Ex-soldier with PTSD killed girlfriend and himself, Nova Scotia Mounties say

SPRINGHILL, N.S. — A former soldier who killed his girlfriend and then himself at their Nova Scotia home had been on multiple tours in Afghanistan and came back psychologically “broken” and struggling with posttraumatic stress disorder, his family and friends said Friday.

The revelations came on the same day RCMP confirmed the deaths of 42-year-old Marc Poulin and 45-year-old Jennifer Lynne Semenec at a residence in Springhill were the result of a murder-suicide.

Both were from North Bay, Ont., and had recently moved to the Nova Scotia town. Their bodies were recovered from the small house on a dead-end street on Tuesday following a suspicious fire at the home.

Shane MacDonald, a cousin and close friend of the former infantryman, said the family believes Poulin’s PTSD was “the critical factor” in his behaviour.

MacDonald said Poulin was traumatized by deaths and violence he witnessed in three tours in Afghanistan and that the images haunted him in nightmares.

In particular, he said Poulin told him about seeing a close friend die after stepping on an improvised explosive device, an incident he said also left Poulin with a traumatic brain injury.

He added that he and other family members had seen a diagnosis in Poulin’s personal records indicating he had PTSD.

“He internalized it. He told me he was getting treatment ... but he kept that close to his chest. You could tell he wasn’t who he was before he went away.”

Jason Hill, a childhood friend of Poulin, said before the soldier served overseas he was constantly smiling and friendly, but by 2010 after his last tour of duty in Kandahar, Afghanistan, he was withdrawn and posted on social media about his trauma.

“He was openly sharing his struggles dealing with PTSD on Facebook and how the system wasn’t open to him,” recalled Hill, 42. “We knew he came back broken.”

A spokeswoman for the Canadian Forces said Poulin was a master corporal who served from January 1999 until he was released in February 2013, after being deployed first to Kabul and then twice to war zones in Kandahar.

She did not reveal the reason for his release.