Category: Halifax

Two separate funeral services will be held this week for the Desmond family.

The service for Lionel Desmond and his mother Brenda will be held tomorrow in Tracadie. Then his wife Shanna and daughter Aaliyah will be buried Thursday.  The federal government has confirmed it will pay for the funerals of all four.

A debate is growing over the cause of that tragedy in Upper Big Tracadie.

Family and friends of the Desmond family have pointed to post-traumatic stress disorder as the main reason for the murder-suicide.

However, a sociology professor at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, calls it a mistake to blame it on P-T-S-D.  Ardath Whynacht says there is nothing in medical literature to suggest P-T-S-D leads to violence. On the contrary, she says people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims of crime not perpetrators.