When a murderer takes their own life, families left without crucial answers

This story is part ofStopping Domestic Violence, a CBC News series looking at the crisis of intimate partner violence in Canada and what can be done to end it.

The details of this story are disturbing and may not be suitable for everyone.

Dave Arnott was a bitter, angry man he'll tell you that quite honestly, but it was all with good reason.

His only child was gunned down in a violent rage two decades ago. And when the killer was finished with April Arnott, he turned the gun to himself, taking away any chance Dave Arnott or his ex-wife had to know why he did it.

"I was talking to the RNC (Royal Newfoundland Constabulary) and they said, there was no way you would have known it was coming," said Dave Arnott, who lives in Conception Bay South.

"There was no way you would have prevented it because he had that much firepower with him that if you were home you would have been a dead man. He was determined to kill April."

April Arnott's death was tragic and life-changing for those who knew and loved her. But it was one of many murder-suicides in this province that quickly disappeared from the headlines.

Murder-suicides provide their own challenges for investigators and for family members who are left with more questions than answers.

There is no trial. No time to face the perpetrator in court. No victim impact statement to let their voices be heard.

'Kind and caring'

April Arnott graduated from Queen Elizabeth Regional High School in C.B.S. and quickly set her sights on being a marine environmentalist.

An honours student, she attended Marine Institute while working at the Botanical Garden and at the Body Shop in the Avalon Mall.

"My only child," Dave Arnott said. "She was kind and caring."

Dave Arnott went out with neighbours onNov. 11, 2000. He was supposed to go out the next evening but decided to go out on the Friday instead so he could drive April to a party with co-workers the next night.

The scene when he got home was something he will never forget.

• Clues point to murder-suicide

"I walked in my basement and it was a scene from a horror movie and I thought it was staged at first because it was so horrific," he said.

"She was face down and he was face down, but there was no face there."

April died just shy of her 20th birthday.

History of violence

Her father would later learn she had been at a bar earlier in the evening when her on-again, off-again boyfriend Terrance Gosseshowed up. There was a confrontation that eventually led back to the Arnott family home.

"It was very difficult, especially because you don't know the cause. You're asking so many questions. Could I have prevented it?" Dave Arnott said.

He did find out, however, that Gosse, who was 24,had faced charges for violence against another woman in a different province.

Unanswered questions

CBC News has found at least 13 cases of domestic murder-suicide in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2000.

RNC Chief Joe Boland said unanswered questions are par for the course in those cases and are frustrating for officers.

"Families are trying to figure out why did this happen, whether it's the person who is the victim or how did the perpetrator get to a place where they acted this way?" Boland said.

"I don't know if we can get all of the answers. In some of the cases in a lot of cases there is a history."

In some of the more recent cases, police have released few details, including whether or not it was even a murder-suicide.

Asked why that is, Boland said officers cannot jump to conclusions immediately after discovering a crime scene.

"[Officers] deal with the scene in front of them and even if it does seem obvious to you when you look at it, there's still an investigation that has to be had. You can't have tunnel vision with this stuff," he said.

"There are reports, and toxicology and other exhibits have to go to a lab."

All of that takes time, Boland said, and in some cases, the families don't want details disclosed to the public.

Education necessary, victim's father says

Dave Arnott says acknowledging what happened is necessary to educate the public on the worst-case scenario for violent relationships.

"I tell you, for the first month or so I was a very angry person with God to let this happen," he said. "I was a bitter man."

A few months passed, and he joined a church program that helped him cope, and eventually became a sounding board for people who faced violence, or have children in bad relationships.

Dave Arnott wants there to be an online database of people who have been convicted of violent crimes.

"This is not the first person who they've hurt, and people are on dating sites," he said. "If they're guilty, their names should be prominently displayed."

Twenty years ago, April Arnott's case quietly slipped from the public view there was no explanation of what happened, and why. But today, her memory lives on in a Marine Institute scholarship, started by her mother and father, for any student studying marine environmental technology, and in a quiet corner in the Botanical Gardens that's dedicated to the former employee who loved her work so much.

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