The death of a Canton man who shot and killed himself at Dalton State College on Dec. 29 has been determined to be a suicide.
Dominick Doyle, 23, shot himself in the courtyard area of Mashburn Hall, a school residential building, according to a Dalton State College Police Department incident report and supplement case reports.
According to the reports, at around 6:38 p.m. an officer who had received a call from the Whitfield County 911 Center arrived at the courtyard and saw Doyle sitting in a chair with his head back. The officer spoke to a man who said he was with Doyle at the time of the incident. The officer noticed a gun in one of Doyle’s hands. He secured the gun so firefighters and emergency medical technicians “could approach the body.” A report said they determined there was “no first aid able to be rendered.”
The man who was with Doyle told officers he had come with Doyle to Dalton State College to try to meet with Doyle’s former girlfriend, who is a student at the college. He said Doyle had a package for her he wanted the man to give her.
The former girlfriend told officers she had spoken to Doyle that day. She said he “wanted her to meet him at Starbucks, but she refused to meet him. She stated that he has been calling/texting her and that she has blocked him. She stated that they broke up about a month ago and had an altercation a few weeks ago where he followed her and attempted to hit her with his vehicle.”
She asked if it was Doyle in the courtyard. An officer told her that it was and that he was “deceased.” The report said she began to cry.
Agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrived and after getting permission from Doyle’s mother began to search the truck he had driven there. They found the package with a note to the ex-girlfriend detailing his plans.
“The note stated that through their recent struggles and the pressures he felt around him that he could no longer move on with life,” a report said.