FREEPORT, Maine (AP) – A Maine man who killed two nuns and severely injured two others in 1996 has died.
Fifty-eight-year-old Mark Bechard died Sunday in Freeport from complications arising from Lou Gerhig’s disease.
The Kennebec Journal reports Bechard was committed to a state psychiatric hospital in October 1996 after he was found not criminally responsible, by reason of mental disease or defect, on two counts of murder for the January 1996 attack at Servants of the Blessed Sacrament chapel in Waterville.
Authorities say he was suffering a psychotic episode when he attacked the four nuns.
The death was announced in a letter from the state Department of Health and Human Services, saying he had been recently diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and had experienced a steady decline in respiratory function.
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