Staff at Summerhays Grill in Ottawa were left reeling after learning that two former employees were dead in what police were calling a “serious incident” at a home near Kingston on Valentine’s Day.

Jason MacDonald, who worked with Nicole Guimond, 28, and Travis Sayyeau, 24, said the couple had just moved to Odessa, about 20 kilometres west of Kingston, in the past few months.

“Oh my God,” was all MacDonald could say at first after learning the news.

Guimond had worked at the restaurant at Baseline Road and Woodroffe Avenue for more than a year. Sayyeau was an employee there for much longer.

MacDonald said the couple moved to Odessa after Guimond’s mother offered them her house to live in while she was abroad.

Their respective Facebook pages offer a glimpse of a young couple and their dog sharing a two-storey duplex at 5 Creighton Dr. in Odessa. Guimond’s Facebook postings, in particular, suggest a young woman caught up in domestic life.

In late January, she posted a touching sketch of how she persevered in overcoming her dog’s “behavioural issues” to the point where, as she put it, “I was seriously considering bringing him back to the people that gave him up.

“But I couldn’t. I was sure he hated me, but I stuck with him, tried my best to be patient, and NEVER stopped loving him.

“Today, he is my best friend. I want him with me wherever I go. He follows me everywhere. He sleeps on my head or my feet. He gets super excited when I come home. I get kisses whenever I want. He cuddles me every time I sit down or lie down, whether I’m in bed or on the sofa or at the dinner table. We play hide and seek. We have chats all the time. I throw snow at him and he does wild acrobatics for my amusement …

“He loves me and trusts me unconditionally and I couldn’t imagine my life without his furry little face.”

A posting from July is equally effusive. On picture of Sayyeau and the dog, Dukino, Guimond wrote: “Totally and completely in love with these two.”

Sayyeau’s Facebook posts were more sparse, but they refer to him as having studied at Algonquin College and attending high school in Iroquois, Ont.

Police arrived at the Creighton Drive house there the couple lived around noon Sunday.

When police arrived, they found Guimond dead and Sayyeau seriously injured. He was taken to hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Police said autopsies would be carried out on Tuesday to determine the cause of death. They did not release information on a weapon, if any, being used.

Main Street and Creighton Drive were closed on Sunday but the roads have since reopened.

At 4 p.m., two OPP Forensic Identification Unit vans and numerous other OPP vehicles were parked along Creighton Drive, where the home was surrounded by yellow crime scene tape.

Detectives sat in their vehicles writing notes or talking on the phone, while three officers entered the home.

An aqua-coloured Chevrolet Cobalt and a black Saturn Aura were parked in the driveway.

mhurley@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/meghan_hurley