No inquiry into murder-suicide
N.S. medical examiner says won’t conduct investigation under Fatality Investigations Act
Nova Scotia’s medical examiner has ruled out conducting a fatality inquiry into a horrific murder suicide involving a former Canadian soldier who killed his wife, mother and young daughter before killing himself in the family’s rural home earlier this year.
Lionel Desmond, a 33-yearold veteran of the war in Afghanistan who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, took his own life after shooting his 52-year-old mother, his wife Shanna, 31, and their 10-year-daughter Aaliyah.
The killings on Jan. 3 in Upper Tracadie, N.S., prompted a difficult debate over soldiers with PTSD, domestic violence and what should be done to prevent such tragedies.
Autopsy records have since been handed to the family’s nearest relatives, but medical examiner Dr. Matt Bowes has decided not to conduct an investigation under the province’s Fatality Investigations Act, spokeswoman Sarah Gillis said in an emailed statement. She did not offer reasons for the decision.
Catherine Hartling, Shanna Desmond’s aunt, has renewed her call for some sort of public inquiry, saying other family members want the same thing but are still too distraught to speak out.
“A lot of them are going through a lot of stress right now,” Hartling said in an interview from her home, across the street from the house where the four bodies were found. “A lot of them have ... emotional problems.”
Hartling said it’s a particularly difficult time for the Desmond side of the family because they are preparing for a burial service on June 24 for Lionel Desmond and his mother. A funeral service was held down the road at a large church in Tracadie on Jan. 11.
“We’ve been all just trying to hang in there,” she said, adding that Shanna Desmond and daughter Aaliyah are to be buried in August.
Despite her profound grief — compounded by the fact that her 47-year-old sister died in March — Hartling said she is still looking for answers to some tough questions about what happened to Lionel Desmond. She said she raised the issue with the RCMP at a meeting in March.
“I was telling them that I would like to see an inquiry take place into this,” she said. “I haven’t heard nothing.”
Desmond served in Afghanistan in 2007, and had received treatment from a joint personnel support unit in New Brunswick for a year prior to his release from the military. Such units provide support to ill and injured soldiers, including mental injuries.
Neither National Defence nor Veterans Affairs Canada have committed to investigating the treatment Desmond received before and after his release from the military in July 2015.