Paula Fay Flanagan Currance, an 83-year-old White/Caucasian woman, was found dead in a weapon-related murder-suicide involving her husband at their home in Tucker County, West Virginia. Although some online memorial records list her death as September 17, 2016, contemporary local reporting and her published obituary place her death on Friday, September 16, 2016. She lived in the Red Run community near Hendricks, in the same general area described by early news reports as near Dryfork.
Authorities were called to the residence at about 10:00 a.m. the following morning, September 17, after a death was reported. When law enforcement arrived, they discovered two people dead inside the home. Investigators quickly determined that the deaths involved a married couple and described the incident as an apparent murder-suicide involving a weapon.
The second person who died was Paula's husband, David Burr Currance. Earlier family information identified Paula as the wife of David, and David's own obituary states that he also died suddenly and unexpectedly at his home in the Red Run community on September 16. Law-enforcement reporting at the time initially withheld the couple's names while relatives were being notified. The Tucker County Sheriff's Department investigated with assistance from the Parsons Police Department and the West Virginia State Police. Sheriff Brian Wilfong said investigators had a strong understanding of what had occurred and found no suspicious circumstances suggesting that anyone else had been involved.
Available gun-violence records subsequently described Paula as the homicide victim, stating that it appeared her husband killed her and then killed himself. That conclusion is consistent with the contemporary characterization of the deaths as a murder-suicide and with investigators' statement that they were not looking for another person connected with the incident. Publicly available reporting does not provide a detailed reconstruction of the shooting, such as the exact type of firearm, the number or location of the wounds, where each person was found inside the residence, or a specific sequence of events immediately preceding the deaths. No independently documented motive was publicly released in the sources located, and there is no reliable indication that another suspect entered the home or participated in the killings.
Paula had deep ties to the Hendricks and Parsons area. She was born in Hendricks on September 30, 1932, to Paul and Leecy Fay Rennix Flanagan and graduated from Parsons High School in 1950. She later worked for more than two decades in medical administration in a doctor's office. Her community involvement included serving as regent of the Blackwater Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, participating in the Parsons High School Alumni Association, and serving as treasurer of the Tucker County Ambulance Authority. She was also a member of First United Methodist Church and was remembered for her flower garden, her cats, and feeding birds and other wildlife. Her survivors included a daughter, siblings, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
David Burr Currance had likewise been a longtime resident of the area. He was born in Parsons in 1937, graduated from Parsons High School, attended Potomac State College and West Virginia University, and served in the United States Navy. He later spent decades working for the federal government at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, including work involving military night-vision equipment. In retirement he volunteered at Cortland Acres and participated in historical and amateur-radio organizations. His death at the same residence and on the same date as Paula's, together with the authorities' murder-suicide determination and the later identification of Paula's husband as the person who killed her before taking his own life, left investigators with no surviving suspect to prosecute.
Consequently, there was no arrest of David Currance or of any outside suspect in connection with Paula's killing. Because the person identified as responsible died at the scene as part of the murder-suicide, there was no criminal charging process, preliminary hearing, trial, plea, sentencing or conviction. Investigators did not announce a search for accomplices, and contemporary reporting specifically indicated that nothing at the scene suggested the involvement of another person. The case therefore ended as a murder-suicide investigation rather than proceeding through the courts, with Paula treated as the victim and her husband identified in later records as the apparent perpetrator.
