JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The father of a 29-year-old woman killed in an apparent murder-suicide in an Oceanway neighborhood early Sunday morning said the family just told his 6- and 10-year-old grandchildren that both their parents are dead.
"We had to sit them down last night, and it was very difficult, I mean how can you put it together that you just lost both of your parents?" said Noel LeClerc.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has yet to identify the victims found on Dunn Creek Road just after 3 a.m. Sunday, but Noel LeClerc said Daniel "Wayne" Blair, 38, shot his long-time girlfriend, Stephanie LeClerc, and then turned the gun on himself.
Noel LeClerc said the children were not home when the shooting occurred. He said there were no signs of domestic abuse, no indications that Blair would kill his girlfriend, and then turn the gun on himself.
But when Blair was arrested last year on a DUI charge -- he was pulled over on Atlantic Boulevard driving 77 mph in a 45 mph zone -- he made statements to police about committing suicide.
Noel LeClerc said he believes his daughter and Blair were fighting before things got out of control, but he doesn't hate the man.
"I love him like a son," Noel LeClerc said. "I accepted him in my family' but things changed with the accident. I don't hate him, I hate what he did."
Noel LeClerc is referring to a near-fatal car crash in 2012 in which both suffered serious injuries. He said Blair was never the same.
"He had a bad wreck and had some trauma to his head, I'm not saying that's the cause or anything, but he did change. People change," Noel LeClerc said.