Hospital gunman shot wife ‘out of love’

AP

DOVER, New Hampshire — A man walked into his wife’s hospital room early Tuesday, fatally shot her then killed himself in a murder-suicide that he foretold in a candid and emotional Facebook posting to friends and family.

Authorities did not identify the man. But Dorcas Lavoie told The Associated Press that her brother, Mark A. Lavoie, shot his wife, Katherine, “out of love” before killing himself at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover.

“They both loved each other very much,” she said, declining to comment further.

Police got an emergency call at 6:03 a.m. reporting gunshots at the hospital near the state’s seacoast. They found a man and a woman dead in a private room in the critical care unit. Assistant Attorney General Jay McCormack did not answer specific questions, saying the killings were still under investigation. He said the victims’ identities would be released after family was notified.

In an early morning posting on what appears to be Mark Lavoie’s Facebook page, he said his 49-year-old wife had suffered for years.

“I want to start off by saying this is going to be officially ruled a murder/suicide when in all actuality it is a double suicide,” the Facebook post reads. “My baby was trying to escape the bi-polar demons that have been swirling around in her brain since childhood and now because of my selfishness in dialing 911 she is experiencing the only thing she feared more than her illness … life support on a respirator.”

Friends wrote back, some pleading with Lavoie, who was 50, not to follow through. Within hours, the responses turned to shock, grief and solace for Lavoie’s family.

At an afternoon news conference, hospital President and CEO Greg Walker said that a “very sad and horrific event took place.” Walker said visitors in the critical care unit are restricted to small numbers of family members and the hospital has a policy banning firearms.

The 178-bed hospital remained open after the shooting and Walker said services were not affected by the shooting. Counselors were being made available for staff, patients and visitors.