Yassin Mender, Alem Haile dead in Ottawa murder-suicide

A woman and her husband were found dead in a townhouse in the east Ottawa neighbourhood of Beacon Hill early Thursday morning in amurder-suicide.

A teenageboy called 911 at about 6:30 a.m. ET after discoveringthe bodies in the basement of a home onBeaconwood Drive, CBC News has learned. The boywas also treated for an injury.

The woman had been stabbed and her husbandappeared to have taken his own life.

Over the weekend, police identified the couple and confirmed the deaths were a murder-suicide. Theman was identifiedas Yassin Mender, 60, who police said killed his wife, 51-year-old Alem Haile, before taking his own life.

The family is Eritrean, and the couple leave behind three children.

'You never want to hear something so sad'

Neighbour Phara Vincent, who works as a nurseat The Royal Ottawa mental health centre, called the news "devastating."

"It's shocking,it's devastating," Vincent said. "You never want to hear something so sad.

"That's our number one goal as mental health nurses,to prevent tragedies like this from happeningbefore they happen. And when it's too late you start thinking what you could have done, if you had noticed any signs. We never noticed any domestic disputes or anything like that," Vincent said, adding that she only knew the couple enough to say hello.

The Ottawa policemajor crimes unitis investigating.