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Article published Nov 23, 2008 Couple's death a 'suicide pact,' brother says
By Mark Boxley of The Daily Times Staff
The brother of an Alabama woman who was found shot to death with her husband in a Townsend rental cabin Nov. 15 says the two had been planning a "suicide pact" for a very long time, but no one in the family thought they would actually do it.
Roger Yearby contacted The Daily Times Saturday saying: "It is important to me, and my family, to let the police and other people know the reasons for their (Yvonne Yearby Boles, 59, and John Raymond Boles, 67) actions."
In a telephone interview, Yearby — who lives in Montgomery, Ala. — said John Raymond Boles was stricken with multiple sclerosis (MS) and his health was deteriorating. Known by family members as Raymond, Boles had to use a cane and was often confined to a wheelchair due to the MS, Yearby said.
Yvonne — who Yearby called "Vonnie" — and Raymond Boles were found shot to death on Nov. 15 by a housekeeper at a rental cabin on Carrs Creek Road in Townsend. A handgun was found by Blount County Sheriff's deputies at the scene, and while the sheriff's office has not officially ruled out the possibility that the incident was a homicide/suicide, the belief is that it was a double suicide.
The pair, who were from Decatur, Ala., had been renting the cabin for a week and were scheduled to check out the day they were found by the housekeeper. That didn't seem to be an accident, Yearby said, explaining that his sister would have wanted to be found. "They left notes everywhere, from what I understand," he said. There were even letters left to be mailed to family members and cashier's checks for the owner of the cabin to pay for any work that would be need to be done after the suicides, he said. The pair had also taken care of their finances beforehand -- all of their bills and debts were paid off, or arrangements had been made to take care of them.
Yearby said he didn't find out about his sister's death until two days after it happened -- and even then he found out when he was told by someone who had read about the incident in the newspaper. "(Raymond and Yvonne) have had a suicide pact for over 10 years, and I guess they decided to go ahead and do it," Yearby said. "It's one of those things that, you know, you don't think -- they're not serious."
Hearing what happened "it was kind of a shock," he said with a pause. "And then again, it was kind of expected.
"I'm not really sure how to explain it."
Yearby had been estranged from his sister -- he hadn't spoken to her for about two years -- and right now the family is still trying to get information about what happened. "We are at a loss for a lot of information," he said. "There are several questions in our mind."
Yearby doesn't know if there are, or were, funeral arrangements -- he heard that his sister and her husband had already been cremated, but he's not sure. "We really don't know anything," he said.
That he knew of, the couple had no connection to Townsend that would explain why they chose East Tennessee as the location for the suicides, Yearby said.
Speaking when they were growing up, Yearby said he and his sister used to be very close.
"She and I used to talk a lot," he said. "Especially in school and after school."
And when he was sent overseas to serve during the Vietnam War, "she wrote me letters a lot," he said.
Right now, the family is just looking for answers, he said. "We still have a lot of questions -- we still don't know everything."
They have all spent the past week "trying to put things together," he said.
On the notion that the deaths could still be ruled a homicide/suicide -- though the Blount County Sheriff's Office has said the deaths were most likely the result of a double suicide -- Yearby said there was no question in his mind. "It was definitely not a murder," he said.
"They both had a lot of medical problems, and it got the best of them."