Dyer was born in Louisiana, Missouri, in 1873, the son of David Patterson Dyer, a federal judge and member of Congress. He received his preparatory education at the Stoddard School, Clark's Academy, and the Smith Academy, all in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dyer enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1890 and played as a halfback for the 1894 Michigan Wolverines football team. He helped lead the team to a 9-1-1 record, the best record in the history of the Michigan football team to that date. He was five feet, seven inches tall, and weighed 167 pounds as a football player.
Legal career
After receiving his LL.B. degree from Michigan in 1895, Dyer returned to St. Louis where he practiced law. He was an assistant city attorney from 1899 to 1902 and an Assistant U.S. Attorney starting in 1902. Dyer developed a reputation for prosecuting significant fraud cases and was often dispatched by the U.S. Department of Justice as a special prosecutor in such cases. Dyer's significant cases include the following:
In 1905, Dyer was assigned to prosecute Joseph R. Burton, a U.S. Senator from Kansas. Burton was charged with accepting compensation from the Rialto Grain & Securities Company, to represent Rialto before the post office department to prevent the issuance of a fraud order against the company. Dyer secured a conviction of Burton in the second trial of the matter. See Burton v. United States
In 1926, Dyer was appointed as the special prosecutor in connection with an investigation and subsequent prosecution of Clarence Saunders, the founder of the Piggly Wiggly supermarkets, in connection with fraudulent sales of the company's stock.
Dyer died at age 56 in July 1928 during the prosecution of Clarence Saunders in the Piggly Wiggly case. The cause of death was heart disease. Following Dyer's death, an order from Washington, D.C., dismissed the case.
Family
Burton married Bettie Edgar in 1899, and she died in 1901. He married Betty Wilcox in 1905, and they had two sons, David and John. In a draft registration card completed at the time of World War I, Dyer stated that he was a lawyer with an office in the Central National Bank Building in St. Louis. At the time of the 1920 United States Census, he was living in St. Louis with his wife and two sons, and was employed as an attorney.
