HOLLIS – A husband and wife whose bodies were found in their home Wednesday afternoon apparently died in a murder-suicide, state police said.
The bodies of Mike Lagarde, 50, and Freda Lagarde, 44, were found in or near a back bedroom in their home at 13 Brook Drive.
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State police detectives and York County sheriff’s deputies said it appeared that Lagarde had shot his wife before turning the gun on himself, said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Their bodies were found by their adult daughter, who went to their home around 1 p.m. after she was unable to contact her mother by telephone, McCausland said. Mike Lagarde was her stepfather.
Neighbors said the daughter lived on Brook Drive with her parents until she moved out a few weeks ago.
Police said the shootings may have occurred late Tuesday night, though two neighbors reported hearing gunfire around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Jackie Worthington, who lives next door, said she was friendly with the Lagardes and worked for about a year with Freda Lagarde at Core Logix, a call center in Biddeford.
“I don’t know how I feel yet,” said Worthington, who has five children, all younger than 11. “I guess I can’t believe (the Lagardes) are gone. I don’t know what to tell the kids. They just loved Freda.”
The Lagardes lived in a mobile home park off Route 117 in Hollis Center, known as Tanglewood Mobile Estates. There are 41 homes in the park.
Brook Drive is a dead-end, wooded street in the park. The Lagardes lived at the end of the street.
Their turquoise home appeared to have been maintained immaculately. The property includes a small shed, a single-car garage, a paved driveway and a spacious yard.
Neighbors said Mike Lagarde used a leaf blower and mowed his lawn on Tuesday after coming home early from his job at Garland Manufacturing in Saco.
The couple maintained a garden and a swimming pool in their backyard, and neighbors said Mike Lagarde enjoyed shooting at targets from his spacious rear deck.
“It’s scary and it’s devastating,” said Ann “Dallas” Shira, who lives across the street from the Lagardes’ home.
Shira said she was sleeping soundly Tuesday night when the sound of gunshots woke her up sometime between 11:30 and midnight.
“I heard five shots, ‘bang, bang, bang,’ one right after the other,” Shira said. “It woke me out of a sound sleep. At first I thought it was cherry bombs going off. It scared me because it was very loud.”
Shira and other neighbors didn’t call police because the sound of gunfire is so common in their neighborhood.
The Buxton and Hollis Rod and Gun Club is behind the mobile home park. The club, which has a shooting range, is so close to the park that gunfire could be heard Wednesday afternoon from Brook Drive.
Shira and Worthington said they heard two more gunshots — coming from the vicinity of Lagarde’s home — around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.
“There were two loud pops real close together,” Worthington said. “I didn’t think anything about it because the shooting range is so close to us.”
Worthington said her children ride their bikes and play in the Lagardes’ driveway, where there is a basketball hoop.
Last summer, she was invited to attend Mike Legarde’s 50th birthday celebration.
“I talked to them two days ago and they seemed fine,” Worthington said.
The couple bought their home in 2007, said Rebecca L. Bowley, who manages the park for her father, Robert M. Hanson, who owns the property.
Bowley said she never had any problems with the Lagardes, who she said were married for five years.
“It’s really unbelievable that something like this could happen in Hollis,” Bowley said.
State police removed two bodies from the home around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
McCausland said late Wednesday night that investigators had not found any suicide note.
The state Medical Examiner’s Office is scheduled to examine the bodies today. That examination is expected to help investigators determine the time and cause of the Lagardes’ deaths.
Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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