A suicidal maintenance worker with financial problems killed his wife and three children with a shotgun before killing himself ,over the weekend in what state police called one of the worst cases of domestic violence in Maine history, investigators said .
Joel Smith presented a friendly face at the 61-unit apartment complex where he worked. But he was having domestic and financial problems, and his wife told a family friend that he had recently threatened to kill himself, police said.
The family had moved from Arizona about two years ago because of the sour economy, said Smith's mother, Jerys Caruthers-Thorpe, of Scottsdale, Arizona.
"I know something had to have snapped because Joel never would have done that in his right mind," she told The Associated Press.
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