Kindness for a killer: Could you mourn someone who murdered his family?

It's the sort of crime and tragedy that's almost unfathomable.

Authorities first said Sept. 2 that the fire at a Long Branch house where four people were found dead might not have been an accident. Two days later, they confirmed the horrific details. Lyndon "Shane" Beharry shot dead his girlfriend and their two children, ages 4 and 7 before turning the gun on himself and setting the home ablaze, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said.

Pictures left outside the Beharry home alongside candles, flowers and plush toys showed the Beharry boys with their father. And when the boys and Amanda Morris were burried, Lyndon "Shane" Beharry was buried with them.

New Jersey Advance Media, attending the funeral this week, reported that over and over again, mourners spoke of the love both parents had for their children. A video montage showed the Beharry family in happy, loving embraces.

"Shane, Brandon, Mandy and Brian, were a beautiful family," a woman identified as Sara reportedly said. She called Lyndon "Shane" Beharry an "amazing man," and said his children were his life, according to the report.

Family and close friends weren't the only ones caught off-guard. The Asbury Park Press quotes Mayor Adam Schneider, who knew the Beharrys: "This is one (case) that is totally incomprehensible. None of this is making any sense to any of us." Fred Migliaccio, director of the department of Public Works where Lyndon Beharry worked for 16 years, called his employee "a very good-natured person."

“Regardless of what he did, we still love him,” Morris’ sister, Avika Lalloo, told the told the Asbury Park Press in another report. “He loved his kids … and they loved him so much.”

Domestic violence experts tell New Jersey 101.5 an act as brutal as a murder-suicide is rarely the first sign of trouble. But friends and family seem to see a genuine disconnect between the way Lyndon "Shane" Beharry lived his life and the way he ended his and his family's.

So we ask you: Could you find such forgiveness for a person in your life after such a violent act? Could you focus the years of love — and not whatever desperation, rage or other horrible impulse led to a murder? How would you reconcile the image of the person you knew with what you'd learned he did?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Louis C. Hochman is digital managing editor for NJ1015.com. Reach him at louis.hochman@townsquaremedia.com or on Twitter @LouisCHochman.