
On January 3, 2017, in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, Lionel Desmond killed his daughter, wife, mother and himself. While this was undeniably a domestic violence homicide, it was much more than that.
The Desmond Fatality Inquiry was established to gather information and prepare a report, which was to include:
- information about the logistical elements of the event (when and where it occurred and the cause and manner of death)
- circumstances leading to the death, and
- recommendations for changes to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.
The Honourable Judge Paul Scovil, who led the inquiry in its last stages, released his final report on January 30, 2024. As he wrote in the Introduction:
“It is a history of a soldier’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), intimate partner violence and a cascade of events ultimately leading to Corporal Desmond shooting his daughter, wife and mother before turning his weapon on himself. It is a story of mental health systems encased in silos built over cracks.”
Missing the IPV
Too often, incidents of intimate partner abuse, including lethal violence, are hidden or dismissed in favour of focussing on other issues, including the mental health of the perpetrator. When that happens, we fail to make the changes needed to properly address the safety and well-being of women and children in families filled with complex and intersecting challenges.
The inquiry heard from more than 50 witnesses — friends and family of the victims and perpetrator; professionals who had engaged with the perpetrator in the community, various hospitals and the military; expert witnesses on domestic violence, firearms and other aspects of the case — and reviewed hundreds if not thousands of pages of written evidence before Judge Scovil wrote the final report.
Through this Inquiry, the story emerged of a homicide that should not have happened and of systems that failed a vulnerable perpetrator and his family. As Dr. Peter Jaffe, who prepared an expert witness report for and testified at the inquiry, said:
“The January 2017 triple homicides and suicide . . . seem entirely predictable and preventable with hindsight. The hindsight is clear in the context of all the information available about the serious risks that Cpl. Desmond was presenting and the history that could have been known to professionals as well as family and friends. Although it may have been difficult to predict exactly when and how these events would unfold, Cpl. Desmond and his family seemed on a clear path for a horrific tragedy based on all available information reviewed by the Inquiry.”
Failing to connect the dots
According to Jaffe, Desmond saw as many as 40 medical practitioners, mental health professionals and police, but each seemed to assess his risk factors in isolation. Overall, there was a lack of understanding that IPV was a major factor in his marriage and that it posed “a real and objectively measurable increased risk of harm.”
Jaffe’s report, which can be found in full at page 221 of the Inquiry’s final report, is an excellent examination of intimate partner violence and homicide, in this case and more broadly. In it, he refers to the “multiple euphemisms” used to describe intimate partner violence in the Desmond relationship:
“The terms violence and abuse were rarely used or expanded upon . . . . The problem was not named. There was a focus on mental health alone.”
Further, Shanna Desmond’s perspective was seldom sought by the professionals treating her husband, and any attention paid to IPV focused entirely on physical abuse without recognizing the multiple forms IPV can take.
Shanna did not reach out for support until the day of the homicides/suicide when she called a women’s IPV organization for information. Like many victims, she may well have been more focused on the danger her husband presented to himself while not recognizing that he also posed a significant risk to her and other family members.
Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee has identified 41 risk factors associated with domestic homicides. On average, the cases reviewed by the committee have seven or more such factors present. In the Desmond case, Jaffe identified 20 risk factors, including some of those seen most often: a history of IPV, a pending separation, a perpetrator suffering from depression and prior threats by the perpetrator to kill himself.
As the final report said:
“The Inquiry heard evidence that police agencies interacted with the Desmond family on several occasions.. . . None of these interactions resulted in charges under the Criminal Code of Canada. . . . And yet, in retrospect, each of these interactions were replete with warning signs about risks for intimate partner violence and domestic homicide.”
The final report makes 25 recommendations for changes that need to be made. They are good recommendations. Many, we have heard in identical or similar words from other inquests and inquiries and from death review committees across the country. As Judge Scovil acknowledges:
“At the end of the day, it is impossible to say with certainty that had the recommendations from this Inquiry been in place when Corporal Desmond left the military no suicide or homicides would have occurred, but we can say that they possibly would have helped avert January 3, 2017.”
That’s true enough. However, and without taking away at all from this specific family’s tragedy and ongoing grief, for me, there is a bigger tragedy: we know what we need to know, and yet, collectively, we – all of us – fail to take the necessary steps to prevent further similar tragedies from occurring.
What will it take?