What We Know About the Kitchener House Explosion

A house explosion that left one woman dead and one man critically injured in Kitchener has been deemed a homicide by authorities.

On Wednesday morning an explosion rocked the Forest Heights neighbourhood of Kitchener, destroying one home and damaging several more. The body of Edresilda Haan, 58, was found in the backyard of the house following the explosion. Family members confirmed that Edresilda’s husband, Udo Haan, was airlifted from the house—neighbours who helped rescue the man say he was covered in severe burns.

On Thursday, at a press conference in Kitchener, police confirmed that they are investigating Haan’s death as a homicide. Not much more, including how this explosion was carried out or any possible motive targeting the couple, is known.

“With evidence that we have extracted from the scene, as well as the results of the autopsy that was conducted by the Coroner’s Office, we are confident that Ms. Haan, her death, was the result of a homicide,” Waterloo detective Mike Haffner said in a press conference Thursday.

Police still do not know what caused the explosion but did check for gas leaks and found there were none. Police have said that the husband is not considered a suspect at the moment. They will be interviewing him but are waiting for him to be released from hospital. The couple lived their with two dogs, one of which was killed in the explosion and the other has been given to a shelter.

In a statement, the brother of Edresilda Haan described his sister as “a very giving, very unselfish person.”

“She was my parents’ caregiver and was their lifeline,” the statement said. “As a sister, she was somebody I looked up to. Someone who put her family ahead of herself.”

The explosion prompted 16 homes to be evacuated. Most of the families were allowed to return home by the end of Wednesday, but the people living on either side of the now decimated home will be out for longer. Kitchener’s fire chief estimates that the damage caused by the explosion to the surrounding area will total in the millions. People living in the Forest Heights neighbourhood described the explosion and its aftermath as dramatic.

"It had just started raining and the dark clouds were coming over, so we at first thought it was a lightning strike," Joan Thompson, who lives four houses down from the Haans, told the CBC. "We were looking out the front window and there was this rain of stuff in the sky coming down. It looked like leaves … but it was insulation; it was just a curtain of insulation coming down."

Two years ago a similar explosion took place in Mississauga—this one forcing the evacuation of 69 homes. In the rubble of the home were Robert Nadler and Dianne Page, both 55, police determined the cause of death as a double-suicide. The natural gas line to the home’s water heater had been disconnected and the home filled with gas—police do not know what ignited the gas but know that Page and Nadler were alive at the time of the explosion and died of blunt force trauma.

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