The Machine Shop Murders: Jealousy and Tragedy in 1932 Dover

Workplace animosity fueled a poison plot and shooting in Dover, Ohio during the Great Depression.

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Against the grim backdrop of the Great Depression in 1932, industrial communities like Tuscarawas County faced severe economic distress, reduced production, and widespread fear of unemployment. At the Dover Manufacturing Company in Dover, Ohio, the factory had been operating only on a part-time basis for two years, leaving workers competing fiercely for limited shifts. In this environment of heightened financial anxiety, deep personal friction developed between two long-time employees: Harvey Harper (1868-1932), a 64-year-old machinist who had been with the company for over two decades, and Homer Kline (1898-1932), a 32-year-old worker who had been promoted to foreman of the machine shop eighteen months earlier. Bitter over his reduced hours, Harper grew increasingly resentful, believing that younger men were receiving work assignments that rightfully belonged to him.

As economic hardship persisted, Harper’s grievance transformed into targeted malice against his younger supervisor. Kline reported that over a three-week period, Harper made four separate attempts to poison his food. The sabotage culminated on September 12, when Kline witnessed Harper puncture a tube of potassium cyanide (a chemical kept at the plant) and spread it across Kline’s lunch basket and milk bottle. Having secretly hidden a second lunch, Kline avoided ingesting the poison and turned the tainted food over to authorities for analysis, which confirmed the presence of the lethal substance.

Fearing for his life, Kline filed formal charges in municipal court, prompting local police to arrest Harper at his home on Deis Lane on the evening of September 19. However, the legal intervention proved brief and ineffective. Contacted by telephone, the prosecutor fixed Harper’s bail at $2,000. After the bond was secured, Harper was released from custody less than nine hours after his arrest, returning home that night with his hostility unabated.

Early the following morning, Tuesday, September 20, Harper shaved, dressed in clean work clothes, and drove his automobile to the plant shortly before 6:30 a.m., carrying a concealed .38-caliber revolver. Entering the machine shop at approximately 6:45 a.m., he approached a press operator who was alone in the room and demanded to know the location of Kline and the plant superintendent. Moments later, as Kline and the plant superintendent walked into the machine shop together, Harper drew his weapon and immediately opened fire.

The machine shop erupted into panic as Harper fired recklessly into the room. He shot Kline three times, inflicting fatal wounds over the heart, through the left shoulder, and through the arm. In the chaotic volley, Harper also struck the plant superintendent in the side and abdomen, and shot the press operator through the calf of his leg. Mortally wounded, Kline managed to stagger to a telephone to urge the operator to call the police before collapsing. Meanwhile, Harper fled into an adjoining company garage, concealed himself beside a parked automobile, and turned the revolver on himself, firing a bullet into his right temple.

Both men were rushed by police to Union Hospital, where Harper died at 2:00 p.m. without regaining consciousness, followed fifteen minutes later by Kline, who succumbed to internal hemorrhages at 2:15 p.m. The county coroner subsequently issued official findings of homicide in Kline’s death and suicide for Harper. By the following morning, the Dover Manufacturing Company had resumed regular operations, leaving the factory floor to return to work under the continuing strain of the Depression, forever marked by a violent breakdown born of economic desperation and workplace jealousy.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2026.