Peel police said Friday that a married couple’s desire to kill themselves lay behind the house explosion that literally rocked a quiet Mississauga neighbourhood this summer.

Dozens of homes were damaged when, on June 28, a massive explosion destroyed a house at 4201 Hickory Drive, near Hwy. 403 and Hwy. 401. The house’s owners, Robert Nadler and Diane Page, were found dead amongst the debris.

In a news conference Friday, Peel police Chief Jennifer Evans said investigators determined that the explosion was intentionally caused, as part of Nadler and Page’s suicide. Their deaths were caused by blunt-force trauma consistent with having been near to the heart of the blast.

The blast was caused by the “intentional disconnect of the natural gas piping in two locations” from the house water heater, said Kevin Pahor of the Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario. It was not possible to determine what specifically then ignited the gas streaming into the home, Pahor said, noting an open flame or an electrical circuit could have done the job.

Nadler, 55 at the time of his death, was convicted of a Peel Region murder in 1982. Stories from The Star’s archives report that Nadler killed his best friend, Eric Pogson, in June 1979.

Evans said that investigators had ruled out the possibility that Nadler and Page’s deaths were the result of a double murder, murder-suicide or an accident.

In the days after the explosion, neighbours and investigators found handwritten notes mixed in with the detritus thrown by the blast.

“Dear God, as of next week everything will fall apart for us,” begins one note.

“We owe mortgage, company, house taxes, water bill, gas bill, hydro bill . . . and we have No Money to fix or pay anyone.”

Peel police said Friday that the notes were believed to have been written by Page. Officers have no reason to believe that Nadler was the instigator of the suicides, they said.

Nadler’s brother Frank was about two kilometres away when he felt the concussion from the blast, and told the Star that when he saw the location of the blast on the news, he thought: “Please, don’t tell me my brother did that.

“He’s hinted at it before, that if his back were to the wall, (suicide) was a viable option,” Frank said.

Frank said that he and his brother were estranged and had not seen each other in about five years. Robert could not hold a job and was never good with money, Frank said, adding that he believed his brother had burned through a recent mortgage refinancing and was broke.

“He wasn’t going to leave that house. He couldn’t just walk away. I knew what Bob was like.”

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, also at Friday’s news conference, said 33 families are unable to return to their homes because of the explosion.

Those affected continue to have problems relating to insurance and utilities, Crombie added.

Evans said the findings are the result of a “very comprehensive investigation” conducted by Peel police, the Office of the Fire Marshal, the Mississauga Fire, Peel Regional Paramedic Services, energy company Enersource, gas provider Enbridge and Ontario’s Technical Standards and Safety Authority.

“We hope that this will provide some answers and some much needed closure . . . in this tragic event,” said Evans.

The City will host a community meeting, likely next week, at which Mississauga officials and representatives from the Insurance Bureau of Canada can answer residents’ questions, said Crombie.

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Nearly 70 homes in the area were damaged on June 28.

Four have since been demolished and, six months after the blast, many are still uninhabitable.

With files from David Bruser

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