Ezekiel Killey, the son of Jonathan and Eleanor (Paulding) Killey, Ezekiel grew up in Johnston, spending his young adult years working as a farm laborer. On March 22, 1859, he married Mary Elizabeth (Titus) Killey of Johnston in Cranston, and they set up house in Providence.

Three years later, he enlisted in Company D, 1st Battalion of the Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. He mustered out of service on Sept. 12, 1865. He entered the confectionary business. They welcomed four children before returning to Johnston where Ezekiel resumed farming. 

In 1882, friends and family began to confide in each other about troubling behavior they had been noticing in Ezekiel. It seemed as if something was affecting his mind. Several times, he wandered away from home without telling anyone he was leaving. When he failed to return, friends and family members would set out looking for him.

A particularly troubling disappearance occurred in 1889 after which one of his sons located him traveling through Providence to his home in Manton – where they no longer lived.

By 1892, his personality had altered. He no longer wanted to be in the presence of other people. He had also adopted strange habits such as walking up and down a pathway near the house, back and forth, up and down, all day long. He stopped walking the pathway only to go into the house at mealtimes.

On July 25, 1892, Ezekiel got out of bed at 5 am and meandered out to the pathway as was his routine. He didn’t return to the house for breakfast. He didn’t return to the house for lunch. As evening crept forward, a large search took place across the town. Ezekiel was tall and ruggedly built with a gray beard and curly hair. At the time of his disappearance, he had been wearing dark-colored pants, a white shirt and vest and a soft felt hat. He usually pulled the rim of the hat down over his eyes.

The roads, woods and bodies of water in the area were searched along with his former residence. Records do not indicate where he was located but he was brought back home where the family endured great stress over the worsening situation for the next two years. The burden was not relieved but only grew more sorrowful when a police officer picked him up and transported him to the Rhode Island State Hospital for the Insane in March of 1894.

When someone you’ve spent your life with becomes a stranger, the emotional damage can be catastrophic. Mary lived with that torment. By the summer of 1892, the 50-year-old woman was so consumed by stress, she couldn’t even get out of bed.

Ezekiel lived for eight more years, passing away at the institution on May 20, 1902, from the effects of chronic delusional insanity. For the last three years of his life, his son Gardner was his legal guardian. The 65-year-old was buried in the Devereaux-Killey lot in Johnston. His long-suffering wife died in 1917 from old age in Warwick.