LEBANON — A man awaiting trial on charges he killed his wife and their four young children hanged himself early Tuesday with a bed sheet in his jail cell, officials said.
   Michel Veillette, 34, had pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of aggravated murder and two counts of aggravated arson in the Jan. 11 stabbing of his wife and subsequent fire that killed the children in their home in an upscale subdivision in suburban Mason.
   “Being confident in my case, I would have preferred to have brought him to justice for the deaths of these little children and his wife,” said Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel. “He’s going to face now justice of another kind.”
   Veillette was alive in bed when a corrections officer checked his cell at 12:54 a.m., Sheriff Tom Ariss said. But the next time rounds were made, at 1:39 a.m., Veillette was lying on the floor, a sheet around his neck tied to a towel rack, he said.
   Jail medical staff began CPR and life support measures, and the Lebanon Fire Department Life Squad took Veillette to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead, Ariss said. An autopsy showed no injuries other than those consistent with hanging, Ariss said.
   Authorities said Veillette and his wife, Nadya Ferrari-Veillette, 33, fought after he returned home from a business trip and she confronted him with a credit-card bill for jewelry for his mistress. They said he stabbed her and then used gasoline to set fire to the home, about 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati.
   The four children died of smoke inhalation. They were Marguerite, 8; Vincent, 4, and 2-year-old twins, Mia and Jacob.
   Veillette had told The Cincinnati Enquirer in late January that he killed his wife after she attacked him with a knife and frying pan. He claimed that she set the fire and that he tried to save the children but couldn’t.
   Tim McKenna, an attorney for Veillette, said he seemed to be getting ready to fight the charges. His attorneys had filed dozens of pretrial motions, and the trial schedule was pending.
   “I’m totally shocked,” McKenna said. “He had been progressively more upbeat and he was very interested in defending himself.”
   Ariss said Veillette had been under a suicide watch during his first 10 days in jail. While on such watch, materials that could be used for suicide attempts are kept away from inmates and jailers check on them as frequently as every 10 minutes.
   Mental health staff had concluded he could be housed under normal jail conditions, which call for a check within every hour. Ariss said he had seen Veillette last week and there had been no reports of any unusual behavior or comments.
   Veillette frequently wrote notes and kept a log, and Ariss said authorities would look through the writings as they investigate the circumstances of the suicide.
   Ariss said Warren County authorities were contacting Veillette’s relatives in his native Canada.
   “My thoughts were pulled in quite a few different ways,” said Brenda O’Neill, who helps run Colors Cafe in Mason where Nadya worked for about three months. “I’m glad that there’s an end to it. I also feel sad for both families.”
   Veillette had a strip of photos of his children and would have those photos out when talking about the case, McKenna said.
   “It’s just a very sad ending to a tragic story,” McKenna said.
 

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