Tragedy eludes explanation

After at least one other failed suicide attempt, Kathrine Dufresne — the Chelsea woman who killed her seven-year-old daughter Sophie Fitzpatrick — has ended her own life.

Dufresne, 53, died in hospital Wednesday night after being found hanging in the jail shower.

Last fall, Dufresne and her adopted daughter Sophie were found injured inside the family home — a discovery made by Dufresne’s husband and Sophie’s father Murray Fitzpatrick, who had just returned from a business trip.

Sophie was pronounced dead in Hull hospital.

The girl had been strangled and Dufresne had tried to kill herself, police said at the time.

A suicide note was discovered at the house.

After a psychiatric assessment, the court ruled Dufresne was fit to stand trial.

That was on Monday.

Three days later, she was dead.

“Something like this is extremely rare,” said her lawyer Wayne Lora, who learned of his client’s death from the media.

So why would a woman, who’d spent months trying to adopt a child, end up killing her? A daughter by all accounts she was head-over-heels in love with.

Lora said he’s never dealt with anything like this before.

His explanation: “She didn’t know herself.”

As for any mental health condition, any medication she might be taking, Lora isn’t saying.

But he has admitted in the past to having the same questions as everyone else

“This is a very pathetic case,” he said at an earlier court appearance. “A seven-year-old child?”

He’s dealt with infanticide, usually a result of a mother’s postpartum depression, but he said it occurs when the child is eight to 10 months old.

“Not an older child — I’ve never had that,” he said.

And Dufresne’s husband, Murray Fitzpatrick, is now left without his family, first losing his daughter, then his wife. Understandably, he isn’t interested in talking.

Contacted by the Sun Thursday, he hung up the phone — politely, but quickly.

So now friends and family can only wonder how a woman who appeared on the outside as a happy, loving parent, could take her own daughter’s life.

For most of us, it’s unthinkable, unimaginable.

At the time of little Sophie’s death, friends and neighbours described Dufresne as a loving, attentive mother.

Good friends Sue Marchand and her husband Claude have known the Fitzpatricks for almost 20 years. They were the best kind of parents, they said at the time of Sophie’s shocking death.

Little Sophie was the light of everyone’s lives, according to the couple. Sophie had been in Canada for 5½ years, adopted by the Fitzpatricks from China.

“Kathy is a very good friend of mine and so is Murray,” said Sue Marchand, adding she went to the movies with Dufresne every Tuesday.

Sue Marchand had seen Sophie just days before he death as the girl made her way home from school with her mother.

While some have hinted at marital discord, Lora has earlier insisted the relationship between Fitzpatrick and Dufresne had nothing to do the attempted murder-suicide.

Whatever demons danced in Kathrine Dufresne’s head likely died with her.

Lora said through all of his dealings with his clients, she appeared normal.

“From everything I saw, she seemed quite sane when I was dealing with her,” he said.

He can’t explain what happened when she took her daughter’s life.

“It was 10 minutes of insanity when she killed her daughter. Killing herself was probably the sanest thing she did.”