Man charged with killing mom, nieces

SAINT ROMAIN, Quebec, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- A man was charged Saturday with killing his 70-year-old mother and two young nieces in a small town in Quebec, police said.

Pascal Morin, 35, of St. Romain faces three counts of premeditated murder, Le Soleil newspaper in Quebec said.

Investigators identified the victims as Ginette Roy-Morin, 70, and her granddaughters, Laurence Fillion, 11, and Juliette Fillion, 8.

Police were called to the house that Morin and his mother shared at 6 p.m. Friday. They found the bodies and took Morin into custody, questioning him for most of the night.

St. Romain is a small town in southern Quebec, about 60 miles south of Quebec City and 50 miles northeast of Sherbrooke. Roy-Marin was well known there as a longtime teacher in the elementary school serving St. Romain and neighboring St. Sebastien.

The two girls, whose paternal grandfather is mayor of the town, were staying with Roy-Morin while their mother was in Mexico and their father working on the family farm.