A girl's 911 call: 'Dad's choking my mom'

They are only words on a page.

But even from the transcript of the 911 call an 8-year-old girl made Wednesday night in rural Chisago County, it's easy to imagine the panic in her voice as she blurted:

"Hello, my dad's choking my mom."

And as the dispatcher kept her on the line, calling her "honey" and reassuring her that help was on the way, the girl's frantic utterances make three things clear: This isn't the first time she'd lived this nightmare, she'd hoped to never go through this again, and she's terrified of how it will end.

"It's been a long time since my dad choked my mom," she said from an upstairs bedroom of the farmhouse as her mother, in the kitchen, fought her estranged husband. "I tried pushing him away ... I just ran up and called right away ... Are [the deputies] close?"

When the deputies did arrive at the farm near Harris, they found Candice Ouellette, 38, dead from strangulation, Douglas Ouellette, 38, dead from hanging, and two newly orphaned children -- 8-year-old twin girls. Their 10-year-old brother was staying at a friend's house.

Officially, the Ouellettes' deaths are a murder-suicide, open and shut. But interviews and documents -- including the transcript of a 911 call by a shaken 8-year-old -- reveal this murder-suicide to be the last of a disturbing string of events in the disintegration of a marriage, the break-up of a family and a man's inability to cope with his pain and rage.

Doug and Candi Ouellette married in August 1992 in New Brighton. He co-owned a family construction business, Boulder Creek Builders of Coon Rapids. Their son was born in 1999, the twins in 2001. During the same year their son was born, they bought the pastoral property in the town of Harris.

For a long time they seemed "a regular, happy family," said neighbor Carole Stenger, 70. "We always heard kids laughing, and it was a beautiful home. He had built a pond for the kids." The couple always said hello and always sent a Christmas card, she said.

It's unclear when the marital problems began. Relatives contacted for this story declined to comment. But when Candi applied in June for an order for protection, she said her husband had been struggling with depression and suicidal impulses for some time. On a snowmobile trip to Wyoming last winter, he remarked to her that it would be perfect if an avalanche killed him, because then she'd get his life insurance.

And it's apparent from their daughter's 911 call that at some point Doug had begun to physically abuse Candi. By June 10, she'd had enough.

"I told him it did not have to be a painful divorce, and we could work it out," she wrote in neat, girlish handwriting on the application for the protection order. According to her, he replied, "I don't want to divorce and don't want anyone else raising my kids." He said he'd kill himself first.

He sped off in his truck, and Candice called police. When they pulled him over, he promised to sleep off his anger in the pole barn and said he would talk things out with his wife in the morning.

Days later, she offered to drive him to a psychiatric ward. She wrote that his response was "No, We can't afford it now."

She wrote that on June 17 he held a revolver to his head and said, "I want you to see this so you remember for the rest of your life." She grabbed the gun, and he held a second one to his head. She called 911 and he was taken to Fairview Riverside Hospital in Minneapolis.

Then she made a discovery that drove her to ask for the order for protection: His normally empty guns were loaded with five rounds each -- the same number as members of the family.

The application asked if she wanted him to have visitation with the children:

"None until Doug is mentally stable," she wrote. "After proven mentally stable and not a threat, a visitation plan could be worked out."

The judge ordered what she requested and ordered Doug to surrender his guns to the sheriff.

She filed for divorce June 29, and as part of a preliminary legal separation, the judge last month ordered Doug to pay $599 a month in child support.

He was given visitation with his kids and access to his shop and outbuildings during the day, but he couldn't go in the house. He could call or e-mail his wife once a day. He couldn't have his guns back until being evaluated psychologically.

Friends anguished, angry

Authorities say they don't know what triggered Wednesday night's violence, which led to an hourlong manhunt that ended with the discovery of Doug's body hanging in the pole barn.

Lyle Borton, president of Biclite USA, a company for which Candi Ouellette worked from home, said she told him a week before her death that things were getting better. Doug Ouellette was taking his medications and acting "fairly civil." She felt safer. She'd offered to do his laundry.

Borton spoke with her again over the phone hours before her death, discussing only work. Things sounded fine, he said.

Borton said he and his employees are anguished that Candi Ouellette, a doting mother who tried to protect herself and her children, met such a fate. They also mourn for her children, now in the care of relatives.

"We're crying a lot, and we're trying to figure out what to do," Borton said. "I'm still angry at a system that people can't get help from. How you change it, I don't know."

Stenger, the neighbor, wonders if there's anything she could have done -- maybe if she had reached out to them more? She still has a hard time believing that this happened to the people next door.

"Does what happened make them bad people?" she asked. "No, it doesn't. It just makes them part of this crazy world."

Abby Simons • 612-673-4921 Larry Oakes • 673-1751