The two faces of accused killer Paul Hindle

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The smiling face Paul Hindle presented to the world was that of a successful, confident business executive who enjoyed fishing, writing fiction and spending time with his two teenaged sons.

But court filings suggest the Leaside man accused of killing his girlfriend faced frequent money problems over the years, at one point missing more than $30,000 in child support payments.

And an affidavit sworn by one his ex-wives paints a picture of a troubled person, saying Mr. Hindle once overdosed on pills and scratched his wrists in a suicide attempt, was hospitalized in a psychiatric facility and lived out of his car for a time.

He never responded to these allegations.

Ray Ulasy, a former business associate of Mr. Hindle's, said his old colleague's girlfriend, Lisa Lebitka, knew about at least some of her boyfriend's past, but was undeterred: "She seemed to think she could fix him."

To casual acquaintances, nothing seemed amiss about Mr. Hindle. Dan Ferguson, who went to summer camp with him in his teens and reconnected online in recent years, remembered Mr. Hindle's e-mails as upbeat, full of excitement about a detective novel he had written.

At a gathering for alumni of the summer camp two years ago, Mr. Hindle brought his girlfriend, Ms. Lebitka.

"He was cheerful and the type of person who contributed to the conversation. He definitely wasn't a shy guy. He was easygoing," Mr. Ferguson said.

Ms. Lebitka made a similarly good impression.

"She was a bright, smiling, vivacious person. We said 'wow, Paul found somebody really nice,'" he recalled. "Paul and Lisa seemed really happy… they were looking forward in life."

Mr. Ferguson snapped the photo of the pair sitting at an outdoor table that has appeared in the media this week.

Mr. Ulasy said Mr. Hindle had reconnected with Ms. Lebitka, whom he knew in high school, when he was living in Winnipeg three years ago. The couple used to text back and forth all day, he said, making plans to move in together in Leaside.

He said Mr. Hindle spent money from a start-up business venture they ran together on his own expenses and borrowed $8,000 from him.

"Paul was a pretty smooth talker. He was the kind of guy who -- 'don't worry, I'll take care of you,'" he said. "But for everything he did, I saw Paul as a pretty harmless guy."

At one point, Mr. Hindle checked himself into a psychiatric facility and Mr. Ulasy took in one of his sons, who was living in Winnipeg at the time, he said.

Mr. Hindle, who grew up in Toronto, settled in the eastern Ontario town of Brockville in his 20s. There, he had two sons with Martha Tennant. The marriage eventually broke down.

A court order in August 2003 gave Ms. Tennant sole custody of the children, but noted they were spending nearly half their time with Mr. Hindle. It listed his income as $55,727 for the previous year and directed him to pay child support, along with several thousand dollars in costs.

An order the following year found Mr. Hindle was $31,551.40 in arrears. It is not clear if he paid.

He re-married in May 2007 to Lisa Gemmell, but the relationship quickly collapsed. She later wrote in an affidavit that, on January 15, 2008, she returned from work to their Brockville-area home to find Mr. Hindle had overdosed and was in a "suicidal state." After a one-week stay in a psychiatric hospital, he moved to Manitoba, she alleged.

"The man I married was a charming, seemingly well-employed and well-presented individual," Ms. Gemmell wrote. "This was not the man from whom I separated eight months later."

Among other things, she said, Mr. Hindle lied about where he was working and how much he was paid. Despite telling her he had a lucrative management job, she alleged, his vehicle was repossessed by the dealership.

When Ms. Gemmell went to file for divorce from Mr. Hindle, she contended that he was bouncing from address to address in Winnipeg and, at one point, lived out of his car. In her affidavit, she wrote that his family had no idea where he was, that he had not called his children for months and that his sister had lost trust in him and didn't want anything to do with him.

Mr. Hindle was charged with second-degree murder on Sunday, after police found Ms. Lebitka's body in the couple's Airdrie Road home.