Cumberland Police Chief John Desmarais, right, with Mayor Daniel McKee, provides details concerning the deaths of Norman V. Langelier and Beatrice Langelier.

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The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

CUMBERLAND — Norman V. Langelier shot and killed his wife, Beatrice Langelier, and then set off a series of propane explosions that took his own life and unleashed a storm of fire in the couple’s home, the police said yesterday.

As Langelier prepared for his own death early Thursday morning, the 61-year-old North Attleboro businessman tried to protect the local firefighters who would rush to the blazing house at 500 Nate Whipple Highway, according to Cumberland Police Chief John Desmarais.

Langelier wrote the firefighters a note and put it where he knew they would notice it: on top of a propane tank. He left the tank in the back of his pickup truck in the driveway, Desmarais said.

“Firemen, please do not enter,” the note said. “Explosives, gunpowder, ammo inside the house.”

The note supported the neighbors’ memory of Langelier as a caring person — a representation at odds with Desmarais’ account of what happened to 60-year-old Beatrice Langelier just a few months before the 40th wedding anniversary that she and her family were looking forward to.

“The medical examiner is ruling that it is a murder-suicide,” Desmarais said.

She died from skull fractures and brain injuries resulting from a gunshot wound to the head, according to the medical examiner’s report. Investigators have determined that Langelier shot his wife with a gun, but they don’t know which gun he used, Desmarais said. Desmarais said 40 pistols and rifles were removed from the site but did not give details on the types of weapons.

The devastation of the fire, he said, made it impossible to determine where Beatrice Langelier was when she was slain. Also, it’s possible that she died hours before the fire, Desmarais said.

The medical examiner ruled that Norman Langelier died from multiple blunt-force injuries, which Desmarais said were consistent with the explosions.

Investigators are still trying to determine how Langelier set off the explosions and the fire, but it involved propane tanks scattered throughout the house and it was well-planned, Desmarais said.

“We are still investigating to determine what might have led him to do this,” he said.

Detectives are still interviewing Langelier’s family members. THE TWO MET the junior year of high school, when Norman Langelier was a student at Mount St. Charles Academy. She was in a Catholic school in North Smithfield.

They married on June 14, 1968, soon after he graduated from Norwich University in Northfield, Vt. For a while, Beatrice Langelier wasassistant North Smithfield tax collector.

Norman Langelier served in the Army. Later, he became the president of Barber Electric Manufacturing Co., a North Attleboro company that makes metal electrical equipment and supplies. Established in 1915, the company has 22 employees and annual sales of $1.5 million, according to an online posting at Manta.com

They had three Yorkshire terriers, and Beatrice Langelier liked to spoil her nieces and nephews, her sister said.

In 1999, the couple moved into the 3,300-square-foot house on the crest of a hill that gently slopes to Nate Whipple Highway. She filled it with beautiful furniture, including antiques.

“She was so proud of that house,” her grieving sister, Linda Thibault, recalled yesterday before Desmarais’ news conference.Thibault, who is the North Smithfield Town Council president, didn’t want to talk about what had happened to her sister. She just wanted to remember her.

They were best friends, she said.

“She was a wonderful, caring daughter, sister, aunt, wife,” she said.

The couple’s wedding date is fresh in Thibault’s mind because Beatrice was planning a 40th-anniversary party with a ’50s band at Bella Restaurant in Burrillville in June.

She was inviting 150 people. Her finger was sore from writing the invitations.

Thibault didn’t want to discuss her sister’s marriage, but she acknowledged that her anniversary plans suggested that it was happy.

“ ‘Why did this happen?” she asked. “How could this happen?’ You go through all of that.”

INVESTIGATORS THEORIZE the note to the firefighters was one of the last things Langelier did before he set off the explosions around 4:30 a.m. Thursday.

Cumberland police Officer David Rosa was among the first to arrive at the Langelier’s house, a yellow eight-room structure with a columned front porch. He approached the front door, Desmarais said.

“At that time in the morning,” he said, “it’s reasonable to believe that there’s somebody in the house.”

But an explosion stopped Rosa from breaking in. Soon after that, Sgt. James Speroni and Patrol Officer Rob Fay arrived.

The discovery of the note kept police and firefighters from making a foray into the house. Without it, they might have ventured inside as the fire sent ammunition shooting into the sky.

Desmarais was asked if Langelier’s note had saved lives.

“Absolutely,” he said. “It did.”

mreynold@projo.com