“Murder by the Bay” notes that, in early 1880, upon his return to San Francisco, Charles de Young resumed his post at the Chronicle. Apparently unbowed by his notoriety and Isaac Kalloch’s election, he announced that he had sent a Chronicle reporter East to investigate Kalloch’s past. According to Guardians of the City, though he expected to stand trial, local prosecutors had delayed indicting him.
As detailed in the Daily Alta California, exactly eight months after de Young had tried to assassinate Kalloch, the latter’s son, Isaac M. Kalloch, burst into the Chronicle offices with a five-shooter and started firing at de Young. The first shots were ineffectual, and in between attempts, de Young scrambled to retrieve his revolver from his jacket. De Young was unable to get a firm grip on his gun, however, and Isaac fired another round, which hit de Young in the jaw and lodged in his brain, killing him.
Isaac M. Kalloch was quickly apprehended but refused to explain his motivations. Most assumed he had been agitated by the circulation of a pamphlet detailing his father’s adultery trial. Some speculated that by killing de Young before the newspaperman’s trial, which had been set for May, Isaac M. Kalloch was assuring the pamphlet and other damning information about his father, including testimony from a woman the Chronicle had purportedly brought in from the East, could not be used in de Young’s defense. Regardless of his reasons, Isaac M. Kalloch had murdered his father’s tormenter.
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