Man faces charges in deaths of wife, kids

The Canadian citizen is accused of stabbing his wife to death, then killing the
children in a house fire.

LEBANON, Ohio (AP) — A man accused of fatally stabbing his wife and setting their house on fire, killing his four children, was indicted Friday on aggravated murder charges.

Michel Veillette, 34, faces the death penalty if convicted of killing his family. He was indicted on five counts of aggravated murder and other charges related to the Jan. 11 fire. He has been held without bond since his arrest.

Veillette is accused of stabbing his wife, Nadya Ferrari-Veillette, 33, and using gasoline to set fire to the couple’s home in an upscale neighborhood about 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

The couple’s four children — Marguerite, 8, Vincent, 4, and twins Jacob and Mia, 2 — died of smoke inhalation, authorities said.

“We intend to bring Michel Veillette to justice for this horrible crime against this entire family,” Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel said.

A police detective who questioned Veillette testified at a preliminary hearing that he acknowledged stabbing his wife and setting the fire after she confronted him with a $2,000 credit card bill for jewelry. Ferrari-Veillette considered it proof that he was having an affair.

The detective said Veillette told his wife he was leaving and went upstairs to pack, but she attacked him with a knife and frying pan in their bedroom.

Veillette said he stabbed her during a struggle and got a can of gasoline from the garage to accelerate the fire he set, the detective said.

In a later interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer, Veillette acknowledged that he and his wife argued over money and his girlfriend, but he said his wife set the fire before attacking him with the frying pan and knife.

He claimed in the newspaper interview that smoke was coming into the room as the couple struggled and that he saw a gas can at the bedroom door. He said he tried to go after the children, but the smoke and fire were too intense.

Veillette is scheduled for arraignment next week. His wife and children were buried in Laval, Quebec, just north of Montreal. The family is from Canada, which abolished the death penalty in 1976.

“The law in the state of Ohio, where this crime was committed, is that we have the death penalty,” Hutzel said. “You know that saying: You do the crime, you do the time.

“He may have been a Canadian citizen, but he was here when he killed his wife and those four little kids.”

A message seeking comment was left for a lawyer who represented Veillette at an earlier hearing.