By David Lohr
(Continued)
Investigators soon learned that Lessard had recently had problems with his job as a senior engineer at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, where he had been employed for the last twelve years.
On Feb. 8, Lessard's supervisors sent him home after he had what coworkers have described as a "breakdown" after a tire on his car went flat. His reactions concerned his fellow colleagues so much that they felt it necessary to report his abnormal behavior.
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| Indian Point nuclear power |
"He was inordinately concerned about getting the car fixed," a spokesman for Indian Point owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast, Jim Steets, said in an interview with the Associated Press, yesterday. "He was clearly having difficulty with relatively minor issues. His co-workers observed that he was overly stressed and just behaving somewhat irrationally."
Fearing that Lessard was suffering from some form of mental breakdown, the company placed him on medical leave and scheduled an appointment for him with a company nurse, which was scheduled to take place some time this week.
According to Capt. Keith Corlett of the state police, his investigators found emails and information from Linda's school psychologist that revealed that Lessard "had personal anxiety and concerns at home as well as at work," Corlett told The Journal News on Wednesday. However, Corlett stopped short of revealing what evidence his barracks have uncovered. "It's a personal family tragedy that we don't want to sensationalize," he said.
According to autopsy results released yesterday, Kathy and Linda both died of asphyxiation from strangling. Evidence suggests that Lessard squeezed the life out of his wife with his bare hands and had used an unknown ligature to kill his daughter. Lessard killed his wife some time between Thursday night and Friday morning. His daughter's death did not occur until some point after her return from school on Friday afternoon.
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