Jody Marchand, mother of Olivia
by Joyce Pellino Crane
WESTFORD, MASS. – The day after a Westford Academy student was fatally shot by her father with a 9 mm. handgun, according to police, dozens of students gathered inside the public high school’s auditorium to handwrite their sorrow on rolls of paper stretched across the stage.
About 70 seniors gathered this afternoon to grieve collectively for Olivia Marchand, a popular high school senior who was planning to attend the University of Vermont in the fall as a freshman.
Instead she was found dead at 8:37 p.m. yesterday inside her parent’s master bedroom on Makepeace Road from a gunshot wound, the victim of a murder-suicide, according to Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone. Leone said her father, Brian Marchand, 59 shot and killed his 17-year-old daughter, and shot his wife, Jody Marchand, 50, who was med-flighted to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester where she remains in critical condition (checking).
Westford Academy Principal James Antonelli said the students’ writings and artwork would be hung along school corridors.
A police detail stood at the front door yesterday afternoon, and the town’s top public safety officials were meeting with Antonelli inside his office. Members of the Clergy were present to help the school’s guidance counselors with grief counseling. Antonelli said colleagues from several other school districts, including Tyngsborough, offered to help counsel students.
The mood was somber inside the building. Mournful expressions were on the faces of some teachers, guidance counselors and students.
Antonelli said the senior class had been planning a celebration of their remaining 100 days of school Thursday. But with Marchand’s tragic passing, that event has been canceled, as was all of today’s after-school activities.
Instead students are planning a vigil in Marchand’s honor for Thursday during school hours. Meanwhile, at the Star Circle home of Marchand’s best friend, Nicole Kibblehouse, about a dozen students met after school today with the Revs. Peter F. Quinn and David P. White of St. Catherine of Alexandria Roman Catholic Church in Westford, according to Kibblehouse’s mother Lynn Kibblehouse.
The Marchand family did not participate in the church community, according to a woman who answered the phone at the Parish Center. But Lynn Kibblehouse said she and her family are members of the Parish.
Kibblehouse said she was anticipating a large crowd of students tonight.
“I was told to clear out the furniture,” she said.
The elder Kibblehouse said her daughter declined to speak to reporters but authorized her mother to share information about her friendship with Olivia Marchand.
The two had known each other since middle school, said Kibblehouse, and had become best friends over the past two years. The friendship began with a passion for jewelry-making and evolved into an interest in Yoga and Buddhism.
“They were free spirits,” said Kibblehouse. “Their uniqueness made them best friends.”
Just recently the two girls dyed their hair at another friend’s house and then arrived at the Kibblehouse residence to rinse out the color in a race against the clock.
“It was so funny,” said Kibblehouse. “They ran through the house. It was hysterical.”
Kibblehouse said she was unaware that Brian Marchand had weapons in his home.
“It never crossed my mind,” she said.
This was the second violent incident in this quiet, serene community within three weeks. On January 9, police say Frederick Leduc, 45, fatally shot his wife Karen, 43, and then shot himself under the chin. He is charged with first degree murder. The family includes two teenage sons who attend Westford Academy and an adult son living on his own.
Leone said Marchand was an avid hunter and fisherman and possessed several guns that were legally registered.
“There were also other weapons not registered in the home,” said Leone.
Police dispatchers received two hangup calls Monday night to their Emergency 911 system. Caller identification provided the phone number, and a dispatcher phoned the home and spoke with Olivia Marchand who said she was “all set,” according to Leone, meaning the family was not in need of police assistance. But Brian Marchand shot Olivia, his wife, and himself, Leone said. It was not clear whether police heard gunshots while on the phone, but they arrived on the scene minutes later, said Leone, to find an “unspeakable” scene. No one else was inside the home, Leone said.
Olivia and Brian were pronounced dead at the scene, and Jody was critically wounded.
Police had no record of domestic violence calls to the home, said Leone. The couple may have been experiencing marital discord and financial troubles, but nothing leading “to this degree,” he added. Kibblehouse said Brian Marchand had been ill recently but was recovering. He is the father of three children from a previous marriage. Olivia was the only child of Brian and Jody Marchand.
She was described by Leone as a beautiful, extremely well-liked cheerleader at Westford Academy. However, Antonelli later said Marchand was working too many hours this year to participate on the school’s cheerleading squad.
Brian Marchand is a member of an extended family in the area, which runs an oil burner business. Leo Marchand, Inc., of Chelmsford is owned by Colonial Oil, of Chelmsford, Ray Marchand Oil, and Dagnon Oil, both of Lowell. The business was established in 1960. It’s not clear whether Brian Marchand was affiliated with any of the companies.
Jody Marchand is a Senior Loan Officer at the Salem Five Bank, and a member of the Northeast Association of Realtors, Inc., both of Chelmsford.
The association’s Executive Director Anne Rendle said she knows Jody Marchand as “a wonderful association volunteer, a worker, a roll up your sleeves type of person.”
Westford Academy has had its share of tragedy and triumphs. In 2003, a math teacher pled guilty to distributing heroin and was sentenced to four years in the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Framingham. At least two Westford Academy students, at the time, were the recipients of the drugs. But in 2007 the high school was one of 35 Massachusetts learning institutes to be selected as a Compass School by the state Department of Education and in 2008, Antonelli was one of only two principals in the state to bring home a No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon award from the US Department of Education. The school consistently ranks among the top on assessment testing scores.
Superintendent Everett “Bill” Olsen professed “profound sadness” over Marchand’s death.
“Our job right now is to make sure everyone can make it through the week with support,” he said.
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