Couple arrested in Nova Scotia in deaths of mother, son in Ontario

TORONTO – Police say a woman and her common-law husband have been arrested in Nova Scotia and charged with killing her ex-husband and his mother, who died three years apart.

Caleb Harrison, 41, was found dead in August in a home in Mississauga, Ont. — the same home where his mother died in 2010.

Peel Regional police say the cause of death for both is asphyxiation and that the 2009 death of Harrison’s father — in the same home — is still under investigation.

Police say Melissa Merritt, 33, and her common-law husband, Christopher Fattore, 36, were arrested today near Bridgewater, N.S., and will appear in court Wednesday morning in Halifax before being sent back to Ontario.

Insp. George Koekkoek says Merritt and Harrison had two children and split up in 2005, which is also the year she and Fattore met.

Koekkoek says Merritt was previously convicted of the parental abduction of the children she had with Harrison — an abduction Koekkoek says occurred around the same time as Harrison’s father’s death.