On the morning of December 30, 2014, 49-year-old Katherine Lavoie was fatally shot in her hospital room at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, New Hampshire. Katherine was on life support in the critical care unit when her husband, 50-year-old Mark Lavoie, entered the room shortly after 6 a.m. and shot her before turning the gun on himself. Autopsy findings recorded Katherine’s cause of death as a single gunshot wound to the head, and her death was ruled a homicide; Mark Lavoie’s death was ruled a suicide from a single gunshot wound to the head.

Mark posted a lengthy message on Facebook in the hours before the shooting that discussed the incident and characterized it as a double suicide, saying Katherine had been battling mental illness and feared prolonged life support. His sister Dorcas Lavoie told reporters he had shot his wife out of love. Katherine, a Dover High School and University of New Hampshire graduate, worked in medical records at a rehabilitation center and was a mother of two; the couple’s joint obituary asked for donations to the National Alliance on Mental Illness in lieu of flowers. The investigation concluded Mark was the sole perpetrator; no other suspects were sought.

Did anyone know Katherine or her family and have additional context about her life or the events leading up to that day?