Bloody Affray in Aurora

I don't know the exact statistics, but I've often heard that murders and other violent crimes result more often from personal emotions like jealousy than from motives like greed. In other words, the victims of violent crimes tend to know the criminal, and my knowledge and research of violent crimes in the Ozarks region bears this idea out. The incident I'm about to describe is but one more example.
About 1894, the wife of Andrew Alexander of Aurora, Missouri, died, and the 34-year-old widower soon took up with Mrs. Sarah Owens. Described by one newspaper as a "grass widow," Sarah was separated but not yet divorced from her husband, William Owens. She had returned to the home of her father, Lewis Jones of Aurora. Jones objected to his daughter keeping company with Alexander while she was still legally married to Owens; so, about the first of October 1895, she left her parents' home and went to stay with a friend, "where she could see her lover without the molestation of her relations." The tension between Andrew Alexander and Lewis Jones became so great that each man started carrying a pistol.
On Sunday, October 13, there was an apparent reconciliation of sorts, as Jones and his wife expressed a willingness to sanction their daughter's match with Alexander as soon as her divorce, for which she had already sued, became final. They invited Sarah and her lover to come to their house to get some of Sarah's clothes and other belongings, and she and Alexander accepted the invitation of "the old folks."
While they were at the house, however, the tension flared anew, and some words were exchanged between Jones and Alexander as the younger couple was getting ready to leave. Alexander had just stepped outside, and Sarah was getting ready to follow when her mother seized her by the arm and attempted to restrain her from going with Alexander. Sarah, however, reached out her hand to her lover, and he pulled her out the door.
Sarah's 25-year-old brother, Tom Jones, ran out the back door, came around to the front, and grabbed hold of Alexander. The two men scuffled and fell to the ground. As they continued to wrestle, Alexander pulled out his pistol and shot the younger Jones in the body. By this time, Lewis Jones had come out of the house to enter the fight, and he and Alexander exchanged gunfire. Still on the ground, where he'd fallen during his tussle with Tom Jones, Alexander shot the old man in the mouth, knocking out two or three of his teeth, and the elder Jones fired three shots at Alexander, all of which took effect. One hit him in the leg, one in the neck, and one in the head.
Alexander immediately lapsed into unconsciousness and died an hour later. Tom Jones's wound was thought to be fatal, while the father's injury was deemed serious but not life-threatening.
All five shots were fired in quick succession, and testimony at the coroner's jury the next day was not consistent on who fired the first shot, although everyone agreed it happened while the two younger men were scuffling on the ground. Opinion was, therefore, divided on who was at fault, although Sarah blamed her father. She accused him of inviting her and Alexander to his house only as a ruse.
Alexander's funeral was held on Monday, October 14, the same day as the coroner's jury, and he was buried beside his dead wife in the Zion churchyard a few miles northwest of Aurora.
Lewis Jones was initially placed under guard at his home, although not officially arrested. The guard was soon dispensed with, and apparently Jones never faced charges. If he did, they must have been dropped, because he was a free man at the time of the 1900 census. What happened to his son Tom is not altogether clear.