The daughter of a man who gunned down three people at an Inglis home Thursday before turning the gun on himself told ABC Action News in an exclusive interview heartbreak led to the horror.
"He loved his wife," said Jennifer Conklin, Walt Tyson's daughter. "His wife was everything to him and he couldn't take the separation. He couldn't take the fact that she was with someone else. He couldn't do it."
Tyson, 57, shot his wife's new boyfriend, Otis Bean, then gunned down Walter Terhune, a Good Samaritan who intervened, then killed his wife Patricia before turning the gun on himself, Levy County deputies say.
It happened shortly after 6 p.m. at Bean's house across from Inglis City Hall of U.S. Highway 40.
Before taking his own life, Tyson called his daughter from the second floor of the home.
"I was the last person he talked to. I told him, I begged him don't do it, don't he said it was too late. And I told him don't hurt himself, that I needed him. Then he said he loved me and that he was sorry and it was a goodbye," Conklin recalled through tears.
Conklin said then the phone went silent.
Deputies arriving on scene found Bean still alive and airlifted him to a hospital in Gainesville. He succumbed to his injuries Friday afternoon.
Lying on the grass, deputies found Terhune, a decroated war veteran, deceased.
On the first floor of the home, they found the body of Patricia Tyson.
Walt Tyson's body was found on the second floor.
"He just lost it yesterday. He couldn't live without her, he lost it," Conklin said.
According to Conklin, her father came home to the couple's Hernando home last Friday and found a Dear John letter.
She says he was heartbroken that his wife of 35 years left him. She added her father had no idea she was having an affair and pleaded with his wife to return home.
On Wednesday night, Conklin said she spoke to her father about the situation and he promised her he was moving on and wouldn't hurt himself or anyone else.
Tonight, she is begging Terhune's family for forgiveness and apologizing, saying her father would have never hurt innocent people had he been in the right state of mind.
"I am so sorry. I know they must hate my father and think that he is just a horrible person but he was just lost," Conklin said.
The Tysons would have celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary on October 13.
ABC Action News tried speaking to Terhune's family but they requested privacy as they grieve.
