Beverly man’s death ruled a suicide
BY CASEY TONER ctoner@southtownstar.com February 1, 2012 10:30PM
Henry Gavoille, of Chicago's Beverly community, used to leave bread out to feed animals at his home. Gavoille died Tuesday of a gunshot wound to the head, and the Cook County medical examiner's office on Wednesday ruled his death a suicide. | Supplied photo
Updated: March 3, 2012 11:38AM
Henry Gavoille was remembered on Wednesday by family members in Belgium as a worldly, loving man with an interest in marksmanship and a deep love for his wife.
Gavoille, 79, of the 10200 block of South California Avenue in Chicago’s Beverly community, died Tuesday morning outside his house of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which conducted an autopsy Wednesday.
Authorities said a fire was reported at 5:50 a.m. on the second floor of Gavoille’s house, and firefighters discovered Gavoille’s body in his car when they arrived at the scene.
A fire department spokesman said the fire was under investigation and a cause had not been determined as of Wednesday.
In an email from Belgium, Gavoille’s sister-in-law, Francoise Delnatte, and her husband, Christian Van Oostenryck, wrote that Henry had lived alone after his wife died in 2005.
“We believe he knew where he wanted to go, to be with Andree again, forever,” the couple wrote. “Whatever the way he choose to get away from all that troubled him, from the burden of loneliness since his wife left the world, my wife and I and our three children forever will remember him in living and loving memory.”
The couple said Gavoille was born on Chicago’s South Side and lived there until the 1950s when he went to France to work for his father’s engineering and manufacturing company. There, he met his wife, Andree Delnatte, whom he married in 1954, the email said.
When he returned to the United States, Gavoille worked as an armed guard for Brink’s, working in administration at the company during later years.
The couple said that outside of work, Gavoille enjoyed marksmanship and won several police-sponsored shooting contests with his Colt Army .45.
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