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| Woman charged in murder-suicide pact
This story has been on the news a lot since the New Year. Basically, the mother and father made a suicide pact and killed their three children before attempting to kill themselves. The mother survived and was charged today in the deaths of her three children. Quote:
There is little remarkable about the modest white house – inside which a couple's suicide pact apparently unfolded – other than piles of garbage bags out front and on the back porch, as if no one had taken them to the curb for weeks.
To those left behind in the tragedy, there was also nothing remarkable about the couple's behaviour in the days before the New Year's Day pact that left the husband, Marc Laliberté, 46, and the couple's three young children dead.
The wife, 36-year-old Cathy Gauthier-Lachance, survived and is at the Chicoutimi hospital, in police custody, where she's reportedly recovering from knife wounds.
The children, 12-year-old Joelle, 7-year-old Marc-Ange, Louis-Philippe, 4, all perished, either by poisoning or suffocation, police said.
"They didn't seem unhappy," Laliberté's brother, Alain, said of the couple. "There was not one sign," he said in an interview yesterday.
The family went to a holiday dinner at Laliberté's childhood home in Normandin, where their father, Cyrille, still lives, on Dec. 28.
"It all went very well. They were in a good mood. There was a gift exchange for the kids," said Alain Laliberté, 49, a father of three himself.
Cyrille Laliberté refused an interview, saying he "doesn't want to be implicated in this."
Alain Laliberté said he didn't believe it when the provincial police told them about the suicide pact. "It just poses so many questions."
One question raised is why did they leave their jobs before Christmas? There has been speculation on the part of former associates that the couple was having money problems.
Police will not confirm details of exactly what transpired in the house, nor deny an account by Quebec TV crime call-in show host Claude Poirier that the couple left explicit letters behind outlining why they chose New Year's Day to undertake the pact.
Police were to interrogate Gauthier-Lachance yesterday but her doctor advised against it due to her mental state, said Richard Gagné of the Sûreté du Québec.
Her parents, who are from the region but now live on Montreal's south shore, have been with her at the hospital.
Gagné said police have a good idea as to the motive behind the pact, but won't elaborate until the Crown has laid charges. Police are recommending first-degree murder charges.
Gauthier-Lachance is due to appear in court, either in person or by video, today. The bodies will also undergo autopsies in Montreal starting today.
The tragedy, which stunned residents in this quiet, snowy region north of Quebec City, unfolded in the early hours of New Year's Day.
The family moved to the Chicoutimi borough of Saguenay after Laliberté returned home last summer to be with his mother, sick with cancer, in her dying days.
They had been living in Amos, a remote community 10 hours northwest of Saguenay, where Laliberté worked as a real estate agent, and then a manager at a local drug mart.
A former employee, Huguette Bolduc, told a local newspaper he was "depressive and his wife had problems, too."
Bolduc said when Laliberté finally quit his job there, he seemed "extremely tired, at the end of his rope."
In Chicoutimi, Laliberté began to work in real estate again, for La Capitale, but according to a company source, he didn't renew his real estate licence for 2009.
Gauthier-Lachance worked for a short time at a women's store in a mall before quitting just before the holidays.
A store employee said she clearly had personal issues, but kept them bottled up inside.
She once remarked on how the move to Saguenay wasn't working well, professionally, for her husband.
The couple lived on a quiet street not far from the main drag in Chicoutimi, in a rented bungalow. Their next-door neighbour said they seemed like good parents.
"We invited them over once or twice so their kids could use our pool. They seemed nice, in love. It seemed like they loved their children," said Nicolas Bossé, 42.
Bossé said he is utterly shocked by what's happened and has had trouble explaining it to his own 6-year-old son.
For Chicoutimi resident Georgette Tremblay, 80, it's unheard of. "A pact like this? I can't believe it. It's not something we see here. It's a small region, not a big city."
| TheStar.com | Canada | Family's suicide pact stuns Quebec town
Like I've said many a time before, I don't understand how a person can do that to their own child. And especially in such a cold, deliberate matter. They both must have been depressed to the point of breaking with reality or something. Because, seriously... how do you do this? __________________  Sunny "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." avie by Jessie |
Have a happy holiday & prosperous new year! 
