E. Nye Sunderland's wife, Edna Sunderland, offered to come keep him company as he left their home on Saturday, June 29, 1963, to work at the small liquor store he owned in downtown Topeka.

But the 64-year-old Sunderland replied, "No, it's too hot. Don't bother."

This week's History Guy video at CJOnline.com focuses on how Sunderland and would-be robber Leonard Vernon Williams subsequently fatally shot each other about 8:20 p.m. that day, 56 years ago this week, during a gunbattle inside Sunderland Retail Liquor Store at 502½ S. Kansas Ave.

"Store Owner, Bandit Duel to Death," announced the headline that ran across the front page of the next day's Topeka Capital-Journal.

The newspaper said Williams had a long record of arrests and had served two penitentiary sentences for burglary and larceny. Sunderland had owned the Topeka Addressing Co. before buying the liquor store the previous year.

Topeka police arrived after the gunbattle to find a sacked bottle of wine and a $1 bill lying on the cash register. They concluded Williams asked to buy the wine, placed the bill on the counter, then pulled a .38-caliber revolver on Sunderland, who pulled a .25-caliber semiautomatic revolver from beneath the counter.

A witness who had watched from outside told The Capital-Journal he saw Sunderland and Williams bobbing up and down and shooting at each other, with Sunderland standing behind the counter by the cash register and Williams with his back to the open front door.

Autopsy results suggested Williams had been standing right next to Sunderland when he fired a fatal bullet that passed through Sunderland's left arm, entered his chest and punctured both lungs. Sunderland also suffered a superficial bullet wound to his right arm.

Williams had been crouched facing Sunderland when the dying liquor store owner fired a fatal shot that pierced one of his lungs and his esophagus, then lodged in his rib cage, said then-county coroner J.L. Lattimore. A second bullet passed through one of Williams' arms.

Williams made it outside, staggered away and died on the sidewalk, 36 feet from the door. Sunderland fired three shots and Williams fired four, police said.

Williams didn't get any money from the liquor store, where police found $103 cash in the register.

A crowd estimated at 150 people gathered afterward in the area outside the store, according to The Capital-Journal. The building involved was torn down not long afterward.

Edna Sunderland told The Capital-Journal her husband had taken his handgun from their home and begun keeping it in the store after two men robbed it of $55 in October 1962.

The newspaper reported Edna Sunderland had been home listening to a TV show, "Have Gun — Will Travel," when a bulletin came on announcing the fatal shootings at what she knew to be her husband's liquor store. She died in 1967 at age 68.

Coverage of the gunbattle included photos taken by The Capital-Journal's Gary Settle showing the store's interior and Williams on the sidewalk. Settle was later named 1968 and 1970 National Newspaper Photographer of the Year while working for the Chicago Daily News and the New York Times, respectively.