard, crossed the grass, and went through a wooden gate leading to the Hillsdale College arboretum. She proceeded down a narrow trail to an open hollow with a stone gazebo. She sat down, placed the barrel of the gun behind her ear, and pulled the trigger. When her husband, George Roche IV, arrived just minutes later, her flesh was still warm to the touch. But she was dead.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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Hillsdale, Mich.

SHORTLY after noon on October 17, Lissa Roche unlocked her husband’s gun cabinet and removed a .38 special. She stepped out of their kitchen door into the backyard, crossed the grass, and went through a wooden gate leading to the Hillsdale College arboretum. She proceeded down a narrow trail to an open hollow with a stone gazebo. She sat down, placed the barrel of the gun behind her ear, and pulled the trigger. When her husband, George Roche IV, arrived just minutes later, her flesh was still warm to the touch. But she was dead.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.