Change-of-Address Cards Tell of Suicide: 5 Die in Fire

LEBANON, N.H. — Two change-of-address cards for Caroline Hull and Michael Dean were slipped into the mailbox outside the local post office. The cards said: “Deceased. Took own life.”

By the time a postal clerk found the cards, Hull’s home was a pile of charred rubble. Five bodies were found in the ruins.

Assistant Atty. Gen. David Plourde said that positive identification of the bodies has not been made, but authorities believe they are Hull, 32, her three children and Dean, in his early 40s, who lived with them.

Plourde identified the children as Kenneth Hull, 11, Jeremy, 5, and Theresa, 4.

The bodies were found close together, but Plourde could not say whether the victims had been harmed or bound before the fire, which neighbors spotted at about 3 a.m.

Asked what caused the fire, he said, “Given the extent to which the house was consumed, we may never know.”

Gary Hubbard, a clerk in the West Lebanon post office, said the change-of-address cards entered in the names of Caroline Hull and Dean were found at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday in the mailbox outside the post office.

“They both read the same,” Hubbard said. “ ‘Deceased. Took own life.’ ”

The box had last been checked at 5:30 p.m. Monday.