Murder of Father O'Neill

Scandal Rocks Local Church

In April of 1923, St. Augustine’s Church was the setting for one of the city’s most notorious murders, when the rector, Father Henry O’Neill, was shot and killed during his evening supper. This was no case of random violence perpetrated by a stranger to the victim. Rather, the fallen priest knew his assailant well, for it was fellow priest, Father Charles Dillon.

On a spring evening, O’Neill, Dillon and Father McCullough sat down to dinner, but when an argument between O’Neill and Dillon could not be resolved peacefully, the rector told Dillon to pack his bags and leave the church. Dillon went to his room, grabbed a pistol and a bottle of sacrament oils and returned to the dinner table, later stating, “I intended to give him a chance to confess and to give him a long talking to and then shoot him.” As the story was told, O’Neill continued to harangue Dillon before he was shot in the stomach. O’Neill tossed a salt cellar at his killer before Dillon shot the priest three more times. Before finally expiring, O’Neill allegedly yelled, “He shot me!” Dillon responded by throwing the oils at the fallen priest, exclaiming, “with the request that the sacrament of extreme unction be administered at once.”

There was no chase or difficulty in apprehending of Dillon. He simply called the police and confessed, complaining, “Ever since I came to the parish 13 months ago, he has treated me with disrespect.” Given the circumstances, Dillon pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. Later, church officials in Detroit, who oversaw the Kalamazoo church, suggested that Dillon possessed a “deranged mind”, a “mind like a child”, and that he was a Carthusian monk, a distinction according to Father Michael Gallagher of the Detroit Diocese, that may have contributed to his “odd” personality. The violent incident forced Gallagher to find a new pastor. Unable to fill the position because of the circumstances surrounding the vacancy, Gallagher ended up ordering the 37-year-old Father John R. Hackett to assume the post several months later. Hackett had been assigned to St. Clair County before arriving in Kalamazoo to assume operations over the strained parish. Hackett was given the option of departing after two years, but ended up staying at St. Augustine’s for more than three decades.

Written by Ryan Gage, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, February 2025